Now I Want a Beer

[00:00] All right, well, let's close out this show with America's
[00:05] favorite
[00:06] newest favorite
[00:08] Phenomenon that's taking the world by storm
[00:11] Undid Google Bulls. Mmm. For those of you that are not familiar with the show we do
[00:17] and under Google bull which we
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[00:24] Solve a problem. I guess basically or answer a question that one of us might have
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[00:42] Just under Google bull under Google Bulls, and then you'll get it. Oh, we do under Google Bulls. That was the playa
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[01:06] Signed up for it in the end. It's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you
[01:15] This is this is this is good. Oh, maybe it's not it's probably not good, but it's it's timely. Why are spider webs a
[01:24] part of Halloween decorations
[01:27] That's gonna be hard to answer. I think spiders are creepy. Okay. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely creepy
[01:36] I just wondered if it was like I mean, is there some connection to you know, we we've learned all the
[01:42] all How's Eve stuff and
[01:45] the jack-o'-lantern and the
[01:49] All Saints Day and the what a little pies we used to take they used to ask for whatever
[01:58] No, so yeah, so maybe that's not going all right, maybe maybe like so I feel like spider webs came
[02:05] out of the haunted house thing, right? Mm-hmm
[02:08] because running through spider webs duck it and
[02:12] Yeah, and it makes it feel old and you know vaguely creepy like abandoned
[02:17] Abandoned or just covered in spider webs because yeah, I would be there to clean up. So so when did haunted houses start?
[02:24] Mmm, that is a good question. That's a really good question. That's a way better question than spider webs
[02:30] It's an under Google bull within an under Google. That's this is the fun of the game
[02:35] I'm assuming that we built we had really big
[02:39] Because we you know through most of at least American as well. Okay, never mind. Okay, when did we damn it?
[02:49] So what I was gonna say is that like houses used to be kind of like small
[02:53] We're sure typical man
[02:56] Scary man. She and
[02:58] It's a cover bit like a gilded age mansion, right? It's like it's not really a
[03:05] Victorian
[03:06] Type things that's the stereotypical one that I have. Yeah, but they're not gables and yeah, they're gables and stuff
[03:13] But they're not so big that they're like, I don't know. I feel like they're fairly easy to get around
[03:18] You know
[03:20] Like I don't think them of them as like massive properties, you know, I think of them as sort of
[03:26] Compressed it's it's like in your neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want it
[03:30] Yeah, lady lived at it. Right? Right. That's what she unfortunately have to run into it because of another emergency, right?
[03:37] If you know it was built more, you know
[03:41] Yeah, you'd be you'd be up a creek. I feel like the fascination with ghosts was like at its peak in like the late
[03:51] 19th century
[03:52] Kind of like people were were having seances lots of savings with like ghosts and stuff like that
[03:59] Was that was that later was that earlier? I mean, I feel like that was like the 1820s and 30s I could be wrong. I
[04:06] Mean I could also be wrong, but I feel like it hit its peak a
[04:11] Little bit later. Okay, just because there's more media at that point. Yeah
[04:16] Okay, there was actually there was a there was a dollop about Houdini versus
[04:21] Crazy seance lady that I listened to not too long ago. Really Houdini not so into
[04:27] The seances it turns he was in on debunking the sances was it you very much was
[04:33] Okay, he knows them tricks
[04:48] Get them some vitamin C or something it's like
[04:53] Like houses in neighborhoods, I think he's asking about both. I'm just yeah
[04:57] I think the chicken and the egg part of this is is also interesting
[05:03] You know, I think commercially like like this later PT Barnum again late, you know 19th century or whatever like
[05:12] Commercialization of
[05:14] People's fantasies or whatever is also around and what would you what was that thing you would walk into it wasn't a haunted house
[05:20] But it was like it was like a crazy mirror stuff with clowns. Like what was that the fun house fun house, right?
[05:28] So does the fun house come before or after the idea of the haunted house? I
[05:33] Feel like that's before I feel like that was traveling with the Barnums, right? Oh, it definitely was
[05:40] But doesn't that come out of the fear of
[05:44] The old creepy dark house
[05:46] shoutout fans
[05:49] And I shout out to Kanye just generally so when did we start doing?
[05:54] I
[05:56] Halloween so we've done this in the past that we've done the Halloween stuff and I think it was the the
[06:03] 1700s in
[06:06] Can't remember was it Ireland and and and they would they would go ask for soul cakes
[06:12] and
[06:14] You would make people
[06:16] cakes for the poor and
[06:20] That was the trick-or-treating thing
[06:23] And the Irish also had the Jack O'Lantern that was also Irish
[06:29] So it's been around for like the 16 1700s. Sure sure
[06:33] But I feel like the urbanization was an important aspect of that was that was the candy
[06:38] That was the candy thing in the United States
[06:41] So and also like, you know, you you kind of need neighborhoods to have the haunted house
[06:47] it was the 50s when the
[06:49] Halloween would became a thing I think because I part of that part of the appeal the haunted house is like, you know
[06:54] It can be in anyone's neighbor. It could be anywhere. It's the universality of the thing. Sure
[07:00] I'm going with I'm going with Poe here
[07:05] Okay, what's the the the story he does?
[07:09] Tell tell hard many tell tell hard tell tell hard, but that's not the one I'm thinking of in the raven
[07:14] That's not the one I'm thinking of it's it's a something about an old house
[07:17] and it's the most creepy description of a house ever and
[07:21] Can I am I allowed to look at it? Yeah, okay. I won't look at it
[07:30] But yeah, I'm gonna go with that I think he
[07:35] Scared us all from houses and then somebody else was like, yeah
[07:41] Capitalized on this and make a ghost tour of bolt. Yeah, this feels like a very American phenomenon to me. Yes
[07:48] Don't know that I've ever
[07:50] Seen a haunted house in another country though. I don't yeah, it says a bin. It's not it's not my normal travel time. So
[08:03] But I'm gonna go yeah America is feels like a weird 50s thing to me somehow
[08:07] I definitely I agree
[08:12] I think that they got super popular probably in the 50s and like cemented themselves as part of our like
[08:19] Halloween traditions, but I think that the original haunted houses were like in the
[08:23] It's 1880s. Yeah, probably. I mean there's some like Dracula backstory here, right? I think
[08:31] You know, I'm sure that there's some other weird mythology but the popularization of them
[08:37] Fall of the House of Usher. Oh, yeah sure, you know, I feel like that's he created the idea of these, you know
[08:46] terrifying gables and these
[08:49] Shudders that knocked in the wind and all that stuff
[08:54] But it was probably earlier
[08:57] Yeah, okay. Oh, there's a pretty interesting
[09:00] article
[09:02] on
[09:03] Smithsonian
[09:05] Sorry, I went ahead and Google. Yeah, go ahead. We're just gonna ramble about old houses for a long time. Yeah
[09:12] That bring up in Marie Tussaud oh
[09:16] For sure 19th century London who
[09:20] scandalized British audiences with an exhibition of wax sculptures of
[09:25] decapitated French figures including
[09:27] Louis the 16th Marie Antoinette and
[09:32] Marat and Robespierre, I don't know those last two people anyway
[09:40] Tussauds likenesses were remarkably accurate
[09:45] Because she created death masks for all of these people
[09:49] And she set up a permanent exhibition in London dubbed the Chamber of Horrors
[09:57] And then we skipped to the 20th century
[10:00] So a lot of things gonna happen in between them
[10:03] The concept of the haunted house was capitalized on as early as 1915
[10:08] with the Orton and Spooner haunted house in
[10:12] the Hollycomb steam collection again in England
[10:16] Haunted house became a cultural icon when Disneyland's haunted mansion was opened in
[10:22] 1969
[10:23] By the 70s commercial haunted houses sprung up all over the United States in cities like Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati
[10:30] houses are stereotypically gilded age homes
[10:33] Because changing tastes of the nouveau reach left these homes abandoned or poorly maintained. I'm gonna say we kind of nailed this. Yep
[10:41] I was super wrong about Elgar Allen Poe. He only lived to be 40. So he died in like
[10:47] 1849 oh
[10:49] Okay, so not lazy hundreds at all. He was early 1800s. Okay
[10:55] Are you guys in the haunted houses? Oh
[10:57] Heck yeah. Yeah
[11:00] Every year I know not every year. I used to go quite often. I always enjoy him
[11:05] I don't want to have to wait too long in line. You know, that's my main thing
[11:09] Lines are the worst
[11:11] They're worse than scary
[11:15] What about you Harper D? Have you ever been do you go? Yeah, I used to actually did a haunted house at least one year. I
[11:25] Can't move what we did one you like I was part of the yeah, but I don't think it wasn't like a paid gig
[11:31] I think it was we were raising money for my mom's film project back in the day. Okay
[11:37] But yeah, we made this whole big haunted house and yeah, we got like actual
[11:43] Like an actual gremlin from the movie like they let us whoa, whoa, it was pretty cool, man
[11:50] Alright, I feel like we went to a haunted house together with
[11:53] Like folks from college in Minnesota. I feel like we did that. Does that does that sound?
[12:00] Yeah, I don't think I've been since high school, I don't think it's yeah
[12:06] Yeah
[12:08] If I went in college that definitely would have been the last time I was yeah
[12:13] Okay, so this says that they were popularized during the Great Depression
[12:18] As a way to distract young people
[12:21] Whose Halloween pranks had escalated to vandalism
[12:27] So first haunted houses were low quality equality put together by groups of families in their basements
[12:34] Oh, so they were basically it was something for the kids to do basically it was it was a whole that so they made like kid jails
[12:40] For how yeah, it was a whole it was Halloween party for kids in the Great Depression
[12:46] That's that's what Wikipedia says
[12:49] This is fun to a 1972 Jerry Falwell and Liberty University introduced one of the first hell houses as an anti Halloween attraction
[12:58] What's a hell house? I don't know
[13:01] They're they're basically haunted houses, but gospel II it's like the same thing. I don't
[13:08] It's unclear
[13:10] Participants walked through several scenes
[13:13] depicting the consequences of things like abortion homosexuality and drunkenness
[13:17] Nice. Yeah, I'd have to be pretty drunk to engage in that
[13:24] Apparently
[13:26] Indonesia in Indonesia
[13:29] They put people who do not follow Covid quarantine guidelines into abandoned and supposedly haunted houses
[13:38] Which was an attempt to motivate a superstitious population when science failed to do so
[13:46] Here we go
[13:47] Legends about haunted houses have long appeared in literature and the earliest surviving report of a haunted house comes from a letter written by
[13:54] You guessed it
[13:56] Pliny the Younger
[14:01] To his patron Lucia Sura, which he describes a haunted villa in Athens
[14:07] Wow and and back to my original terrible question apparently spiders are just associated with witches
[14:16] They're the sidekick of witches and that's why they're associated with Halloween
[14:20] I will agree with you though that the prevalence of spider decorations on houses has
[14:27] Proliferated in the last five years. Yeah, and also giant
[14:32] Skeletons, do you guys have this where you guys are? Oh
[14:35] Yeah, my my favorite bar has two skeletons on the inside of the door skeleton or something
[14:41] Oh, not ten foot tall. They're just human sized skeletons to make ya know
[14:44] That's like a thing now our neighbors have like a ten twelve foot tall skeleton. We've seen them randomly around the city
[14:51] Anyway, all right. I I'm gonna say we nailed that one. Yeah. Oh, yeah, even I mean we didn't we didn't come up with
[14:59] Pliny the Younger, but I did there was no Pliny. I did not have Pliny anywhere
[15:04] It's been a long time since we were able to type back to a Pliny
[15:07] Yeah, I think Pliny was like in the first like five episodes and has
[15:14] All right, well, that's it now I want a beer
[15:21] You