June 5, 2025 • 54 mins
It's no secret that politics can be a minefield of quirky events, and strange things happen in the lead up to elections. But just how strange can it get? Join the guys and returning guest Christopher Hassiotis as they explore bizarre tales of non-human politicians in this special Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are so excited that you have
looked around all the candidates for podcasting and you have
voted to join us for today's classic episode. This is
a special one for us, man, because somebody else joined
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's right, Christopher Rasiotis is here not only in spirit,
but in the flesh corporeally to talk about history's coolest
non human political candidates.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Part one of two. Yeah, we get super into this one, Ed,
you know what. I wish we could do an update,
but no spoilers. We'll see if we get to it.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Absolutely man.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, so tune in and let us know some of
your favorite non human political candidates. Ridiculous History is a
production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians and
(01:19):
hopefully fellow animal lovers. This episode is going to maybe
knock your socks off, or at least maybe you'll take
your socks off while you're listening to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Ben, are you what kind of animal person are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I'm pretty much every animal person real, Yeah, except for
the tales of rats and possums bother me as they should.
But yeah, but other than that, I'm I'm super into
pretty much every animal.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Se you're a bit of a doctor dolittle figure.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, yes, but I've been thinking about life lately, Nolan.
Maybe I should be a doctor do more. Yeah, so
I'll get sued Ben. That's very good. That's very good.
I like what you did there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I cat person, I guess a fair weather cat person.
They kind of just they sort of drift around my periphery.
They don't really bother me too much. There's the occasional meal.
I'm an indoor outdoor cat person, so not as much
of a do little as you. But I really do
appreciate your commitment to the animal kingdom.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Oh man, where would we be without animals? As a
matter of fact, where would we be without our super
producer Casey Pegram, who, if ever an animal is probably
only a party animal is He's like Animal from the
Muppet Show. He plays drums about as aggressively. This is true.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Casey has an incredible drummer.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yes, this is true. We actually have a lot of
very talented percussionists here at how stuff works. Maybe we
can get a drum circle going on one day. However,
today is not.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That day, fortunately, but you know, fortunately for other reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Right right, today is another kind of very special day.
As you can tell from whatever of writing the title
of this episode, as we are exploring a very particular
type of candidate, political candidate. One thing that's great about
this country almost anybody can run for some sort of office.
(03:14):
And one thing that's great about this podcast is NOL
and I are not launching out on this endeavor alone.
We are joined by our returning guest, longtime friend of
the show, fellow ridiculous Historians give it up for Christopher hasiotis.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Hey, good afternoon, good evening. If you're listening in the evening,
good morning, we're waking you up. And if you are
sleeping to this podcast, just keep on sleeping. No, wake up,
wake up. I don't think this is a good.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Sleeping podcast because it's a little toophrenetic. Yeah, we're too
high energy, a little ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ah yeah, wake up. We could do an ASMR, you know,
lower the voice quiet, Steve, you.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Want to talk about some animals?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You dogs?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You know what I discovered the other day? What a podcast? Well,
it's called Sleep with Me. Have you heard of this?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Is that just a text? You got?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
No, No, it's a podcast. It's a guy who plays
this character named the Divine Scooter or something like that,
and he just tells weird, non sequitar stories and this
very relaxing, kind of unplaceable accent, and it's just a delight.
So if if you're looking for a podcast to sleep too,
I recommend Sleep with Me American Public Media.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But not this podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, definitely not this podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So Christopher, earlier you had given us this amazing idea.
You gave us a choice between two possible topics to explore,
and the one we ended up going with was the
idea of non human political candidates.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
There are a lot of ways that people around the
world choose their leaders, and one of the most popular,
in if you're gonna accept the pun, one of the
most popular ways is to vote right. We we put
folks in office that we as a whole decide will
best represent the majority and best uphold the needs of
the minority. Sometimes I wanted to talk about non human
(05:10):
electoral candidates after we dug into the story of Hartlepool. Now,
ridiculous historians, you will remember that this was the story
of the monkey perhaps that washed ashore in Hartleypool, England.
The Hartlepool Monkey inspired or the story inspired Hengus the Monkey,
(05:30):
and Hengus the Monkey was the mascot of the town
the soccer team and ended up becoming the mayor of Hartlepool. Now,
you guys talked about this a couple weeks ago, and
that got me thinking, let's dive into more of these weird, strange,
ridiculous stories of things, of animals, of ideas that somehow
made it on the ballot and got into office.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Okay, so our rules of engagement then would be ideally
non humans of some sort that successfully ran for office.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Yeah, that successfully we're part of a campaign. Yes, let's
stick with that, because not all of these are winners.
But that doesn't mean they're not worth talking about it
because there's some really weird, ridiculous stuff that we can
get into.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I don't know if mine were necessarily successful or not.
I didn't realize we had this criteria.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Well, they were successfully candidates, right, they were put forth?
Yeah exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Is that is that good enough?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, if they didn't win, probably were all better off. Four.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So we each on our own went out and found
a couple of great candidates, and we'd like to share
some of these with you today. I love this idea,
But the sad part is when we set off, we're
not going to be able to cover all of the
non human candidates, because there are surprisingly a ton of them.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I mean, it's funny. We were talking about doing this
topic and I'm like, surely not. Surely, there's not enough
to fill an entire but cast with this. But yes,
in fact, we've been able to do it, and we
have leftovers on the cutting room floor. Maybe we'll do
a part two.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, you you you underestimate the ridiculousness of human history
and how seriously or not we're willing to take our
political process.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
That's true, and we found one of the very first
examples of this, which I think Noel you had looked into.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh I get to go first. Oh please, you're nominating me? Okay, well,
I mean I think wait, should we should vote? I
guess what we're doing. Let's do the let's let's hold
true to the political process.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Okay, I just really quickly, let me just okay, here's
a ballot, made the ballot. I'm gonna check my box check.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, I'm gonna voting for NOL. I already did that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Will vote for myself. Perfect, Okay, are we are we
in agreement?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Vote Casey what's.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
On hereby declare it shall be nol.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's been Casey on the case in the case. Literally
he made it. He made a judgment there, he made
a ruling. Okay, I like this one. Guys. Have you
guys ever heard of Pigasus the immortal pig? Yeah, Pigasus
the Immortal I'm did you say Pegasus? No, Pigasus, my friend, Pigasus.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
G I think I see where you're going with it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's a bit of a pun, you see, because Pegasus
was a unicorn, an aliicorn. I'm not sure what the
terminology is, but a winged horse is a pegasus. And
then I think Pegasus was the name of a particular
winged horse from Greek mythology. Pegasus, on the other hand,
was an actual pig, a spotted pig that was obtained
in the country and outside of the city of Chicago
(08:36):
during the Democratic National Convention of nineteen sixty eight by
a little group you may have heard of called the
Youth International Party aka the Yippies. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
You know these guys been I am not terribly familiar
with the Yippies, Well, they're pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They were kind of a fringy, sort of a band
of mary pranksters during the sixties that would do sit
in but mainly their whole bag, as they might have said,
was kind of political theater, right, So they would stage
these events that were almost like a combination of protests
and performance art. Right. So one big one they did
(09:15):
was during the March on the Pentagon in nineteen sixty
seven in Washington, d C. The Yippies kind of connected
with a bunch of different people, including kind of fringe
weirdo filmmaker Kenneth Anger. They were led by Abby Hoffman.
He may know of he was in Forrest Gump. He's
a Forrest Gump fame. They hung out. He always with
like an American flag t shirt. He wrote a book
(09:36):
called Steal this book, you know, proponent of free love
a copy of that book.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, did you I did?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah? Well it says it, Yeah, I kind of stole it.
It was a friend of mine was like, this book
is awesome. You should borrow Oh you just you just
borrowed it and I never gave it back. So what's
the statute of limitations When just borrowing becomes stealing, that's
a a whole that's a whole other bag of badgers.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
That really really so yeah, Abby Hoffman, you know, very influential,
kind of hippie revolutionary, I don't know what you want
to call him and his partner, a guy named Jerry Rubin,
they co founded the yippies together. And when they did
this event in DC, they attempted to levitate the Pentagon.
(10:21):
So they all sat around the pentagon and put their
fingers underneath the foundation and they claimed that they levitated
it like an inch or something, or like a couple
of centimeters. But again, it was all just like this
kind of charade for the purposes of like making a
big fuss and getting some attention and riling up the squares.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I will say, can you disprove that they levitated Pagan?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
No, you can't prove they didn't.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
No, you certainly can't. And that's sort of the beautiful
thing about I actually first heard about this from a
really cool It was just like a kind of a
broadside like the creedive loafing type thing, like a like
a free paper called Arthur Magazine. It was out of
San Francisco, and they actually had a really cool music
festival years ago that discontinued. I think the paper is too,
but there was a cover story about this whole Yippie
(11:07):
movement and the levitating and the Pentagon.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, okay, now I remember the Yippies in further detail,
But I still have a question with pigass.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh yeah, well, I mean I haven't even like balved
into the lun yet. So Pigasus again, Like I said,
they obtained this pig from a farmer outside of Chicago,
and they said it wasn't super easy. Hoffman and some
of his compatriots wandered around looking for a pig farm
and they had to kind of like get directions to
find one, and they finally found one, and they decided
(11:38):
they had this pig that they named Pigasus for the
purposes of nominating it for the presidency during the Democratic
National Convention. Because this is how they put it, this
is their campaign pledge quote. They nominated president and he
eats the people. We nominated a president and the people
eat him. And they also justified that if you know,
the nomination didn't work out, they could just eat the
(11:58):
eat the pig for breakfast. So the Democratic nominee was
a guy by the name of Hubert H. Humphries, and
he was of course running against Richard Nixon. And the
Yippies put forth a nominee for their party, whatever that
the Yippie party, I guess, which was Pigasus the Immortal.
And here's a quote from Jerry Rubin about the whole thing.
(12:21):
He says, we want to give you a chance to
talk to our candidate to restate our demand that Pigasus
be given Secret Service protection and he'd be brought to
the White House for his foreign policy briefing. So you know,
they had some demands. But here's the thing, it really
didn't go over super well. Jerry Rubin was actually about
to give this speech in front of the statue of
(12:43):
Picasso in what is today called Daily Plaza in Chicago,
and no sooner need to get up there. They actually
paraded the pig through the streets. They I think they
brought it in in like a station wagon of some kind,
and then they brought it out and had it on
a leash. They were arrested, and for all intents and purposes,
they arrested the pig or at the very least confiscated it, right,
(13:05):
So that's pretty silly. And it was August twenty third
of nineteen sixty eight and the pigs came in, busted in,
arrested the pig, the actual pig, along with a folk
singer by the name of Phil Oakes, a guy named
Stuart Albert, and Rubin himself, and they were hauled off
to the clink, and the pig was actually taken to
(13:27):
the Humane Society. And there was a whole court case
surrounding this where they were kind of trying to get
them on charges of animal cruelty and obstructing a right
of way of some kind with this vehicle that they
paraded it in with. And supposedly, according to Jerry Rubin,
one of the cops came in when they were in
lock of it and they said, all right, boys, you
(13:48):
guys are going away for a long time because the
pig squealed on you.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Of course they did, of course. You know what I
want to know about pegasust though, And I've been wondering
this the whole time we're talking. Did pigas Has have wings?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Absolutely not?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Sorry, Christopher, It's an outrage. Here's the thing though, It
was sort of a pun on again pig and Pegasus,
but also the old adage you know when pigs fly.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Oh, gotcha, that makes sense. This whole time I've been
thinking of I don't know if you guys know the
back cover of Prince's first album. We're gonna take a
little musical digression here, but you know this is this
is the podcast, and there's a naked Prince sitting astride
a glorious white Pegasus, all on a really soft focus.
And this whole time I've been thinking about Prince sitting
(14:35):
atop a pig with wings. It's great, incredible. I'm sorry, Like,
I know, you've been giving us a really good information,
But all I've been thinking about is Prince on top
of a page.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Well that you know, that just shows where your mind is,
and it's a it's a dirty mind.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think it's I think it's a beautiful, great place. Also,
I don't know if we pointed out Pegasus was not
a tiny boy.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
There's a picture of the cops wrangling this this boy
and he's you know, he's about the size of a
human boy.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
He's like one hundred and forty something for sure.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Well, I don't know, he's probably I mean, pigs are
pretty dense. That's that's very true.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He packs a lot of substance in there. Yeah, in
this picture with the cops, they're also laughing about it.
They they you know, as is evidenced by this comment
about the pig.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Squealer, they seem like fun cops. They seem like fun cops.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I mean, I guess if it's nineteen sixty eight and
we're in Chicago, a lot worse things happen than people
wrapping up a pig and booking him. The cops kind
of cracked down at that.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, that's the thing exactly. So, just as for a
little bit of background before we move on to some
more ridiculous non human candidates. Yeah, this was a big
year because of all of the anti war protesting, all
the protesting around Vietnam. There were like something in the
neighborhood of twelve thousand police deployed, six thousand National Guard
(15:51):
and over seven thousand someone the neighborhood. Seventy five hundred
Army troops there to kind of help deal with all
this chaos because people were coming and descending on this city,
and this convention to let the powers that be know
that they were not going to stand for this aggression.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Pink oink oink.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Indeed, so this is a nice kind of tongue in
cheek way for the yippies to poke a little fun
at this without you know, getting into a shooting match
with the with the fuzz.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And what's interesting here a common thread that I think
will be discovering as we as we continue. What's interesting
is that often these candidates exist as a form of protests,
almost exclusively. It's very rare for someone to or a
group of people to seriously elect an animal or a
(16:38):
thing and expect it to do the job. But I
think it's such a powerful form of protests.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
That's true. And my other one, just to for a
little tease is sort of a combination of protests, but
it's more.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Of a a form of humiliation and craziness. Rightly, Yeah,
because that's I was setting you up for that. I
think that's one of the earliest ones. But let's pause
on that one, and let's let's turn to you, Christopher.
I think Nolan I mainly have animals, but you've got
a couple of inanimate yeah, Jackson, I do.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Well, we're going to start with one inanimate one. The
next one is animate but not alive. We'll explain what
that means when we get to it. But Noel, since
you have us in the mid to late sixties, let's
stick there. We're going to go to nineteen sixty seven,
so a little bit before Pigasus had his his day
in I don't know, like in the frying pan, and
(17:31):
before his bacon got booked. Yeah, sure, I like it
all right. So let's go back a year. It's nineteen
sixty seven. We're going south of the Equator to South America.
We're in Ecuador. There's a small town called pico Asa.
Now pico Asa is on the it's close to the
Pacific coast of Ecuador. It's a small town. There's just
four thousand people. They've got an election coming up. They
(17:52):
really want to put someone in place who's going to
represent everybody in town. And all of a sudden, these
news reports showed up after the election in the United States,
and the winner of the mayoral election, according to these
reports in the in the US, pico Asa in Ecuador
elected a foot Powder as mayor.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Old I will rewind that. We we say that again.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
A foot Powder, a talc a talcum, a nice white,
powdery substance to absorb the moisture in your feet, you
know whatever. I guess you can use it in other
sweaty parts of your body to to reduce chafing that
you might have.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
In fact, the gold bond situation.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, I sort of like that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Was there a brand associated with this candidate?
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Was okay?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Yeah, there's a specific brand. It's called pull Ups Talco
pull Ups means foot powder, powder of the feet. Yeah,
very Yeah. So what happened is this foot powder pull
up Yas they put out ads, they kind of you know,
there's there's an election coming up. You see this today
when the presidential election is coming up in and Coca
(19:01):
Cola and Pepsi might have some sort of fake campaign
ads and vote for Pepsi or the choice of whatever
you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Don't want to toss out their slogans, but same thing
happened fifty years ago. So pull up yis this talcum
powder put out ads to kind of take advantage of
the of the political spirit of the time, And they
had a slogan and said vote for any candidate, but
if you want, well being and hygiene. Vote for pull
(19:29):
Up Yers, and people did.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
People did.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Okay, wow, Well here's the thing. Okay, so the day
before the election, pull up Ys Talcum Powder put out
a flyer they distributed around town and the flyer was
made to look like one of the ballots that would
indicate the choice in tomorrow's election. And I really really
(19:52):
really encourage anyone listening to this podcast to go look
up this ballot. We'll post a link to it on
the Ridiculous Historians Facebook group. But this ballot, it has
this visage of a of a creepy, terrifying foot, right, Okay,
so that imagine a big yellow foot. Yeah, is it
like a cartoons it's a cartoon foot, but the foot
(20:13):
is what's the what's the bottom of your foot called
the palm of your soul, the soul exactly. So imagine
the soule of your foot looking right at you. There
are eyes on the soul, a nose and mouth. The
toes are kind of hanging forward over the front of
the sole of the foot like like long bangs. Yeah.
(20:34):
He's wearing a suit and a bow tie, giant foothead
and uh, he's got two hands, two arms, you know,
he's a kind of anthropomorphic foot.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It's weird that he has arms, it's weird.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
And one hand is giving the thumbs up, the other
hand is giving the V for victory sign, so covering
all the bases for for winning, and and he's cut
off at the waist. So I don't know if the
foot has a foot has two feet is a mystery.
I don't want to know the answer to this.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Just technically speaking of what a cephalopod yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Mean, yeah, he's actually a cephalopod or I'm guessing though,
in place of feet, he has two little heads, two
little people heads that he's walking in.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
This is cool.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
This is the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Was this like like a publicity stunt by the foot
powder manufacturer ad campaign?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It was basically just a promotional stunt. But I think
I think what you run into is a little bit
of American mid century narcissism, looking at foreign countries as
a little exotic, a little behind the times, and kind
of having the journalists here in the States having a
little bit of a laugh at the folks there because
(21:39):
what was reported is that this footpowder won the election,
and basically people were having a laugh thing These people
are so dumb they voted for a foot powder or
this foot powder is so much better than these other
candidates that people actually believe the slogan and went for it.
Turns out what is likely to have happened. First of all,
it wasn't actually a vote for mayor. It was a
(22:01):
vote for a municipal councilman, So slight difference there. And
the pamphlets the brochures that pups distributed did in fact
look like the ballots, and so it what what people
theorize is that when they had to turn in the ballots,
people grab the wrong one and put them in the
ballot box, and people weren't actually voting for a foot powder.
(22:22):
And when the votes were tallied, yeah, there were a
lot of these foot powder ballots in there, but they
were tossed out real persons over That's like.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Some Russian meddling in the election right there, my friend,
I mean, did they not get in trouble with the
government for doing this?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
So I actually looked into it, and there's not a
lot more out there, especially not in English. There's not
a lot in Spanish. I tried to dig into some
some Spanish language newspapers and couldn't find much, and I
actually emailed the city of Posa got no response. The
municipal website it actually goes into a good amount of
(22:58):
detail on the town. But it's a certain incident in
nineteen sixty seven for which I would think they're most
well known.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I would either hire slash promote the person behind that
ad campaign, or have them kicked out of the country.
That's just you can't mess with the vote that way.
But that's brilliant.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
But kicked out with a nice, dry, hygienic foot.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because literally the stuff spread like
wildfire after this thing, Right, you got a powder your feet, man.
I want to know what their market share became after
this incident.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I want to know if they'll sponsor US.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I wouldn't. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I mean, it's pretty humid here in Atlanta too.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That's true. That's true. That's amazing though. Okay, so we've
got foot powder for president, We've got.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Mayor the municipal municipal councilman, Yes, excuse me, So the
story is mayor not so true, kind of true, but
still ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Pig for president, foot powder for mayor. Sure, let's say
let's just say maynor, mayor Ish mayor esque. So far, Ben,
who are you voting for? Pig or foot powder? Foot powder?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, so I'm just I also like that it's an
idea that it's not just one particular box or tube
of foot powder. It's the concept of foot powder, which
is pretty neat to vote for something that abstract. I
(24:18):
have something I thought you guys would be very interested in.
It is a story that comes to us from West Texas,
a little town called Lahitas. And in Lahitas, this is
an area about the size of almost Connecticut, right with
maybe ten thousand people, and it's very small. In the seventies,
(24:39):
if you walked by the Lahitas Trading Post, you would
tend to see a lot of the same people, a
lot of the same conversations occur. How's the weather, did
you see the game? Stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, small town. Everyone knows each other. Did you hear
the news about Ecuador they elected the foot powder?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yes? Ahaha, Yes, so you were there.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You were there, Christopher, I've been to Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I've been to Texas. But they also had their own
versions of local celebrities, and one of them was a
fellow named Clay, Henry Clay Henry. The first Clay Henry
hung around at the Lahita's Trading post for years and years,
and in nineteen eighty six he entered politics. His qualifications
(25:30):
included a love of alcohol, and the race for mayor
was organized by a man named Walter Mischer, who was
a Houston businessman, and he thought, you know, it would
be a good promo thing, good pr Right.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, so Clay Henry's getting involved in politics. It's a
good name. It's a good, solid kind of a political name.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I think it is a great political name. You're right
about that, Christopher. But he was perhaps best known this
goat for his consumption of booze upwards of forty beers
a day.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I'm sorry, Ben, we rewind a bit, did you say goat?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Did I not mention that part as in greatest of
all time?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, at least in Texas. There's a couple of different levels. Yeah,
he's a goat.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
WHOA wait a minute, All right, you buried the lead here, man.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Klay Henry is a drunk, belligerent goat.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
His qualifications include drinking a cartoonish amount of beer and
I quote, headbutting constituents without provocation, not only is he
famous in this town, but he's he's famous in the region.
People would come to see, you know, to have a
beer with the mayor. And he was known for walking
(26:47):
around the trading posts and other places in town. And
if someone didn't hand him a beer, he would just
find someone and take it, find their drink and take it.
And there's a great article in the Houstonia by Peter
Holly that describes the experience with the first Clay Henry
in nineteen ninety two. Because he was mayor for essentially
(27:09):
the rest of his life. I never actually witnessed Clay
Henry drink a beer. I did see him slam them,
guzzle them, and ferociously ingest them at a rate capable
of incapacitating a full grown man in minutes. To see
it in person was nothing short of incredible.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Do you think a shotgun them or funneled them to Yes? Yes, really,
yeah I could.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I could see a goat just just eating the whole can,
just a full cann of beer, or just chomp, chomp, chump.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
So not only is he a physical goat, he is
also a goat greatest of all time. Yeah, when it
comes to being a goat, that drinks greatest of all Texas.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
There you go, there, there we go. We got there.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So one of the questions you would have is how
does he drink without thumbs? There are two answers. The first,
there's a holster that they fixed to in his office that,
you know, we could put a bottle in it like
a water feeder for a hamster cage. And then sometimes
he would just go up to people and bug them
until they got him a Lone Star because of course
(28:10):
it's a lone Star beer. That's what he drinks. And
he would polish off a twelve ounce bottle in ten
seconds or less. And here's the thing. This guy was
so popular that one of his offspring was elected mayor later,
Clay Henry Jr. And then Clay Henry Jr. Was so
popular that they elected a third goat mayor, Clay Henry
(28:33):
the Third. Clay Henry the Third unfortunately, was involved in
an altercation where in a local who had probably been
drinking or we don't know if they had an argument
because all three Clay Henry's are pretty heavy drinkers. Clay
Henry three was attacked ouch one of his testicles was
(28:54):
cut off. Oh he he stayed in office, of course
he did. Well, you know, you don't need both testims
go to stay in office.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Especially if you're a goat. Yeah right, you get all
the head buttting done in your early days.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
H yeah, I mean, you know, surely one goat testicle
is like the equivalent of several human testicles. I don't
know why I think that you're putting it out there.
You mean in terms of like the fortitude, Yeah, yeah, exactly, Okay, yeah,
and just the sheer gumption that it goes. Goats are
very stubborn and they eat like everything, and this goat
surely was no different.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Also, goats have those weird sneak octopus like terrifying. Yeah.
Favorite goat. I don't know about you guys, but my
favorite goat, Sorry Clay Henry, My favorite goat is and
will always be black Philip from The Witch.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's a good one. I thought maybe you're going to
go with Gregory the Hungry Goat. There's there's a spot
up in North Georgia called Goats on the Roof. Have
you guys been there? Goats on the Roof?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
No, but there is a place around here where you
can rent a goat to mow your lawn. Yeah, it's
a good business.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah. My palace Scott Benjamin is actually a huge fan
of those guys. Okay, so we have I have a
successful line of goat mayors, the goat dynasty, the goat dynasty.
We have the foot powder candidate not elected, and we
have the pig president not elected. But we have more defined.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I want to see a runoff between the drunk goat
and the and pigasus.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I don't know, man, that goat has like has the
political game locked down? Yeah, they know how to play it.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Was there an election Every time, I'm picturing a goat
on a deathbed, you know, kind of wheezing its last
breaths and as it says goodbye to this mortal coil,
passing along the mayoral responsibilities to the next goat in line.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, here's the thing. The mayor, the position of mayor
in this small town contains no actual duties or responsibilities.
I think the original Clay signed one thing with a hoof,
but essentially their mayor is just there to drink, to.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Drink beer, to drink beer.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know what. I'm sure there are a number of
towns around the country that would think something similar about
their own mayor.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
That's true, that's true. So what's next? What's our next animal?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Oh boy, next one we get to talk about my
favorite Roman orgy connoisseurs, psychopathic emperor, that kind of rhymed
connoisseur and emperor. Sure I got there with the rhyme scheme.
By the name of Caligula. Also one of my favorite,
you know, fully pornographic yet artistically rendered films, the one
(31:33):
in Esperanto. Uh huh yeah, wait is it? Is there
a version of it in Esperanto?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I think it's starring William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
No, no, no, no, we're talking about the one with
Malcolm McDowell. That was the one that was produced by
like the publisher of Penhouse. I'm just kidding. It's not
really my favorite, but it is in fact a pretty
epic film with a giant budget that depicts the life
and times of the Roman emperor Caligula, who had many predilections,
(32:01):
including fondness for coupling with his sisters, basically just a
total hedonist. There's some stuff in the film that I
don't know if it actually happened, but there's a part
where he's buried his enemies up to their necks in
the sand and then has this crazy like threshing lawnmower
head cutting machine that just like goes over them and
(32:22):
cuts all their heads off.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I'm going to interrupt you real quick note, and I
just want the listeners to know you were making some
amazing hand motions.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Right now now, sweeping back and forth.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, Like, I wish everyone could see this. Maybe I
should do some sort of like a like a gift
or a boomerang, maybe social media.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You know, we need to get better at that. We
need to do more like real time podcast studio hijinks. Sure,
talking about caligulous sweeping my arms back and forth. I
could just get somebody in here to film this while
we were recording this. We mean, we could recruit somebody
from our socials.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I'll have to put on pants, but you know what,
that's a no, it's.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Fine, but it's a it's a sort of a waste
up view.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
That's a hill I'm willing to die on for the
good of the show.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Now, speaking of eyeing on hills, that probably happened a
lot in Caligula's day in terms of his enemies, because
he was pretty brutal and one of his main group
of enemies was the Senate, because he was constantly beefing
with the Senate because he, you know, was basically like
trying to be a complete and utter totalitarian ruler. And
(33:19):
you know, they still kind of had a semblance of
a little thing called democracy, or at least what was it,
like a republic right in Rome. So he was not
fond of the Senate. And in fact, the legend has
it this is this is a little unconfirmed, but there's
a few historical counts of this happening. He had a
horse that he was quite fond of. A horse. This
is the doozy of a name. Let me see if
(33:40):
I can, like, if I can do this one a
horse by the name of Incitatus. It's actually not that hard.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
But when you look at it, Oh, you built it up.
I'm excited. I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
There's more.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
So.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
This was his favorite horse. He loved this horse. He
loved it more than he loved probably any human person
in his life, to the point where he got this horse,
had it fashion a jeweled collar. He even like had
like a special like manger built out of ivory for it.
He had a stall made out of marble and and
supposedly some accounts say that he bought him his very
(34:12):
own house, So that's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah. I also heard he owned slaves though the horse did. Yeah,
that's in one of the accounts.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Can a horse really own anything though, I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's a great question.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, he did own colligulss heart and apparently he was
fed with food with the gold flakes built mixed in
and stuff, you know, because gold is is important to
consume for for animals.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Caligula was a big fan of consuming or at least
bathing in gold himself. He's a very pro gold guy.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
He is very pro excess And a big part of
this was he was constantly thumbing his nose at the
poor and just like you know, wanted to just be
as decad and as possible, display it as openly as
possible with as little shame, zero shame, as it turns out,
as possible. And another thing he liked to do was
humiliate the Senate because they were like his nemeses, you know,
(35:08):
these these senators, these puffy, you know, stuff shirt senators.
So supposedly he put forth into Tatis to become a console,
like an official console, uhuh, an official console.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
But he's a horse.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
He's a horse, but it doesn't matter because it's a
very special horse endowed now, you know, surely endowed with
the same amount of wisdom that any of these you know,
lifelong politicians possess, at least according to Caligula. And a
big part of this was obviously to kind of humiliate
them and say, you know, a horse could do your job,
(35:44):
you morons, and you're gonna like it. You're gonna take it,
and you're gonna you're gonna he's gonna live amongst you,
and he's gonna vote. He's gonna hold up his hoof,
you know, that's how he's gonna vote. Obviously. But apparently
this did not go through because Caligula was just universally
hated for obvious. Yeah, he was just kind of a
(36:06):
he's kind of a bad guy, what with the thresher
head chopping machines and the crazy Roman orgies with sisters,
and he just.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Wasn't a wasn't a good look for this guy. It's
funny how that can turn the people off, the chopping
off of heads and such.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, you would think it was just a different time.
But I like to think I know this is not true, folks,
But I like to think that the horse becoming console
was the last straw. I feel like the horse burn
is what set everyone over the edge. The horse burn,
horse burn. I like that. You like a horse, or
you pointed a horse to burn his enemies, So it's
(36:42):
a horse burn.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Are you familiar with the move horse bites the corn?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
No?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I am mystified.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
It's when you when you take yours, when you take
your hand and make it into a C shape. I'm
doing it right now. Yeah, and then you grab someone
right above the knee and you go horse bites the corn.
And it's the most annoying thing.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, it's like, is this a brown family? Yeah, no,
it's just.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Maybe it's just my friend Tyler. It's a thing that
he does to me all the time, and I hate it.
I hate it. I hate it, and it gets a
rise out of me every time.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Why do you it's a very strange relationship.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
It is a very strange relationship.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Maybe google it and see if other people do it,
because it sounds like he's just making up reasons to
grab you.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Wow, you're right, it's not it is it is?
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Well okay, so yeah, what's it called when you squeeze
just above someone's knee, it's called a horse bite. That
a horse bites corn. That guy is making this up,
so okay, horse bites aside. Caligula super unpopular. He was assassinated,
he died, and so the horse did not ascend to
the consulate. Right.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It was before the horse was able to get in,
which is a shame. We'll never know how history would
have changed.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I would have liked to see the horse's fiscal policy,
you know, play out in the in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
I would like to see it bite some cord, you know.
I'd like to see the horse out there press in
the flesh, kissing the babies, given complicated speeches, having political intrigue.
I'm getting carried away, Christopher, what's next.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
We need to stick on the horse for one second more,
because yeah, I want to hear a horse put things
up for a vote. I want to know if the
horse is going to vote yea or or nay?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Worth it? Yeah, it was absolutely worth.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Sorry I had to do it.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, you absolutely were required contractually to do that day.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
It's the reason I'm here, and you are.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
In fact a dad now, so you're allowed to You're
in the in the exclusive camp of the dad joke elite.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
It's the US jokes.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
And you know people say politics these days are just
a horse race. Yeah, all right, let's move on. Let's
let's all right. I'm going to bring us from the
Roman Empire back to modern times so we can debate
how historical this is, but it's part of modern history.
(38:56):
I want to tell you guys about Dustin. Dustin the
wind No, dust in the Turkey. Ah, yes, dustin the
Turkey is not actually even a turkey. What dust in
the Turkey is a Turkey vulture. But dust In the
Turkey is not even a Turkey vulture. Dust In the
Turkey is a puppet Turkey vulture.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Whoa.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
So one of the fun things I think about traveling
the world is you get to see pieces of pop
culture that are so deeply enmeshed in other countries that
you've never heard of. You know, Folks come to the
States and they're like, what is this purple dinosaur Barney like,
it's confusing. Go to Ireland, he'll be confronted with dust
In the Turkey. So Dustin the Turkey is a character.
(39:36):
He's a television presenter, He's a puppet who was on TV.
He made his debut in nineteen eighty nine on the
show The Den was on RTE, which is kind of
the Irish version of PBS. Here is the kind of
publicly funded broadcasting. Dustin the Turkey was on the show
until twenty ten. And I want to paint a picture
for you of dust In the Turkey. Imagine a c
(40:00):
off creature that looks like a mix of Gonzo from
the Muppets with Bernie Sanders, kind of you know, Statler
and Waldorf, the two cranky guys also in the Muppets.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, so Hecklers.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, imagine Statler. He's the one with kind of the
ring of hair around his head, that sort of Bernie
Sanders Larry David hairstyle across him with Gonzo the Muppets,
big weird beak, and you get a cranky, strange, odd
Turkey puppet. Now Dustin the Turkey. He's he's a very
(40:34):
specific kind of Turkey. He's from Dublin and he spent
a lot of time. He's kind of a roustabout. He's
got a strong attitude and he loves his city so much.
He speaks out specifically as an advocate for Dublin itself.
He's got a very strong Dublin accent. And I think, Casey,
if you could queue up the SoundBite we've got from
(40:54):
Dustin himself.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
He brought a clip.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
I brought a clip.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Well done, Chrismas.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
That's why I'm here, over achiever, not just jokes.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
There's nowhere that matches Doblin. Sure don't. We have the
biggest rock and roll band in the world. Yeah Aslan
all right, ko, okay, and we have James Joyce, Yeah,
the Bell Jimmy Joyce, Mazer, brilliant form with a Glenn Hansard. Okay,
he might watch listen he did.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Once and that's that's Dustin the Turkey is he voiced
by Colin Farrell. He's a doub learned through and through,
but he's he's deeply Irish, so much Southern. In nineteen
ninety seven, Dustin ran for President of Ireland.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Oh cool? Yeah, How far did he get?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
He did not get far at all. In fact, he
had troubles with getting on the ballot because Dustin is
a one named guy. He's just Dustin the Turkey, and
you've got to have two names to get on a ballot.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That was what that was the technicality.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
He worked his way around it by listing himself as
Dustin Hoffmann.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Oh great, So it wasn't that okay, So he was
able to overcome that bureaucratic obstacle.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And that was apparently more important than the fact that
someone has their hand inside of him and his orchestra
in his movement.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
He is truly a puppet, a political puppet. But the
thing is, Dustin went nowhere in nineteen ninety seven with
that candidacy nor a subsequent one for president. However, in
two thousand and eight, I've got to ask you guys.
Are you guys familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
No, that's a thing for you.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah. It's sort of like America's Got Talent
or something, yeah, but super huge, super popular. So Ireland
is a country known for its song, its story. It's
it's oral tradition. We've got all this great music from Ireland.
Ireland is actually the winningest country on the Eurovision Song Contest.
Oh cool, yeah, for decades, They've won seven times. Sweden
(42:43):
is number two with six wins, but Ireland tops it
with seven wins. One of those wins, however, was not
in two thousand and eight, and this is where Dustin
comes in. So the way the Eurovision Song conon test
works is every country has its own kind of championship
round where five six songs from that country are voted
on locally. All those the winning songs from each country
(43:06):
then go to the finals wherever that is every year,
and then Europe as a whole and parts of North
Africa and the Middle East vote on who the winning
song is that year. In two thousand and eight, the
champion in Ireland, the one who beat out actual musicians
like Maya, like Donald Skian, like Liam Gettis, was Dustin
the Turkey. Yeah, so in two thousand and eight, Dustin
(43:29):
the Turkey was the Ireland representative in the Eurovision Song Contest.
His song Ireland. Dues point that it's a really dumb
name that means kind of is a mispronunciation of Ireland
twelve points in French, which is the number of points
needed to win this the Eurovision Song Contest. So saying
the name or the title of the song would sound
(43:50):
like someone is saying that Ireland had won, but it didn't. Anyway,
this competition, this election is what theust In the Turkey one,
and you can actually go on YouTube you can find
his performance at Eurovision. Did not win at all overall,
but it's this weird psychedelic nonsense song about the competition itself.
(44:13):
It's sort of met textual. Dustin the Turkey is sitting
inside of a shopping cart with backup dancers painted in
gold dancing next to him. There was some confusion among
the judges. Well, I would imagine there's a lot of
confusion among the judges whether he should be disqualified because
you're only supposed to have a certain number of people
on stage for your performance, and did the puppeteer actually
(44:35):
count as an extra person? And so did Dustin the
Turkey actually violate the Eurovision Song Contest rules by having
a man hidden under the cart with his hand up
as butt something we all want to know, And oh, yeah, puppet,
they get right, Yeah, it's a puppet.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
So what happens to Dustin the Turkey later? Is he
still around?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Dustin?
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Is still around? Dustin? He did not win the finals
in the Eurovision Song Contest, but he did then go
on to campaign that next year against the Lisbon Treaty,
which was an EU policy treaty. So Dustin has been
involved in political life. He went on to record with
release albums with artists like Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners,
Bob Geldoff of the Boomtown Rats. Yeah, and you know,
(45:18):
you can still use the hashtag vote Dustin to look
up what's going on with the Poultry Party, which is
Dustin's official group. Dustin also is taking things global. He
became a UNISEF ambassador for Ireland. This ugly, foul mouthed,
crass little puppet and he went to South Africa to
the Quasulin Natal region to learn about the plight of
(45:39):
people with HIV and eights.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Wow. Yeah, positive change through comedy.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
So he won an election, he lost an election. He's
a weird puppet, but he's got the people behind him.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's not even an animal. He's now officially my favorite
Turkey Buzzard because I just I said at the beginning,
I love animals, but those things freak me out.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Turkey buzzards.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, howbout puppet? How do you feel abut puppets?
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Pro puppet?
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, and you got a pet puppet, don't You don't
have a puppet? Yeah, you don't call them with pet
though that's sort of actually, that's unfair to Stevens. Your
companion is technically an intern. Steven still really formal with him. Now,
I thought it was Steve.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
He's earned he's earned that second syllable phr v pH. Okay,
there was a moment of tense silence between us just now.
I hope we're still friends.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
We are.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
And if you're out there listening, if you're a Stephen
with a pH, if you're a Stephen with a V,
we're happy to have all of you.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, thanks for hanging out. Well, maybe we can put
a put a picture of the puppet on the on
the social media's one day this. This is interesting, though,
that you're talking about a political party, because this is
not my second thing, but this reminds me of the
Inanimate Objects Party. Did you guys hear about this. It's
a it's a party that is based in Troy, New York,
(46:56):
and their main thing is that we should elect more
inanimate objects in political office. Their main candidate is an
inflatable whale named Arthur Galpin, and their other major candidate
is an albino's squirrel. Their symbol, their formal symbol, is
a fork, but check them out.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
But that squirrel is not an inanimate object. So I'm
already seeing some flaws in there in their policy.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I think they're a fractured party, to be honest with you.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
But well, you're saying that it's not a serious thing,
that people who put forth inflatable whales are not taking
this process seriously.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Perhaps I'm saying comedy is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Fair enough.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
God, I hope they take it really seriously. But this
leads us to an example of when these animals, or
these non human candidates become a matter of very serious, important,
non comedic stuff. And this story takes us to Brazil
is the story of a female black rhinoceros named Kakareco.
(48:03):
Cacareco was in nineteen fifty eight. She was residing at
the Ardim Zoologico do Rio Dejanio. I am not a
Portuguese speaker, but you could be. Yeah, I just have
to try harder. So Cockareco is the daughter of Britador
and Terra Zina, and in nineteen fifty eight she was
(48:27):
loaned out to the Sal Paulo Zoo. People knew about
this rhinoceros, and they didn't say particularly kind things about her.
In the case of the drunk goat Mayor, people like
the drunk goat, They like the bit hey.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
He hangs out, he has a beer, maybe a whiskey,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Know, right, who knows. But in the case of Cacareco,
people would say, this rhino is dumb as a door nail,
as the brains of a peanut, and is still the best.
It's still the best possible political candidate. So in nineteen
fifty eight, a group of students print over two hundred
(49:07):
thousand ballots with Cacoareko's name on them, and the ballots
are all legitimately cast by voters. One person, because you
could write in this is right an election one person said,
better to elect a rhino than an ass. You see,
this election was the result of serious and valid concerns
about rampant corruption in the Brazilian political scene, especially in
(49:31):
South Paulo. And not only did she end up winning,
she won by a landslide, and it was one of
the highest totals for a local candidate in Brazil's history
to that date, which is weird because we also have
to point out people who are familiar with the way
voting goes in the US will know that our country's
notorious for a lot of people just not voting. It's
(49:54):
way way worse in Brazil, or it was at that time, and.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
So this was a way to get people engaged or
were they protesting the actual people who were on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Both both Brazil seemed at the time, according to some sociologists,
to be on the threshold of revolt. It was seen
as a general protest from people who had varying different
objections to the way things were going. There were food shortages,
the cost of living was going up. Of course, political
(50:25):
corruption as we already meant, and some voters there were
actually multiple forms of protests. Some voters in the same
election voted in local politics by putting black beans in
the ballot envelope instead of the actual ballot.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So this is kind of a way for people to say,
our choices are so poor, we would rather have not
just a rhinoceros, but a dumb as beans.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Rhinoceros rights, yes, and cacuare Echo dies in nineteen sixty two,
but her legacy lives on today. There's a widely used
term that derives from her name. They think you've heard
about before voto cacareco, which means cocka eco vote. It's
kind of it's almost like kangaroo court, but it's a
(51:09):
rhino vote. And she also inspired the formation of the
Rhinoceros Party of Canada, whose members went on to appoint
the Rhinoceros Cornelius the First as their leader.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
You know what a rhino is in American politics?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
A Republican in name only. I love that. It's not
like the perfect acronym.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
But no, I'm just fond of acronyms in general, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know that's about me.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
And there's something about Brazil I think, like, I think
they have fun with their politics there too, because I
think in the eighties or nineties there was a monkey
who ran for office, Macaco Chiao, who was a chimpanzee.
You know what. That was on one of the.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Lists for this whole thing that we're doing, this crazy experiment.
I think we really need a part two, guys.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I think we should come back for a part two
because we did pretty well, but we only had a
total of six and then maybe a couple of ancillary mentions.
Why do they call it kangaroo court because in in
the early days of the formation of Australia, all judicial
positions were occupied by kangaroos. Of course, I don't believe it.
They were wallabies, the wallabies. You're right, nobody gives enough
(52:11):
credit to the wallabies role in the creation of Australian government.
But maybe we can in part two if it actually happened.
We can't just make up a wallaby story.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Christopher.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
We want to thank you so much for coming back
on the show. It's always a blast to have you
over Hey.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Thanks for having me here, guys, and thank you everyone
for listening. I really love digging into these weird, ridiculous
facts and sharing them with everyone.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
And we have not seen the last of you. Spoiler alert.
If Casey Nolan and I have our way, you will
be returning to the show. It's sometime sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
This could be like a recurring episode. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
There were so many more that we got to or
maybe we could just do other list episodes like this
in the future.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
I would like to get an animal and see if
we can get it in office or least in the
running for a position in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Or maybe we could that the very least have one
as a guest on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I yes, see, I thought you just said I would
like to get an animal in the office, and I
thought you were going to bring a rhinoceros here into
the studio. I'm also open to that, at least an
inflatable whale. Yeah, at least see see this is cut
from the same cloth.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, cut from the save inflatable cloth. We hope that
you enjoyed checking out this episode. Write to us and
let us know if there are any notorious animal or
at least non human politicians in your neck of the
global woods. Thanks of course to our super producer Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and Eve's
Jeff Coode, who is not here but is also an
incredible research associate for this show, along with our illustrious
guest Christopher Hasiotis, who I can thank for the first time.
On the first time, I thank you for stuff, but
in person, it's nice.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Here I am a human touch Yeah, Thanks Nol, Thanks Ben,
Thanks Casey of.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Course, of course, so find us on Instagram, find us
on Facebook, find us on Twitter. Post your favorite pictures
of non human politicians. These questions are becoming increasingly specific
as we continue with the show. I love it, love it, Yeah,
post some. We'll see if we can get someone to
start filming in the studio as we record, and stay
(54:24):
tuned for our next.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Episode, which is about a Napoleon thing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
It is. It's don't want you.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
He really is.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
He's done a lot for this show, you guys. I
know he's not perfect, but he has done a heck
of a lot for our show.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Agreed for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are so excited that you have
looked around all the candidates for podcasting and you have
voted to join us for today's classic episode. This is
a special one for us, man, because somebody else joined
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's right, Christopher Rasiotis is here not only in spirit,
but in the flesh corporeally to talk about history's coolest
non human political candidates.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Part one of two. Yeah, we get super into this one, Ed,
you know what. I wish we could do an update,
but no spoilers. We'll see if we get to it.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Absolutely man.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, so tune in and let us know some of
your favorite non human political candidates. Ridiculous History is a
production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians and
(01:19):
hopefully fellow animal lovers. This episode is going to maybe
knock your socks off, or at least maybe you'll take
your socks off while you're listening to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Ben, are you what kind of animal person are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I'm pretty much every animal person real, Yeah, except for
the tales of rats and possums bother me as they should.
But yeah, but other than that, I'm I'm super into
pretty much every animal.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Se you're a bit of a doctor dolittle figure.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, yes, but I've been thinking about life lately, Nolan.
Maybe I should be a doctor do more. Yeah, so
I'll get sued Ben. That's very good. That's very good.
I like what you did there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I cat person, I guess a fair weather cat person.
They kind of just they sort of drift around my periphery.
They don't really bother me too much. There's the occasional meal.
I'm an indoor outdoor cat person, so not as much
of a do little as you. But I really do
appreciate your commitment to the animal kingdom.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Oh man, where would we be without animals? As a
matter of fact, where would we be without our super
producer Casey Pegram, who, if ever an animal is probably
only a party animal is He's like Animal from the
Muppet Show. He plays drums about as aggressively. This is true.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Casey has an incredible drummer.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yes, this is true. We actually have a lot of
very talented percussionists here at how stuff works. Maybe we
can get a drum circle going on one day. However,
today is not.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That day, fortunately, but you know, fortunately for other reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Right right, today is another kind of very special day.
As you can tell from whatever of writing the title
of this episode, as we are exploring a very particular
type of candidate, political candidate. One thing that's great about
this country almost anybody can run for some sort of office.
(03:14):
And one thing that's great about this podcast is NOL
and I are not launching out on this endeavor alone.
We are joined by our returning guest, longtime friend of
the show, fellow ridiculous Historians give it up for Christopher hasiotis.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Hey, good afternoon, good evening. If you're listening in the evening,
good morning, we're waking you up. And if you are
sleeping to this podcast, just keep on sleeping. No, wake up,
wake up. I don't think this is a good.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Sleeping podcast because it's a little toophrenetic. Yeah, we're too
high energy, a little ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ah yeah, wake up. We could do an ASMR, you know,
lower the voice quiet, Steve, you.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Want to talk about some animals?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You dogs?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You know what I discovered the other day? What a podcast? Well,
it's called Sleep with Me. Have you heard of this?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Is that just a text? You got?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
No, No, it's a podcast. It's a guy who plays
this character named the Divine Scooter or something like that,
and he just tells weird, non sequitar stories and this
very relaxing, kind of unplaceable accent, and it's just a delight.
So if if you're looking for a podcast to sleep too,
I recommend Sleep with Me American Public Media.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But not this podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, definitely not this podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So Christopher, earlier you had given us this amazing idea.
You gave us a choice between two possible topics to explore,
and the one we ended up going with was the
idea of non human political candidates.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
There are a lot of ways that people around the
world choose their leaders, and one of the most popular,
in if you're gonna accept the pun, one of the
most popular ways is to vote right. We we put
folks in office that we as a whole decide will
best represent the majority and best uphold the needs of
the minority. Sometimes I wanted to talk about non human
(05:10):
electoral candidates after we dug into the story of Hartlepool. Now,
ridiculous historians, you will remember that this was the story
of the monkey perhaps that washed ashore in Hartleypool, England.
The Hartlepool Monkey inspired or the story inspired Hengus the Monkey,
(05:30):
and Hengus the Monkey was the mascot of the town
the soccer team and ended up becoming the mayor of Hartlepool. Now,
you guys talked about this a couple weeks ago, and
that got me thinking, let's dive into more of these weird, strange,
ridiculous stories of things, of animals, of ideas that somehow
made it on the ballot and got into office.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Okay, so our rules of engagement then would be ideally
non humans of some sort that successfully ran for office.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Yeah, that successfully we're part of a campaign. Yes, let's
stick with that, because not all of these are winners.
But that doesn't mean they're not worth talking about it
because there's some really weird, ridiculous stuff that we can
get into.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I don't know if mine were necessarily successful or not.
I didn't realize we had this criteria.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Well, they were successfully candidates, right, they were put forth?
Yeah exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Is that is that good enough?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, if they didn't win, probably were all better off. Four.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So we each on our own went out and found
a couple of great candidates, and we'd like to share
some of these with you today. I love this idea,
But the sad part is when we set off, we're
not going to be able to cover all of the
non human candidates, because there are surprisingly a ton of them.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I mean, it's funny. We were talking about doing this
topic and I'm like, surely not. Surely, there's not enough
to fill an entire but cast with this. But yes,
in fact, we've been able to do it, and we
have leftovers on the cutting room floor. Maybe we'll do
a part two.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, you you you underestimate the ridiculousness of human history
and how seriously or not we're willing to take our
political process.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
That's true, and we found one of the very first
examples of this, which I think Noel you had looked into.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh I get to go first. Oh please, you're nominating me? Okay, well,
I mean I think wait, should we should vote? I
guess what we're doing. Let's do the let's let's hold
true to the political process.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Okay, I just really quickly, let me just okay, here's
a ballot, made the ballot. I'm gonna check my box check.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, I'm gonna voting for NOL. I already did that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Will vote for myself. Perfect, Okay, are we are we
in agreement?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Vote Casey what's.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
On hereby declare it shall be nol.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's been Casey on the case in the case. Literally
he made it. He made a judgment there, he made
a ruling. Okay, I like this one. Guys. Have you
guys ever heard of Pigasus the immortal pig? Yeah, Pigasus
the Immortal I'm did you say Pegasus? No, Pigasus, my friend, Pigasus.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
G I think I see where you're going with it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's a bit of a pun, you see, because Pegasus
was a unicorn, an aliicorn. I'm not sure what the
terminology is, but a winged horse is a pegasus. And
then I think Pegasus was the name of a particular
winged horse from Greek mythology. Pegasus, on the other hand,
was an actual pig, a spotted pig that was obtained
in the country and outside of the city of Chicago
(08:36):
during the Democratic National Convention of nineteen sixty eight by
a little group you may have heard of called the
Youth International Party aka the Yippies. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
You know these guys been I am not terribly familiar
with the Yippies, Well, they're pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They were kind of a fringy, sort of a band
of mary pranksters during the sixties that would do sit
in but mainly their whole bag, as they might have said,
was kind of political theater, right, So they would stage
these events that were almost like a combination of protests
and performance art. Right. So one big one they did
(09:15):
was during the March on the Pentagon in nineteen sixty
seven in Washington, d C. The Yippies kind of connected
with a bunch of different people, including kind of fringe
weirdo filmmaker Kenneth Anger. They were led by Abby Hoffman.
He may know of he was in Forrest Gump. He's
a Forrest Gump fame. They hung out. He always with
like an American flag t shirt. He wrote a book
(09:36):
called Steal this book, you know, proponent of free love
a copy of that book.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, did you I did?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah? Well it says it, Yeah, I kind of stole it.
It was a friend of mine was like, this book
is awesome. You should borrow Oh you just you just
borrowed it and I never gave it back. So what's
the statute of limitations When just borrowing becomes stealing, that's
a a whole that's a whole other bag of badgers.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
That really really so yeah, Abby Hoffman, you know, very influential,
kind of hippie revolutionary, I don't know what you want
to call him and his partner, a guy named Jerry Rubin,
they co founded the yippies together. And when they did
this event in DC, they attempted to levitate the Pentagon.
(10:21):
So they all sat around the pentagon and put their
fingers underneath the foundation and they claimed that they levitated
it like an inch or something, or like a couple
of centimeters. But again, it was all just like this
kind of charade for the purposes of like making a
big fuss and getting some attention and riling up the squares.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I will say, can you disprove that they levitated Pagan?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
No, you can't prove they didn't.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
No, you certainly can't. And that's sort of the beautiful
thing about I actually first heard about this from a
really cool It was just like a kind of a
broadside like the creedive loafing type thing, like a like
a free paper called Arthur Magazine. It was out of
San Francisco, and they actually had a really cool music
festival years ago that discontinued. I think the paper is too,
but there was a cover story about this whole Yippie
(11:07):
movement and the levitating and the Pentagon.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, okay, now I remember the Yippies in further detail,
But I still have a question with pigass.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh yeah, well, I mean I haven't even like balved
into the lun yet. So Pigasus again, Like I said,
they obtained this pig from a farmer outside of Chicago,
and they said it wasn't super easy. Hoffman and some
of his compatriots wandered around looking for a pig farm
and they had to kind of like get directions to
find one, and they finally found one, and they decided
(11:38):
they had this pig that they named Pigasus for the
purposes of nominating it for the presidency during the Democratic
National Convention. Because this is how they put it, this
is their campaign pledge quote. They nominated president and he
eats the people. We nominated a president and the people
eat him. And they also justified that if you know,
the nomination didn't work out, they could just eat the
(11:58):
eat the pig for breakfast. So the Democratic nominee was
a guy by the name of Hubert H. Humphries, and
he was of course running against Richard Nixon. And the
Yippies put forth a nominee for their party, whatever that
the Yippie party, I guess, which was Pigasus the Immortal.
And here's a quote from Jerry Rubin about the whole thing.
(12:21):
He says, we want to give you a chance to
talk to our candidate to restate our demand that Pigasus
be given Secret Service protection and he'd be brought to
the White House for his foreign policy briefing. So you know,
they had some demands. But here's the thing, it really
didn't go over super well. Jerry Rubin was actually about
to give this speech in front of the statue of
(12:43):
Picasso in what is today called Daily Plaza in Chicago,
and no sooner need to get up there. They actually
paraded the pig through the streets. They I think they
brought it in in like a station wagon of some kind,
and then they brought it out and had it on
a leash. They were arrested, and for all intents and purposes,
they arrested the pig or at the very least confiscated it, right,
(13:05):
So that's pretty silly. And it was August twenty third
of nineteen sixty eight and the pigs came in, busted in,
arrested the pig, the actual pig, along with a folk
singer by the name of Phil Oakes, a guy named
Stuart Albert, and Rubin himself, and they were hauled off
to the clink, and the pig was actually taken to
(13:27):
the Humane Society. And there was a whole court case
surrounding this where they were kind of trying to get
them on charges of animal cruelty and obstructing a right
of way of some kind with this vehicle that they
paraded it in with. And supposedly, according to Jerry Rubin,
one of the cops came in when they were in
lock of it and they said, all right, boys, you
(13:48):
guys are going away for a long time because the
pig squealed on you.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Of course they did, of course. You know what I
want to know about pegasust though, And I've been wondering
this the whole time we're talking. Did pigas Has have wings?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Absolutely not?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Sorry, Christopher, It's an outrage. Here's the thing though, It
was sort of a pun on again pig and Pegasus,
but also the old adage you know when pigs fly.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Oh, gotcha, that makes sense. This whole time I've been
thinking of I don't know if you guys know the
back cover of Prince's first album. We're gonna take a
little musical digression here, but you know this is this
is the podcast, and there's a naked Prince sitting astride
a glorious white Pegasus, all on a really soft focus.
And this whole time I've been thinking about Prince sitting
(14:35):
atop a pig with wings. It's great, incredible. I'm sorry, Like,
I know, you've been giving us a really good information,
But all I've been thinking about is Prince on top
of a page.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Well that you know, that just shows where your mind is,
and it's a it's a dirty mind.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think it's I think it's a beautiful, great place. Also,
I don't know if we pointed out Pegasus was not
a tiny boy.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
There's a picture of the cops wrangling this this boy
and he's you know, he's about the size of a
human boy.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
He's like one hundred and forty something for sure.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Well, I don't know, he's probably I mean, pigs are
pretty dense. That's that's very true.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He packs a lot of substance in there. Yeah, in
this picture with the cops, they're also laughing about it.
They they you know, as is evidenced by this comment
about the pig.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Squealer, they seem like fun cops. They seem like fun cops.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I mean, I guess if it's nineteen sixty eight and
we're in Chicago, a lot worse things happen than people
wrapping up a pig and booking him. The cops kind
of cracked down at that.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, that's the thing exactly. So, just as for a
little bit of background before we move on to some
more ridiculous non human candidates. Yeah, this was a big
year because of all of the anti war protesting, all
the protesting around Vietnam. There were like something in the
neighborhood of twelve thousand police deployed, six thousand National Guard
(15:51):
and over seven thousand someone the neighborhood. Seventy five hundred
Army troops there to kind of help deal with all
this chaos because people were coming and descending on this city,
and this convention to let the powers that be know
that they were not going to stand for this aggression.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Pink oink oink.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Indeed, so this is a nice kind of tongue in
cheek way for the yippies to poke a little fun
at this without you know, getting into a shooting match
with the with the fuzz.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And what's interesting here a common thread that I think
will be discovering as we as we continue. What's interesting
is that often these candidates exist as a form of protests,
almost exclusively. It's very rare for someone to or a
group of people to seriously elect an animal or a
(16:38):
thing and expect it to do the job. But I
think it's such a powerful form of protests.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
That's true. And my other one, just to for a
little tease is sort of a combination of protests, but
it's more.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Of a a form of humiliation and craziness. Rightly, Yeah,
because that's I was setting you up for that. I
think that's one of the earliest ones. But let's pause
on that one, and let's let's turn to you, Christopher.
I think Nolan I mainly have animals, but you've got
a couple of inanimate yeah, Jackson, I do.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Well, we're going to start with one inanimate one. The
next one is animate but not alive. We'll explain what
that means when we get to it. But Noel, since
you have us in the mid to late sixties, let's
stick there. We're going to go to nineteen sixty seven,
so a little bit before Pigasus had his his day
in I don't know, like in the frying pan, and
(17:31):
before his bacon got booked. Yeah, sure, I like it
all right. So let's go back a year. It's nineteen
sixty seven. We're going south of the Equator to South America.
We're in Ecuador. There's a small town called pico Asa.
Now pico Asa is on the it's close to the
Pacific coast of Ecuador. It's a small town. There's just
four thousand people. They've got an election coming up. They
(17:52):
really want to put someone in place who's going to
represent everybody in town. And all of a sudden, these
news reports showed up after the election in the United States,
and the winner of the mayoral election, according to these
reports in the in the US, pico Asa in Ecuador
elected a foot Powder as mayor.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Old I will rewind that. We we say that again.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
A foot Powder, a talc a talcum, a nice white,
powdery substance to absorb the moisture in your feet, you
know whatever. I guess you can use it in other
sweaty parts of your body to to reduce chafing that
you might have.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
In fact, the gold bond situation.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, I sort of like that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Was there a brand associated with this candidate?
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Was okay?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Yeah, there's a specific brand. It's called pull Ups Talco
pull Ups means foot powder, powder of the feet. Yeah,
very Yeah. So what happened is this foot powder pull
up Yas they put out ads, they kind of you know,
there's there's an election coming up. You see this today
when the presidential election is coming up in and Coca
(19:01):
Cola and Pepsi might have some sort of fake campaign
ads and vote for Pepsi or the choice of whatever
you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Don't want to toss out their slogans, but same thing
happened fifty years ago. So pull up yis this talcum
powder put out ads to kind of take advantage of
the of the political spirit of the time, And they
had a slogan and said vote for any candidate, but
if you want, well being and hygiene. Vote for pull
(19:29):
Up Yers, and people did.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
People did.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Okay, wow, Well here's the thing. Okay, so the day
before the election, pull up Ys Talcum Powder put out
a flyer they distributed around town and the flyer was
made to look like one of the ballots that would
indicate the choice in tomorrow's election. And I really really
(19:52):
really encourage anyone listening to this podcast to go look
up this ballot. We'll post a link to it on
the Ridiculous Historians Facebook group. But this ballot, it has
this visage of a of a creepy, terrifying foot, right, Okay,
so that imagine a big yellow foot. Yeah, is it
like a cartoons it's a cartoon foot, but the foot
(20:13):
is what's the what's the bottom of your foot called
the palm of your soul, the soul exactly. So imagine
the soule of your foot looking right at you. There
are eyes on the soul, a nose and mouth. The
toes are kind of hanging forward over the front of
the sole of the foot like like long bangs. Yeah.
(20:34):
He's wearing a suit and a bow tie, giant foothead
and uh, he's got two hands, two arms, you know,
he's a kind of anthropomorphic foot.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It's weird that he has arms, it's weird.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
And one hand is giving the thumbs up, the other
hand is giving the V for victory sign, so covering
all the bases for for winning, and and he's cut
off at the waist. So I don't know if the
foot has a foot has two feet is a mystery.
I don't want to know the answer to this.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Just technically speaking of what a cephalopod yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Mean, yeah, he's actually a cephalopod or I'm guessing though,
in place of feet, he has two little heads, two
little people heads that he's walking in.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
This is cool.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
This is the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Was this like like a publicity stunt by the foot
powder manufacturer ad campaign?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It was basically just a promotional stunt. But I think
I think what you run into is a little bit
of American mid century narcissism, looking at foreign countries as
a little exotic, a little behind the times, and kind
of having the journalists here in the States having a
little bit of a laugh at the folks there because
(21:39):
what was reported is that this footpowder won the election,
and basically people were having a laugh thing These people
are so dumb they voted for a foot powder or
this foot powder is so much better than these other
candidates that people actually believe the slogan and went for it.
Turns out what is likely to have happened. First of all,
it wasn't actually a vote for mayor. It was a
(22:01):
vote for a municipal councilman, So slight difference there. And
the pamphlets the brochures that pups distributed did in fact
look like the ballots, and so it what what people
theorize is that when they had to turn in the ballots,
people grab the wrong one and put them in the
ballot box, and people weren't actually voting for a foot powder.
(22:22):
And when the votes were tallied, yeah, there were a
lot of these foot powder ballots in there, but they
were tossed out real persons over That's like.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Some Russian meddling in the election right there, my friend,
I mean, did they not get in trouble with the
government for doing this?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
So I actually looked into it, and there's not a
lot more out there, especially not in English. There's not
a lot in Spanish. I tried to dig into some
some Spanish language newspapers and couldn't find much, and I
actually emailed the city of Posa got no response. The
municipal website it actually goes into a good amount of
(22:58):
detail on the town. But it's a certain incident in
nineteen sixty seven for which I would think they're most
well known.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I would either hire slash promote the person behind that
ad campaign, or have them kicked out of the country.
That's just you can't mess with the vote that way.
But that's brilliant.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
But kicked out with a nice, dry, hygienic foot.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because literally the stuff spread like
wildfire after this thing, Right, you got a powder your feet, man.
I want to know what their market share became after
this incident.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I want to know if they'll sponsor US.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I wouldn't. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I mean, it's pretty humid here in Atlanta too.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That's true. That's true. That's amazing though. Okay, so we've
got foot powder for president, We've got.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Mayor the municipal municipal councilman, Yes, excuse me, So the
story is mayor not so true, kind of true, but
still ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Pig for president, foot powder for mayor. Sure, let's say
let's just say maynor, mayor Ish mayor esque. So far, Ben,
who are you voting for? Pig or foot powder? Foot powder?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, so I'm just I also like that it's an
idea that it's not just one particular box or tube
of foot powder. It's the concept of foot powder, which
is pretty neat to vote for something that abstract. I
(24:18):
have something I thought you guys would be very interested in.
It is a story that comes to us from West Texas,
a little town called Lahitas. And in Lahitas, this is
an area about the size of almost Connecticut, right with
maybe ten thousand people, and it's very small. In the seventies,
(24:39):
if you walked by the Lahitas Trading Post, you would
tend to see a lot of the same people, a
lot of the same conversations occur. How's the weather, did
you see the game? Stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, small town. Everyone knows each other. Did you hear
the news about Ecuador they elected the foot powder?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yes? Ahaha, Yes, so you were there.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You were there, Christopher, I've been to Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I've been to Texas. But they also had their own
versions of local celebrities, and one of them was a
fellow named Clay, Henry Clay Henry. The first Clay Henry
hung around at the Lahita's Trading post for years and years,
and in nineteen eighty six he entered politics. His qualifications
(25:30):
included a love of alcohol, and the race for mayor
was organized by a man named Walter Mischer, who was
a Houston businessman, and he thought, you know, it would
be a good promo thing, good pr Right.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, so Clay Henry's getting involved in politics. It's a
good name. It's a good, solid kind of a political name.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I think it is a great political name. You're right
about that, Christopher. But he was perhaps best known this
goat for his consumption of booze upwards of forty beers
a day.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I'm sorry, Ben, we rewind a bit, did you say goat?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Did I not mention that part as in greatest of
all time?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, at least in Texas. There's a couple of different levels. Yeah,
he's a goat.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
WHOA wait a minute, All right, you buried the lead here, man.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Klay Henry is a drunk, belligerent goat.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
His qualifications include drinking a cartoonish amount of beer and
I quote, headbutting constituents without provocation, not only is he
famous in this town, but he's he's famous in the region.
People would come to see, you know, to have a
beer with the mayor. And he was known for walking
(26:47):
around the trading posts and other places in town. And
if someone didn't hand him a beer, he would just
find someone and take it, find their drink and take it.
And there's a great article in the Houstonia by Peter
Holly that describes the experience with the first Clay Henry
in nineteen ninety two. Because he was mayor for essentially
(27:09):
the rest of his life. I never actually witnessed Clay
Henry drink a beer. I did see him slam them,
guzzle them, and ferociously ingest them at a rate capable
of incapacitating a full grown man in minutes. To see
it in person was nothing short of incredible.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Do you think a shotgun them or funneled them to Yes? Yes, really,
yeah I could.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I could see a goat just just eating the whole can,
just a full cann of beer, or just chomp, chomp, chump.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
So not only is he a physical goat, he is
also a goat greatest of all time. Yeah, when it
comes to being a goat, that drinks greatest of all Texas.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
There you go, there, there we go. We got there.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So one of the questions you would have is how
does he drink without thumbs? There are two answers. The first,
there's a holster that they fixed to in his office that,
you know, we could put a bottle in it like
a water feeder for a hamster cage. And then sometimes
he would just go up to people and bug them
until they got him a Lone Star because of course
(28:10):
it's a lone Star beer. That's what he drinks. And
he would polish off a twelve ounce bottle in ten
seconds or less. And here's the thing. This guy was
so popular that one of his offspring was elected mayor later,
Clay Henry Jr. And then Clay Henry Jr. Was so
popular that they elected a third goat mayor, Clay Henry
(28:33):
the Third. Clay Henry the Third unfortunately, was involved in
an altercation where in a local who had probably been
drinking or we don't know if they had an argument
because all three Clay Henry's are pretty heavy drinkers. Clay
Henry three was attacked ouch one of his testicles was
(28:54):
cut off. Oh he he stayed in office, of course
he did. Well, you know, you don't need both testims
go to stay in office.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Especially if you're a goat. Yeah right, you get all
the head buttting done in your early days.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
H yeah, I mean, you know, surely one goat testicle
is like the equivalent of several human testicles. I don't
know why I think that you're putting it out there.
You mean in terms of like the fortitude, Yeah, yeah, exactly, Okay, yeah,
and just the sheer gumption that it goes. Goats are
very stubborn and they eat like everything, and this goat
surely was no different.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Also, goats have those weird sneak octopus like terrifying. Yeah.
Favorite goat. I don't know about you guys, but my
favorite goat, Sorry Clay Henry, My favorite goat is and
will always be black Philip from The Witch.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's a good one. I thought maybe you're going to
go with Gregory the Hungry Goat. There's there's a spot
up in North Georgia called Goats on the Roof. Have
you guys been there? Goats on the Roof?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
No, but there is a place around here where you
can rent a goat to mow your lawn. Yeah, it's
a good business.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah. My palace Scott Benjamin is actually a huge fan
of those guys. Okay, so we have I have a
successful line of goat mayors, the goat dynasty, the goat dynasty.
We have the foot powder candidate not elected, and we
have the pig president not elected. But we have more defined.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I want to see a runoff between the drunk goat
and the and pigasus.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I don't know, man, that goat has like has the
political game locked down? Yeah, they know how to play it.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Was there an election Every time, I'm picturing a goat
on a deathbed, you know, kind of wheezing its last
breaths and as it says goodbye to this mortal coil,
passing along the mayoral responsibilities to the next goat in line.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, here's the thing. The mayor, the position of mayor
in this small town contains no actual duties or responsibilities.
I think the original Clay signed one thing with a hoof,
but essentially their mayor is just there to drink, to.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Drink beer, to drink beer.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know what. I'm sure there are a number of
towns around the country that would think something similar about
their own mayor.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
That's true, that's true. So what's next? What's our next animal?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Oh boy, next one we get to talk about my
favorite Roman orgy connoisseurs, psychopathic emperor, that kind of rhymed
connoisseur and emperor. Sure I got there with the rhyme scheme.
By the name of Caligula. Also one of my favorite,
you know, fully pornographic yet artistically rendered films, the one
(31:33):
in Esperanto. Uh huh yeah, wait is it? Is there
a version of it in Esperanto?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I think it's starring William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
No, no, no, no, we're talking about the one with
Malcolm McDowell. That was the one that was produced by
like the publisher of Penhouse. I'm just kidding. It's not
really my favorite, but it is in fact a pretty
epic film with a giant budget that depicts the life
and times of the Roman emperor Caligula, who had many predilections,
(32:01):
including fondness for coupling with his sisters, basically just a
total hedonist. There's some stuff in the film that I
don't know if it actually happened, but there's a part
where he's buried his enemies up to their necks in
the sand and then has this crazy like threshing lawnmower
head cutting machine that just like goes over them and
(32:22):
cuts all their heads off.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I'm going to interrupt you real quick note, and I
just want the listeners to know you were making some
amazing hand motions.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Right now now, sweeping back and forth.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, Like, I wish everyone could see this. Maybe I
should do some sort of like a like a gift
or a boomerang, maybe social media.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You know, we need to get better at that. We
need to do more like real time podcast studio hijinks. Sure,
talking about caligulous sweeping my arms back and forth. I
could just get somebody in here to film this while
we were recording this. We mean, we could recruit somebody
from our socials.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I'll have to put on pants, but you know what,
that's a no, it's.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Fine, but it's a it's a sort of a waste
up view.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
That's a hill I'm willing to die on for the
good of the show.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Now, speaking of eyeing on hills, that probably happened a
lot in Caligula's day in terms of his enemies, because
he was pretty brutal and one of his main group
of enemies was the Senate, because he was constantly beefing
with the Senate because he, you know, was basically like
trying to be a complete and utter totalitarian ruler. And
(33:19):
you know, they still kind of had a semblance of
a little thing called democracy, or at least what was it,
like a republic right in Rome. So he was not
fond of the Senate. And in fact, the legend has
it this is this is a little unconfirmed, but there's
a few historical counts of this happening. He had a
horse that he was quite fond of. A horse. This
is the doozy of a name. Let me see if
(33:40):
I can, like, if I can do this one a
horse by the name of Incitatus. It's actually not that hard.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
But when you look at it, Oh, you built it up.
I'm excited. I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
There's more.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
So.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
This was his favorite horse. He loved this horse. He
loved it more than he loved probably any human person
in his life, to the point where he got this horse,
had it fashion a jeweled collar. He even like had
like a special like manger built out of ivory for it.
He had a stall made out of marble and and
supposedly some accounts say that he bought him his very
(34:12):
own house, So that's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah. I also heard he owned slaves though the horse did. Yeah,
that's in one of the accounts.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Can a horse really own anything though, I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's a great question.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, he did own colligulss heart and apparently he was
fed with food with the gold flakes built mixed in
and stuff, you know, because gold is is important to
consume for for animals.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Caligula was a big fan of consuming or at least
bathing in gold himself. He's a very pro gold guy.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
He is very pro excess And a big part of
this was he was constantly thumbing his nose at the
poor and just like you know, wanted to just be
as decad and as possible, display it as openly as
possible with as little shame, zero shame, as it turns out,
as possible. And another thing he liked to do was
humiliate the Senate because they were like his nemeses, you know,
(35:08):
these these senators, these puffy, you know, stuff shirt senators.
So supposedly he put forth into Tatis to become a console,
like an official console, uhuh, an official console.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
But he's a horse.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
He's a horse, but it doesn't matter because it's a
very special horse endowed now, you know, surely endowed with
the same amount of wisdom that any of these you know,
lifelong politicians possess, at least according to Caligula. And a
big part of this was obviously to kind of humiliate
them and say, you know, a horse could do your job,
(35:44):
you morons, and you're gonna like it. You're gonna take it,
and you're gonna you're gonna he's gonna live amongst you,
and he's gonna vote. He's gonna hold up his hoof,
you know, that's how he's gonna vote. Obviously. But apparently
this did not go through because Caligula was just universally
hated for obvious. Yeah, he was just kind of a
(36:06):
he's kind of a bad guy, what with the thresher
head chopping machines and the crazy Roman orgies with sisters,
and he just.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Wasn't a wasn't a good look for this guy. It's
funny how that can turn the people off, the chopping
off of heads and such.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, you would think it was just a different time.
But I like to think I know this is not true, folks,
But I like to think that the horse becoming console
was the last straw. I feel like the horse burn
is what set everyone over the edge. The horse burn,
horse burn. I like that. You like a horse, or
you pointed a horse to burn his enemies, So it's
(36:42):
a horse burn.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Are you familiar with the move horse bites the corn?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
No?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I am mystified.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
It's when you when you take yours, when you take
your hand and make it into a C shape. I'm
doing it right now. Yeah, and then you grab someone
right above the knee and you go horse bites the corn.
And it's the most annoying thing.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, it's like, is this a brown family? Yeah, no,
it's just.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Maybe it's just my friend Tyler. It's a thing that
he does to me all the time, and I hate it.
I hate it. I hate it, and it gets a
rise out of me every time.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Why do you it's a very strange relationship.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
It is a very strange relationship.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Maybe google it and see if other people do it,
because it sounds like he's just making up reasons to
grab you.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Wow, you're right, it's not it is it is?
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Well okay, so yeah, what's it called when you squeeze
just above someone's knee, it's called a horse bite. That
a horse bites corn. That guy is making this up,
so okay, horse bites aside. Caligula super unpopular. He was assassinated,
he died, and so the horse did not ascend to
the consulate. Right.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It was before the horse was able to get in,
which is a shame. We'll never know how history would
have changed.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I would have liked to see the horse's fiscal policy,
you know, play out in the in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
I would like to see it bite some cord, you know.
I'd like to see the horse out there press in
the flesh, kissing the babies, given complicated speeches, having political intrigue.
I'm getting carried away, Christopher, what's next.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
We need to stick on the horse for one second more,
because yeah, I want to hear a horse put things
up for a vote. I want to know if the
horse is going to vote yea or or nay?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Worth it? Yeah, it was absolutely worth.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Sorry I had to do it.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, you absolutely were required contractually to do that day.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
It's the reason I'm here, and you are.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
In fact a dad now, so you're allowed to You're
in the in the exclusive camp of the dad joke elite.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
It's the US jokes.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
And you know people say politics these days are just
a horse race. Yeah, all right, let's move on. Let's
let's all right. I'm going to bring us from the
Roman Empire back to modern times so we can debate
how historical this is, but it's part of modern history.
(38:56):
I want to tell you guys about Dustin. Dustin the
wind No, dust in the Turkey. Ah, yes, dustin the
Turkey is not actually even a turkey. What dust in
the Turkey is a Turkey vulture. But dust In the
Turkey is not even a Turkey vulture. Dust In the
Turkey is a puppet Turkey vulture.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Whoa.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
So one of the fun things I think about traveling
the world is you get to see pieces of pop
culture that are so deeply enmeshed in other countries that
you've never heard of. You know, Folks come to the
States and they're like, what is this purple dinosaur Barney like,
it's confusing. Go to Ireland, he'll be confronted with dust
In the Turkey. So Dustin the Turkey is a character.
(39:36):
He's a television presenter, He's a puppet who was on TV.
He made his debut in nineteen eighty nine on the
show The Den was on RTE, which is kind of
the Irish version of PBS. Here is the kind of
publicly funded broadcasting. Dustin the Turkey was on the show
until twenty ten. And I want to paint a picture
for you of dust In the Turkey. Imagine a c
(40:00):
off creature that looks like a mix of Gonzo from
the Muppets with Bernie Sanders, kind of you know, Statler
and Waldorf, the two cranky guys also in the Muppets.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, so Hecklers.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, imagine Statler. He's the one with kind of the
ring of hair around his head, that sort of Bernie
Sanders Larry David hairstyle across him with Gonzo the Muppets,
big weird beak, and you get a cranky, strange, odd
Turkey puppet. Now Dustin the Turkey. He's he's a very
(40:34):
specific kind of Turkey. He's from Dublin and he spent
a lot of time. He's kind of a roustabout. He's
got a strong attitude and he loves his city so much.
He speaks out specifically as an advocate for Dublin itself.
He's got a very strong Dublin accent. And I think, Casey,
if you could queue up the SoundBite we've got from
(40:54):
Dustin himself.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
He brought a clip.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
I brought a clip.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Well done, Chrismas.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
That's why I'm here, over achiever, not just jokes.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
There's nowhere that matches Doblin. Sure don't. We have the
biggest rock and roll band in the world. Yeah Aslan
all right, ko, okay, and we have James Joyce, Yeah,
the Bell Jimmy Joyce, Mazer, brilliant form with a Glenn Hansard. Okay,
he might watch listen he did.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Once and that's that's Dustin the Turkey is he voiced
by Colin Farrell. He's a doub learned through and through,
but he's he's deeply Irish, so much Southern. In nineteen
ninety seven, Dustin ran for President of Ireland.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Oh cool? Yeah, How far did he get?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
He did not get far at all. In fact, he
had troubles with getting on the ballot because Dustin is
a one named guy. He's just Dustin the Turkey, and
you've got to have two names to get on a ballot.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That was what that was the technicality.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
He worked his way around it by listing himself as
Dustin Hoffmann.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Oh great, So it wasn't that okay, So he was
able to overcome that bureaucratic obstacle.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And that was apparently more important than the fact that
someone has their hand inside of him and his orchestra
in his movement.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
He is truly a puppet, a political puppet. But the
thing is, Dustin went nowhere in nineteen ninety seven with
that candidacy nor a subsequent one for president. However, in
two thousand and eight, I've got to ask you guys.
Are you guys familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
No, that's a thing for you.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah. It's sort of like America's Got Talent
or something, yeah, but super huge, super popular. So Ireland
is a country known for its song, its story. It's
it's oral tradition. We've got all this great music from Ireland.
Ireland is actually the winningest country on the Eurovision Song Contest.
Oh cool, yeah, for decades, They've won seven times. Sweden
(42:43):
is number two with six wins, but Ireland tops it
with seven wins. One of those wins, however, was not
in two thousand and eight, and this is where Dustin
comes in. So the way the Eurovision Song conon test
works is every country has its own kind of championship
round where five six songs from that country are voted
on locally. All those the winning songs from each country
(43:06):
then go to the finals wherever that is every year,
and then Europe as a whole and parts of North
Africa and the Middle East vote on who the winning
song is that year. In two thousand and eight, the
champion in Ireland, the one who beat out actual musicians
like Maya, like Donald Skian, like Liam Gettis, was Dustin
the Turkey. Yeah, so in two thousand and eight, Dustin
(43:29):
the Turkey was the Ireland representative in the Eurovision Song Contest.
His song Ireland. Dues point that it's a really dumb
name that means kind of is a mispronunciation of Ireland
twelve points in French, which is the number of points
needed to win this the Eurovision Song Contest. So saying
the name or the title of the song would sound
(43:50):
like someone is saying that Ireland had won, but it didn't. Anyway,
this competition, this election is what theust In the Turkey one,
and you can actually go on YouTube you can find
his performance at Eurovision. Did not win at all overall,
but it's this weird psychedelic nonsense song about the competition itself.
(44:13):
It's sort of met textual. Dustin the Turkey is sitting
inside of a shopping cart with backup dancers painted in
gold dancing next to him. There was some confusion among
the judges. Well, I would imagine there's a lot of
confusion among the judges whether he should be disqualified because
you're only supposed to have a certain number of people
on stage for your performance, and did the puppeteer actually
(44:35):
count as an extra person? And so did Dustin the
Turkey actually violate the Eurovision Song Contest rules by having
a man hidden under the cart with his hand up
as butt something we all want to know, And oh, yeah, puppet,
they get right, Yeah, it's a puppet.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
So what happens to Dustin the Turkey later? Is he
still around?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Dustin?
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Is still around? Dustin? He did not win the finals
in the Eurovision Song Contest, but he did then go
on to campaign that next year against the Lisbon Treaty,
which was an EU policy treaty. So Dustin has been
involved in political life. He went on to record with
release albums with artists like Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners,
Bob Geldoff of the Boomtown Rats. Yeah, and you know,
(45:18):
you can still use the hashtag vote Dustin to look
up what's going on with the Poultry Party, which is
Dustin's official group. Dustin also is taking things global. He
became a UNISEF ambassador for Ireland. This ugly, foul mouthed,
crass little puppet and he went to South Africa to
the Quasulin Natal region to learn about the plight of
(45:39):
people with HIV and eights.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Wow. Yeah, positive change through comedy.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
So he won an election, he lost an election. He's
a weird puppet, but he's got the people behind him.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's not even an animal. He's now officially my favorite
Turkey Buzzard because I just I said at the beginning,
I love animals, but those things freak me out.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Turkey buzzards.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, howbout puppet? How do you feel abut puppets?
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Pro puppet?
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, and you got a pet puppet, don't You don't
have a puppet? Yeah, you don't call them with pet
though that's sort of actually, that's unfair to Stevens. Your
companion is technically an intern. Steven still really formal with him. Now,
I thought it was Steve.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
He's earned he's earned that second syllable phr v pH. Okay,
there was a moment of tense silence between us just now.
I hope we're still friends.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
We are.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
And if you're out there listening, if you're a Stephen
with a pH, if you're a Stephen with a V,
we're happy to have all of you.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, thanks for hanging out. Well, maybe we can put
a put a picture of the puppet on the on
the social media's one day this. This is interesting, though,
that you're talking about a political party, because this is
not my second thing, but this reminds me of the
Inanimate Objects Party. Did you guys hear about this. It's
a it's a party that is based in Troy, New York,
(46:56):
and their main thing is that we should elect more
inanimate objects in political office. Their main candidate is an
inflatable whale named Arthur Galpin, and their other major candidate
is an albino's squirrel. Their symbol, their formal symbol, is
a fork, but check them out.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
But that squirrel is not an inanimate object. So I'm
already seeing some flaws in there in their policy.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I think they're a fractured party, to be honest with you.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
But well, you're saying that it's not a serious thing,
that people who put forth inflatable whales are not taking
this process seriously.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Perhaps I'm saying comedy is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Fair enough.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
God, I hope they take it really seriously. But this
leads us to an example of when these animals, or
these non human candidates become a matter of very serious, important,
non comedic stuff. And this story takes us to Brazil
is the story of a female black rhinoceros named Kakareco.
(48:03):
Cacareco was in nineteen fifty eight. She was residing at
the Ardim Zoologico do Rio Dejanio. I am not a
Portuguese speaker, but you could be. Yeah, I just have
to try harder. So Cockareco is the daughter of Britador
and Terra Zina, and in nineteen fifty eight she was
(48:27):
loaned out to the Sal Paulo Zoo. People knew about
this rhinoceros, and they didn't say particularly kind things about her.
In the case of the drunk goat Mayor, people like
the drunk goat, They like the bit hey.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
He hangs out, he has a beer, maybe a whiskey,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Know, right, who knows. But in the case of Cacareco,
people would say, this rhino is dumb as a door nail,
as the brains of a peanut, and is still the best.
It's still the best possible political candidate. So in nineteen
fifty eight, a group of students print over two hundred
(49:07):
thousand ballots with Cacoareko's name on them, and the ballots
are all legitimately cast by voters. One person, because you
could write in this is right an election one person said,
better to elect a rhino than an ass. You see,
this election was the result of serious and valid concerns
about rampant corruption in the Brazilian political scene, especially in
(49:31):
South Paulo. And not only did she end up winning,
she won by a landslide, and it was one of
the highest totals for a local candidate in Brazil's history
to that date, which is weird because we also have
to point out people who are familiar with the way
voting goes in the US will know that our country's
notorious for a lot of people just not voting. It's
(49:54):
way way worse in Brazil, or it was at that time, and.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
So this was a way to get people engaged or
were they protesting the actual people who were on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Both both Brazil seemed at the time, according to some sociologists,
to be on the threshold of revolt. It was seen
as a general protest from people who had varying different
objections to the way things were going. There were food shortages,
the cost of living was going up. Of course, political
(50:25):
corruption as we already meant, and some voters there were
actually multiple forms of protests. Some voters in the same
election voted in local politics by putting black beans in
the ballot envelope instead of the actual ballot.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So this is kind of a way for people to say,
our choices are so poor, we would rather have not
just a rhinoceros, but a dumb as beans.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Rhinoceros rights, yes, and cacuare Echo dies in nineteen sixty two,
but her legacy lives on today. There's a widely used
term that derives from her name. They think you've heard
about before voto cacareco, which means cocka eco vote. It's
kind of it's almost like kangaroo court, but it's a
(51:09):
rhino vote. And she also inspired the formation of the
Rhinoceros Party of Canada, whose members went on to appoint
the Rhinoceros Cornelius the First as their leader.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
You know what a rhino is in American politics?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
A Republican in name only. I love that. It's not
like the perfect acronym.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
But no, I'm just fond of acronyms in general, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know that's about me.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
And there's something about Brazil I think, like, I think
they have fun with their politics there too, because I
think in the eighties or nineties there was a monkey
who ran for office, Macaco Chiao, who was a chimpanzee.
You know what. That was on one of the.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Lists for this whole thing that we're doing, this crazy experiment.
I think we really need a part two, guys.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I think we should come back for a part two
because we did pretty well, but we only had a
total of six and then maybe a couple of ancillary mentions.
Why do they call it kangaroo court because in in
the early days of the formation of Australia, all judicial
positions were occupied by kangaroos. Of course, I don't believe it.
They were wallabies, the wallabies. You're right, nobody gives enough
(52:11):
credit to the wallabies role in the creation of Australian government.
But maybe we can in part two if it actually happened.
We can't just make up a wallaby story.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Christopher.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
We want to thank you so much for coming back
on the show. It's always a blast to have you
over Hey.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Thanks for having me here, guys, and thank you everyone
for listening. I really love digging into these weird, ridiculous
facts and sharing them with everyone.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
And we have not seen the last of you. Spoiler alert.
If Casey Nolan and I have our way, you will
be returning to the show. It's sometime sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
This could be like a recurring episode. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
There were so many more that we got to or
maybe we could just do other list episodes like this
in the future.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
I would like to get an animal and see if
we can get it in office or least in the
running for a position in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Or maybe we could that the very least have one
as a guest on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I yes, see, I thought you just said I would
like to get an animal in the office, and I
thought you were going to bring a rhinoceros here into
the studio. I'm also open to that, at least an
inflatable whale. Yeah, at least see see this is cut
from the same cloth.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, cut from the save inflatable cloth. We hope that
you enjoyed checking out this episode. Write to us and
let us know if there are any notorious animal or
at least non human politicians in your neck of the
global woods. Thanks of course to our super producer Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and Eve's
Jeff Coode, who is not here but is also an
incredible research associate for this show, along with our illustrious
guest Christopher Hasiotis, who I can thank for the first time.
On the first time, I thank you for stuff, but
in person, it's nice.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Here I am a human touch Yeah, Thanks Nol, Thanks Ben,
Thanks Casey of.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Course, of course, so find us on Instagram, find us
on Facebook, find us on Twitter. Post your favorite pictures
of non human politicians. These questions are becoming increasingly specific
as we continue with the show. I love it, love it, Yeah,
post some. We'll see if we can get someone to
start filming in the studio as we record, and stay
(54:24):
tuned for our next.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Episode, which is about a Napoleon thing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
It is. It's don't want you.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
He really is.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
He's done a lot for this show, you guys. I
know he's not perfect, but he has done a heck
of a lot for our show.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Agreed for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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