Hey everyone, it's me Josh, and for this week's s Y s K Select, I chose Lion Taming. Um. This one came from our Summer of Sam, chosen by Sam T Garden, who went on to become Sam the Intern, who will probably go on to become Sam the House Stuff Works employee at some point. Um, and I want you to take a particular note of the segment where we talk about how the Simpsons are known to predict the future. It's an excellent example of how connected our episodes are across the years. That or it's an example of us later unwittingly rehashing info we've already covered. At any rate, it's a good episode about an interesting topic. So I hope you enjoyed. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryet. This is Stuff you should Know. Yeah, uh, this Josh is another episode of the Summer of Sam. Are are oh this kid is good? Yeah? Our friend Sam T Garden is programming our show here and there he and Samson and How Lion Taming Works, which is also written by Debbie Ronca, my buddy. Yeah from New Jersey roller Derby Debbie as I call her, I don't call her that, No, you don't, I call her debend If I call her roller Derber Debby, you did perfectly the first roller Derby Debby. That would just get difficult. Yeah. Um, well, right on, this one's just going to be great then, because it was a good article too. That's right. And you can read Debbie's awesome log at freak girl dot com. That's quite unplug um. And then where are we at with Sam? So? Sam has now selected how lion taming works? What was the first one? I can't remember. It was a couple of weeks ago. He's done too, Man, it was awesome. But we actually corded a couple that he had not heard yet that he also had on his list just by chance. We're going to attribute those to him, just just the ones that we saw afterwards. But anyway, thanks Sam, this is a good one. We'll put chuck. Um. Well, let's see. Uh, I have a bit of an intro. Have you ever heard the idea that the Simpsons have a tendency to predict the future? Uh? No, okay, Well let me enlighten you. Um. There was an episode called Um Homer h O m R. Season twelve, Episode nine, excellent episode. It's where Homer Um. Basically they find out that Homer is a crayons stuck in his brain, a crayon crayon from childhood and they were they removed it in his i Q just immediately doubles classic. In two thousand seven years after Homer Um, a German lady age fifty nine, UM was going to get surgery to cure her chronic headaches. They found a pencil that was stuck up there from childhood. Did she stuck up there? Yeah, when she was a kid and apparently forgot they found they removed the pencil. She's fine. People are wacky. Yeah, but isn't that weird? Yeah? Sure, okay, UM, here's another one. Let me see what you think about this. Um Homer Uh in The Treehouse of Horror nineteen Who definitely didn't see that one? Really? I quit watching it after that season twenty UM he goes to vote for Obama on Election Day and the UM well, it's it's a takeoff of Dive de Bold, the the UM voting machines that had so many problems. He goes to vote for Um Obama and instead it starts voting a bunch of times for McCain. Okay, so the next I guess that year, a woman from West Virginia said that she checked the box next to Obama and it just automatically switched over to McCain. This is after this thing came out, okay, which would mean predicting. Probably most chilling is Um comes from Springfield with the Spells as the dollar sign. The subtitle is or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling. Season five, episode ten, Springfield gets a casino, Mr Burns Casino Great One, and in it are two characters who are obviously based on Siegfried and Roy and they're with their white tiger, Anastasia. She loves the city, Yeah, um and uh anastalgia Um flashes back to when she was caught in the wild by Siegfried and Roy shot her with the trick Lizer good and Um spits out her little bubble pipe and her little beanie and attacks one of them. Yeah. This is a full ten years before the attack of Roy Horn. In two thousand three, during a show at the Mirage in Las Vegas, where Um, one of their white tigers attacked him. Monte Core attacked Roy and basically just ended their career. Right then, Yeah, I think on that one, it's like if you're gonna write a Simpsons episode aping sick Green, right, what else are they gonna do? You're gonna have the lion need them or the tiger. I'm sorry, you raise an excellent point here, but it's still it is. But you raise a very good point. And the point is, Um, I think everybody who sees someone interacting with the tamest wild animal you can possibly imagine still will not be surprised if that animal kills the person. Yeah, because, as Jack Hannah put it very um appropriately. I think in Jack Hanna, he was the original Steve Irwin, right, uh yeah, sure, um he said you can train a wild animal, but you can never tame a wild animal. And that's a really big important point in the world of I guess lion taming. Yeah, and another famous lion trainer, Slash Tamer, We're gonna probably interchange those words. Said you can't tame a lion because if you did that, there would be no act. Yeah, okay, part of the part of the act and part of The thrill of this for people is the fact that these are wild beasts, and if it was just it was a penguin, it wouldn't be very exciting. No, it wouldn't. I'd like to see that a train penguin. Well, yeah, I'm putting your mouth in head in its mouth and cracking a whip. Be fun. Yeah, it would be. Um, it would be really mind blowing if the penguin was dressed like a lion tamer and you were treating it like a lion. Okay, I've got another lion tamer quote for you, then, smart guy, all right, Gunther Gebble Williams. Yeah, he was the one I saw growing up. Okay, at the Wrangling Brothers, he said, a wild animal is like a loaded gun. It can go off at any time. So let's end the intro with that. Okay, let's talk about lion taming. You. You brought up a really good point, Chuck. Um. The if you are in this world these days, it's not lion tamer, it's lion trainer or wild animals trainer. Because none of these people think that they have tame animal on their hands. Now, it's sort of the hubris of some of these early jerks um that we'll talk about right now. Uh, eighteen nineteen was kind of when it all got going. Frenchman named Ari Martine Um, Yeah, hey to our French listener. He was a retired horse trainer and he thought, you know what, I'm gonna try and work with a tiger, which is very different than what anyone's ever seen before. And he had a method where he worked himself into the cage little by little, like just my presence. Then I'll stick an arm in, and I'll stick my head in. Take a couple of scratches, yeah, here and there, and then eventually he found himself earning the trust of the big cats over time, and he would find himself completely in the cage. So he was the first first dude period, I think, first American. He was the first known what you would call Yeah, first American was a guy named Isaac van Amberke and he was around in eighteen thirty three, and he was when I meant when I said jerks, because he would apparently like beat these cats with crowbars and use very violent tactics. Yeah, and he he had a pretty good um excuse for it or um justification? Is that sarcasm? Yeah? Okay, yeah he was. He was a biblical guy, and he would actually act out biblical scenes with these animals. And his big defense was Genesis and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the vowel of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth and over everything. Creeping that creep us upon the earth. Creep And I just like the Bible saying creep us. Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it just kind of goes on. It's like, really it's one big, one run on sentence and you can't help but wonder um if Van Amberg would say the whole thing or just be like, just read generous this one. Yeah. His big his finishing move was sort of insult to injury. After he would do all this stuff. And of course he's not beating them with a crowbar in front of people, but apparently that's how he trained them to begin with out of fear and injury. And he would finish his shows by making the lines lick his boots. Oh man, what sure? I know after all that after suffering at his hands, you know, it would be awesome, would be to see the steam Man of the Prairie beat the tar out of Van Amberg. Yeah you can reference our exo skeleton cast for that one, right yeah. All right? Um have you seen Fast, Cheap and out of Control? Uh? No, is that about robots? You gotta see that. It's Errol Morris documentary. And it was about a topier gardner, a robot uh scientist, and a lion tamer and how all these things sort of intertwined. There was one more a mole rat specialist. And in the movie, Dave Hoover was the lion tamer and Errol Morris also worked in because Hoover was a huge fan of Clyde Beattie. Uh And Errol Morris worked in this old black and white footage and Clyde Beatie was almost the fifth character of that documentary. Oh yeah, yeah, it's really really great. Okay, I have a really good, um wild animal tamer documentary. All right, let's here. Um you introduced me to this one. It's called Cat Dancers. Have you heard of it now? Oh my gosh, it is. It's so heartbreaking, it's ridiculous. It's about this group of people who like have their own thing going on and um love one another and love their big cats and then just things keep going wrong. Really, it's a really great documentary. It's one of the best I've ever seen in my entire life. See this one out there too was one of my favorites. Now Fast Cheaping out of Control. Okay, well there it's both on the table. It's crazy though that this podcast features two of our favorite documentaries, Fast Cheaping out of Control and Cat Dancers. Look for a quiz question on that one and you can get those on Netflix. So Clyde Batty, who was Dave, who were his hero was around in the nineteen twenties. Um. He used a pistol and a whip, Yeah, to keep things in line. And I think the pistol was like a sound scare less than like a threatening thing. You go through a lot of lion shooting him in the chest. He gets expensive, but he was performing at this um, at this the peak of this um lion tamers. You think of an old timey lion tamer um, the peak of the appreciation from the public. Sure, because a lot of these guys they shaped the public expectations, but they were also responding to him, and the public has had a role in shaping how lion tamers lion trainers um interact with their cats, and Beatty was kind of the last of the pistol shooting whip crack in chair guys, the old guy, Yeah, Hooever actually explains the chair and Debbie's right on the money. Um. If you've ever wondered why they point a chair at a lion, it's because apparently these big cats have a have a one track mine or they're single minded, and so the four points uh of the chair legs confuse it. Yeah, and uh that's what Hoover said, So I believe it. Well that's awesome. Yeah. Um. So you've got on Remartine who starts everything out very gently using trust yeah um, and basically just exposing himself to these large cats. He did trust falls right and the cat would catch him right. Um. And uh, then you have um van Amberg coming along, Isaac van Amberg, Uh, basically just beating the tar out of these things and using a very different method fear and clide. Batty kind of carries that torch. And then after Batty things change and you have modern lion trainers like sigfree In Roy Gunther, Gebel Williams is that how you say his name? Yeah, you're the German speaker going to gel Williams billions. This just my I believe Yeah he uh, like I said, he was the one like that was very big in like the seventies and eighties when I was growing up, right, And apparently he was in an American Express commercial. Oh yeah, yeah, with a leopard hanging over him the don't we fund without it days? Probably I would imagine yea um. But so you you have the then you have this kind of transition to the modern lion trainer, which was actually a circle back to the beginning a little more genteel. Well, that's just that it's like using trust, not using beatings. Yeah, um, and and basically just spending time with your animal to let it get to know you. Yeah. And the whip they use, even if you see a whip these days, they're not whipping the animal. The whip is to just sort of like, hey, this is my space, this is your space. Yeah, my space is over exactly spaces over there. Uh. So let's talk about the psychology of all this stuff. Yeah, animal psychology and people psychology, because it's really not that much different. B. F. Skinner there's a person psychologist, very famous one. Yeah, he created the Skinner box, that's right, and his children in it. Oh is that what's his face? I don't know. I thought you're talking about the kid that was kept in isolation Arthur. Oh, um, baby Albert Albert. No, no, No, that's totally different. That was fear extinction that they were studying. This is conditioning that Skinner was all about. Um. So operat conditioning is what we're talking and about. And that's basically, ah, connecting a behavior with a signal um and giving the animal a reward. Yeah, it's like it's pretty much a one to three cycle. Yeah, it's it's basically saying like, um, you did something that's any even remotely close to what I want you to do. So here's some food, and now you can have the animal's attention. Yeah, like oh where did that come from? Right now? Um, you kind of shape that behavior where it's like, come on, let's let's try turning to the right, and then if they move to the right, they get a little bit of food, and maybe if they turn all the way the right, they get a bunch of food. Um. And then you have say you're leading them with the stick. Um, So eventually you remove the stick and replace it with something like a snap or a clap or hey, yes, you hear a lot of that, and all of a sudden you have an animal that can turn into circle when you do what you just That's right, and that's called classical conditioning. Well, it starts with the opera and moves into classical conditions. Operate than capturing, than shaping than classical condition and capturing and shaping are part of opera exactly. Uh, should we talk about Christian the line? I guess I don't see how we can. It is real, people, If you've seen this on the YouTube, it is not made up. Are you sure like you realize what you're saying here? Man, dude, It's as real as like anything in history that happened. Like I've seen the documentary about it, and I don't think it was Christopher Guests who directed it. Uh. I can't remember the name of it. Christian the Lions, something like that. Um, you've seen it on YouTube. In nineteen the nineteen sixty nine, late sixties, Um, a couple of Aussies, John Rindell and Ace Bork, bought a lion from a department store in London, Herod's did. Now they sold lions back then, Harrod's does. It was sort of the head of London at the time. It was like the swinging sixties and these dudes were known for having this lion and like throwing parties and stuff. It was like pretty cool. And uh the line got bigger, of course, and it had to release into the wild with the help of the born free people. And then there's of course the famous video where they went um to visit this lion. Uh, like it was it years later. It was seventy three or two, I think two. I'm not sure when they released him, but it was. It was quite a while later, and it was a few years the line jumps up in like hugs the guys. It was amazing. It was pretty amazing. Yeah, are you sure it's real? I'm as sure that that's real as that you're real. Otherwise that the biggest hoax has been pulled over the world. I don't start that. I think the Howard Hughes biography was Christians. That was pretty good. Um, but as Debbie points out, for every Christian the lion there's a sick freed and roy. Yes, we already kind of covered, but I think we should go a little more into it. Yeah, there's some different theories out there. So in two thousand and three, they were um sig Freed and Roy were doing their thing and apparently they had like I think three thousand of these performances under their belts already. Yeah, they were working with Manticor or monta Core sorry, who was one of their tigers, Um, who they'd raised from a cub and he was now seven years old. Um, so they knew this this tiger intimately like they were its parents for all intents and purposes. And that's one of the keys to with line taming is that you raised them from a cub. They're not going on and getting these tigers from the savannah that are grown and then taming them. So the Simpsons were wrong in their respect. But um so during this performance, uh, something happened. Um mont Core grabbed Roy Um by his wind pipe and dragged him off stage from the outset. Um. Roy, by the way, is now partially paralyzed and as a crushed tray chia because of this, but from the outset, from the moment he regained consciousness, Roy said, do not destroy Monticore. He was like he something happened. He wasn't trying to hurt me, he was trying to protect me, and he was just dragging me away from whatever it was. Roy suggested that possibly he had a stroke and that freaked out the tiger. Tiger picked up on it. Um. It's also been theorized that a woman this is almost like the lone gunman theory. Actually, this is the one. I believe a woman with a beehive hair do, sitting toward the front row or possibly in the front row, was like distracted and confused the tiger um, which I guess maybe the tiger was trying to get Roy away from the beehive. Well, what happened the accounts I read is that this tiger became transfixed on this lady and like started walking towards the lady, and so Roy jumped in between them, and uh, the tiger grabbed ahold of his wrist at this point, and Roy bopped him on the nose with the microphone was going release, release, and he released him and he fell backward at that point, and I think that's when the tiger, the tiger you want to say, lying, that's when he thought that Roy was in trouble because it was a big brujah, all a sudden with him falling over. People rushed out there in the confusion. They think that he grabbed him like you would grab a baby kitten around the neck to pull it off stage. So that's I believe that that's sound sensible. But he didn't let go like they sprayed him when this fire extinguisher and they beat him with the fire extinguisher until he let go and UM cut his uh what do you call it? The yeah, no, but the bleeder the jug. Yeah. Well, Roy is still alive. He survived UM and they actually UM had a final performance in two thousand nine, six years later with monticor with mont Core because he's still alive. Yep Um. And he was at the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. I've been there. It's pretty awesome. Where is this It's in Vegas. I can't remember what hotel it's at, but well, the Mirrage is where they performed, but I feel like they if it's it, maybe at the rush Um. I can't remember. It's also possible it was at another place. But anyway, they have like their lions and a couple of tigers. They have a bunch of stuff, and it's sad because it's a small zoo. But I'm sure these animals are treated better than the average animal at a zoo. But I mean they're in these enclosed habitats. Well, they get investigated, just like modern circuses do. I think their routine checks by which government agency is it the U s d A. The U s d E does that, they do circuses, zoos, that kind of thing. Um. The thing is is, if you're an animal welfare group, you probably don't think the U. S d A is doing enough. And even if they are following the letter of the law, you probably think the letter of the law isn't strong enough. And supposedly every single major circus in the United States has been cited for violating the Animal Welfare Act. Um. So, I think the whole concept behind lion taming and lining training is fascinating for most people. But then you take another step further and you're like, these are wild animals and captivity, Like what are you doing? Yeah, why is your head in its mouth? Exactly? And I'm glad you brought that up, because then in the introduction there's a pretty good description of what a lion can do. A lion's mouth can open up wider than your head is tall a foot three centimeters. It's also, um, capable of crushing a bull spine. I love that reference that that just sounds tough. It is to spine of a bull. Yeah. Um, and uh the clause are about three inches long. Pretty serious stuff. So I mean, yeah, this is very serious stuff if you're a lion trainer. But at the same time, it's like, you know, how do you justify having this act? What's the act for? What's it doing? Yeah? Is it? Is it protecting? Is it conserving? What is it raising awareness? I think people are demanding more explanation than they did and say the time of Clyde Beattie, well yeah, because back then it was fun to poke in pride things that you thought were unusual and exotic, and there wasn't a lot of respect for it. Like the initial circuses before they were these acts were I think they had horse acts, but it was mainly like, look at these animals and cages that you've never seen before, and look there's a pigmy, Yeah, you a bearded lady and that guy stinks so um. And I think Isaac van Jerk was the first guy to put his head in the mouth too, right, right. Unfortunately the lion didn't have finish that job. Yeah. Yeah, we have like a whole suite of circus arts stuff, human cannonball, um man, we've got to we have several others circus arts. Yeah, that's what it's called. If you even look on the channel, it's an entertainment house stuff first dot com slash arts slash circus Arts. It has a sub channel circus arts subchannel at houst first, because that's the kind of site it is. And if you go to that subchannel, you don't even need to do that. You can go to the search bar on the homepage at house to first dot com and type in lion Taming and it'll bring up this article. Yeah. I think we know we talked about something else because I mentioned that I go to the Big Apple Circus when it comes through town. Yeah, I remember talking about that, And that's the one where they have like like a horse they still have the equestrian show and my dogs jumping through hoops, but other than that, it's like clowns and jugglers and uh like the circus all a feats of strength, no animals, no big cat people are the both from the law. Yeah, it's not like the gaudy Ringling Brothers. Now good. I haven't seen the circus. I can't even tell you how long you should you and you should check out the Big Apple Circus. Oh yeah, yeah it's neat all right, we'll check it out. It's like very small and intimate. It's like it feels like what you might expect the circus a hundred years ago to be. Like, will you send me an email when it's coming? I will, Okay, okay, I said search part. By the way, all right, so that means listener mail. Yeah, this is from I'm gonna call this, um we help someone kick heroin? Did you read this? Awesome? Um? Hey, guys, have been meaning to write you for a very long time. I've been listening to you pretty much since day one, learning and loving every step of the way. However, it was almost a year ago I chose to check myself into drug treatment. See I am a marine email marine no longer active duty, but when I was injured, I was given a lot of pain killers and ended up getting addicted to those, and that eventually led to me getting strung out on heroin for years what does this have to do with you? Well, Heroin detox is one of the worst things you can imagine. We were not allowed to listen to music, or watch TV or pretty much do anything but classes and groups. I agree that it helped me being an a media blackout, but I did beg the staff to let me listen to you guys. To my amazement, my doctor was a fan of yours and approved it. Awesome, So while I was going through the worst of the worst of it, you were both there with me. I will spare you the details. So August fifte is not only I think we've both seen the sign feld where Laton's dating the guy who's kicking heroin? Did you dating guy kicking heroin? Yeah? Don't you remember? I remember that? Sorry? Go ahead. Uh So now August fifteenth is not only my birthday I'm twenty nine this year, but also my first birthday off drugs. Oh congratulation. I want to thank you for what you've done for me, and I'm gonna go back and listen to them all again. Um. I know it is a lot to ask, but a shout out would make my day. Dude and Elaine Turley, Elaine, don't tell me, that's a coincidence. Well, it's a it's both an a. Okay, she says, simplify from Elane Turley, that's awesome, and then she says, ps marines are the few and the proud. Female marines are the fewer and the prouder. So way to go, man, Yeah you want to say, man, lady, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah, you kicked heroine with us. That's amazing. Yeah, you can't even think about that. Um. Wow, man, that was a mind blower. Chuck, pretty good one. Uh. If you have a mind blowing story that relates to us, even if it doesn't, that's cool. But if it does, wow, that's even better. Um. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. That's a Twitter handle. Uh. Facebook dot com slash Stuff you should know is where we dwell on Facebook. Um. You can also send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. M

Hey everyone, it's me Josh, and for this week's s Y s K Select, I chose Lion Taming. Um. This one came from our Summer of Sam, chosen by Sam T Garden, who went on to become Sam the Intern, who will probably go on to become Sam the House Stuff Works employee at some point. Um, and I want you to take a particular note of the segment where we talk about how the Simpsons are known to predict the future. It's an excellent example of how connected our episodes are across the years. That or it's an example of us later unwittingly rehashing info we've already covered. At any rate, it's a good episode about an interesting topic. So I hope you enjoyed. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryet. This is Stuff you should Know. Yeah, uh, this Josh is another episode of the Summer of Sam. Are are oh this kid is good? Yeah? Our friend Sam T Garden is programming our show here and there he and Samson and How Lion Taming Works, which is also written by Debbie Ronca, my buddy. Yeah from New Jersey roller Derby Debbie as I call her, I don't call her that, No, you don't, I call her debend If I call her roller Derber Debby, you did perfectly the first roller Derby Debby. That would just get difficult. Yeah. Um, well, right on, this one's just going to be great then, because it was a good article too. That's right. And you can read Debbie's awesome log at freak girl dot com. That's quite unplug um. And then where are we at with Sam? So? Sam has now selected how lion taming works? What was the first one? I can't remember. It was a couple of weeks ago. He's done too, Man, it was awesome. But we actually corded a couple that he had not heard yet that he also had on his list just by chance. We're going to attribute those to him, just just the ones that we saw afterwards. But anyway, thanks Sam, this is a good one. We'll put chuck. Um. Well, let's see. Uh, I have a bit of an intro. Have you ever heard the idea that the Simpsons have a tendency to predict the future? Uh? No, okay, Well let me enlighten you. Um. There was an episode called Um Homer h O m R. Season twelve, Episode nine, excellent episode. It's where Homer Um. Basically they find out that Homer is a crayons stuck in his brain, a crayon crayon from childhood and they were they removed it in his i Q just immediately doubles classic. In two thousand seven years after Homer Um, a German lady age fifty nine, UM was going to get surgery to cure her chronic headaches. They found a pencil that was stuck up there from childhood. Did she stuck up there? Yeah, when she was a kid and apparently forgot they found they removed the pencil. She's fine. People are wacky. Yeah, but isn't that weird? Yeah? Sure, okay, UM, here's another one. Let me see what you think about this. Um Homer Uh in The Treehouse of Horror nineteen Who definitely didn't see that one? Really? I quit watching it after that season twenty UM he goes to vote for Obama on Election Day and the UM well, it's it's a takeoff of Dive de Bold, the the UM voting machines that had so many problems. He goes to vote for Um Obama and instead it starts voting a bunch of times for McCain. Okay, so the next I guess that year, a woman from West Virginia said that she checked the box next to Obama and it just automatically switched over to McCain. This is after this thing came out, okay, which would mean predicting. Probably most chilling is Um comes from Springfield with the Spells as the dollar sign. The subtitle is or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling. Season five, episode ten, Springfield gets a casino, Mr Burns Casino Great One, and in it are two characters who are obviously based on Siegfried and Roy and they're with their white tiger, Anastasia. She loves the city, Yeah, um and uh anastalgia Um flashes back to when she was caught in the wild by Siegfried and Roy shot her with the trick Lizer good and Um spits out her little bubble pipe and her little beanie and attacks one of them. Yeah. This is a full ten years before the attack of Roy Horn. In two thousand three, during a show at the Mirage in Las Vegas, where Um, one of their white tigers attacked him. Monte Core attacked Roy and basically just ended their career. Right then, Yeah, I think on that one, it's like if you're gonna write a Simpsons episode aping sick Green, right, what else are they gonna do? You're gonna have the lion need them or the tiger. I'm sorry, you raise an excellent point here, but it's still it is. But you raise a very good point. And the point is, Um, I think everybody who sees someone interacting with the tamest wild animal you can possibly imagine still will not be surprised if that animal kills the person. Yeah, because, as Jack Hannah put it very um appropriately. I think in Jack Hanna, he was the original Steve Irwin, right, uh yeah, sure, um he said you can train a wild animal, but you can never tame a wild animal. And that's a really big important point in the world of I guess lion taming. Yeah, and another famous lion trainer, Slash Tamer, We're gonna probably interchange those words. Said you can't tame a lion because if you did that, there would be no act. Yeah, okay, part of the part of the act and part of The thrill of this for people is the fact that these are wild beasts, and if it was just it was a penguin, it wouldn't be very exciting. No, it wouldn't. I'd like to see that a train penguin. Well, yeah, I'm putting your mouth in head in its mouth and cracking a whip. Be fun. Yeah, it would be. Um, it would be really mind blowing if the penguin was dressed like a lion tamer and you were treating it like a lion. Okay, I've got another lion tamer quote for you, then, smart guy, all right, Gunther Gebble Williams. Yeah, he was the one I saw growing up. Okay, at the Wrangling Brothers, he said, a wild animal is like a loaded gun. It can go off at any time. So let's end the intro with that. Okay, let's talk about lion taming. You. You brought up a really good point, Chuck. Um. The if you are in this world these days, it's not lion tamer, it's lion trainer or wild animals trainer. Because none of these people think that they have tame animal on their hands. Now, it's sort of the hubris of some of these early jerks um that we'll talk about right now. Uh, eighteen nineteen was kind of when it all got going. Frenchman named Ari Martine Um, Yeah, hey to our French listener. He was a retired horse trainer and he thought, you know what, I'm gonna try and work with a tiger, which is very different than what anyone's ever seen before. And he had a method where he worked himself into the cage little by little, like just my presence. Then I'll stick an arm in, and I'll stick my head in. Take a couple of scratches, yeah, here and there, and then eventually he found himself earning the trust of the big cats over time, and he would find himself completely in the cage. So he was the first first dude period, I think, first American. He was the first known what you would call Yeah, first American was a guy named Isaac van Amberke and he was around in eighteen thirty three, and he was when I meant when I said jerks, because he would apparently like beat these cats with crowbars and use very violent tactics. Yeah, and he he had a pretty good um excuse for it or um justification? Is that sarcasm? Yeah? Okay, yeah he was. He was a biblical guy, and he would actually act out biblical scenes with these animals. And his big defense was Genesis and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the vowel of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth and over everything. Creeping that creep us upon the earth. Creep And I just like the Bible saying creep us. Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it just kind of goes on. It's like, really it's one big, one run on sentence and you can't help but wonder um if Van Amberg would say the whole thing or just be like, just read generous this one. Yeah. His big his finishing move was sort of insult to injury. After he would do all this stuff. And of course he's not beating them with a crowbar in front of people, but apparently that's how he trained them to begin with out of fear and injury. And he would finish his shows by making the lines lick his boots. Oh man, what sure? I know after all that after suffering at his hands, you know, it would be awesome, would be to see the steam Man of the Prairie beat the tar out of Van Amberg. Yeah you can reference our exo skeleton cast for that one, right yeah. All right? Um have you seen Fast, Cheap and out of Control? Uh? No, is that about robots? You gotta see that. It's Errol Morris documentary. And it was about a topier gardner, a robot uh scientist, and a lion tamer and how all these things sort of intertwined. There was one more a mole rat specialist. And in the movie, Dave Hoover was the lion tamer and Errol Morris also worked in because Hoover was a huge fan of Clyde Beattie. Uh And Errol Morris worked in this old black and white footage and Clyde Beatie was almost the fifth character of that documentary. Oh yeah, yeah, it's really really great. Okay, I have a really good, um wild animal tamer documentary. All right, let's here. Um you introduced me to this one. It's called Cat Dancers. Have you heard of it now? Oh my gosh, it is. It's so heartbreaking, it's ridiculous. It's about this group of people who like have their own thing going on and um love one another and love their big cats and then just things keep going wrong. Really, it's a really great documentary. It's one of the best I've ever seen in my entire life. See this one out there too was one of my favorites. Now Fast Cheaping out of Control. Okay, well there it's both on the table. It's crazy though that this podcast features two of our favorite documentaries, Fast Cheaping out of Control and Cat Dancers. Look for a quiz question on that one and you can get those on Netflix. So Clyde Batty, who was Dave, who were his hero was around in the nineteen twenties. Um. He used a pistol and a whip, Yeah, to keep things in line. And I think the pistol was like a sound scare less than like a threatening thing. You go through a lot of lion shooting him in the chest. He gets expensive, but he was performing at this um, at this the peak of this um lion tamers. You think of an old timey lion tamer um, the peak of the appreciation from the public. Sure, because a lot of these guys they shaped the public expectations, but they were also responding to him, and the public has had a role in shaping how lion tamers lion trainers um interact with their cats, and Beatty was kind of the last of the pistol shooting whip crack in chair guys, the old guy, Yeah, Hooever actually explains the chair and Debbie's right on the money. Um. If you've ever wondered why they point a chair at a lion, it's because apparently these big cats have a have a one track mine or they're single minded, and so the four points uh of the chair legs confuse it. Yeah, and uh that's what Hoover said, So I believe it. Well that's awesome. Yeah. Um. So you've got on Remartine who starts everything out very gently using trust yeah um, and basically just exposing himself to these large cats. He did trust falls right and the cat would catch him right. Um. And uh, then you have um van Amberg coming along, Isaac van Amberg, Uh, basically just beating the tar out of these things and using a very different method fear and clide. Batty kind of carries that torch. And then after Batty things change and you have modern lion trainers like sigfree In Roy Gunther, Gebel Williams is that how you say his name? Yeah, you're the German speaker going to gel Williams billions. This just my I believe Yeah he uh, like I said, he was the one like that was very big in like the seventies and eighties when I was growing up, right, And apparently he was in an American Express commercial. Oh yeah, yeah, with a leopard hanging over him the don't we fund without it days? Probably I would imagine yea um. But so you you have the then you have this kind of transition to the modern lion trainer, which was actually a circle back to the beginning a little more genteel. Well, that's just that it's like using trust, not using beatings. Yeah, um, and and basically just spending time with your animal to let it get to know you. Yeah. And the whip they use, even if you see a whip these days, they're not whipping the animal. The whip is to just sort of like, hey, this is my space, this is your space. Yeah, my space is over exactly spaces over there. Uh. So let's talk about the psychology of all this stuff. Yeah, animal psychology and people psychology, because it's really not that much different. B. F. Skinner there's a person psychologist, very famous one. Yeah, he created the Skinner box, that's right, and his children in it. Oh is that what's his face? I don't know. I thought you're talking about the kid that was kept in isolation Arthur. Oh, um, baby Albert Albert. No, no, No, that's totally different. That was fear extinction that they were studying. This is conditioning that Skinner was all about. Um. So operat conditioning is what we're talking and about. And that's basically, ah, connecting a behavior with a signal um and giving the animal a reward. Yeah, it's like it's pretty much a one to three cycle. Yeah, it's it's basically saying like, um, you did something that's any even remotely close to what I want you to do. So here's some food, and now you can have the animal's attention. Yeah, like oh where did that come from? Right now? Um, you kind of shape that behavior where it's like, come on, let's let's try turning to the right, and then if they move to the right, they get a little bit of food, and maybe if they turn all the way the right, they get a bunch of food. Um. And then you have say you're leading them with the stick. Um, So eventually you remove the stick and replace it with something like a snap or a clap or hey, yes, you hear a lot of that, and all of a sudden you have an animal that can turn into circle when you do what you just That's right, and that's called classical conditioning. Well, it starts with the opera and moves into classical conditions. Operate than capturing, than shaping than classical condition and capturing and shaping are part of opera exactly. Uh, should we talk about Christian the line? I guess I don't see how we can. It is real, people, If you've seen this on the YouTube, it is not made up. Are you sure like you realize what you're saying here? Man, dude, It's as real as like anything in history that happened. Like I've seen the documentary about it, and I don't think it was Christopher Guests who directed it. Uh. I can't remember the name of it. Christian the Lions, something like that. Um, you've seen it on YouTube. In nineteen the nineteen sixty nine, late sixties, Um, a couple of Aussies, John Rindell and Ace Bork, bought a lion from a department store in London, Herod's did. Now they sold lions back then, Harrod's does. It was sort of the head of London at the time. It was like the swinging sixties and these dudes were known for having this lion and like throwing parties and stuff. It was like pretty cool. And uh the line got bigger, of course, and it had to release into the wild with the help of the born free people. And then there's of course the famous video where they went um to visit this lion. Uh, like it was it years later. It was seventy three or two, I think two. I'm not sure when they released him, but it was. It was quite a while later, and it was a few years the line jumps up in like hugs the guys. It was amazing. It was pretty amazing. Yeah, are you sure it's real? I'm as sure that that's real as that you're real. Otherwise that the biggest hoax has been pulled over the world. I don't start that. I think the Howard Hughes biography was Christians. That was pretty good. Um, but as Debbie points out, for every Christian the lion there's a sick freed and roy. Yes, we already kind of covered, but I think we should go a little more into it. Yeah, there's some different theories out there. So in two thousand and three, they were um sig Freed and Roy were doing their thing and apparently they had like I think three thousand of these performances under their belts already. Yeah, they were working with Manticor or monta Core sorry, who was one of their tigers, Um, who they'd raised from a cub and he was now seven years old. Um, so they knew this this tiger intimately like they were its parents for all intents and purposes. And that's one of the keys to with line taming is that you raised them from a cub. They're not going on and getting these tigers from the savannah that are grown and then taming them. So the Simpsons were wrong in their respect. But um so during this performance, uh, something happened. Um mont Core grabbed Roy Um by his wind pipe and dragged him off stage from the outset. Um. Roy, by the way, is now partially paralyzed and as a crushed tray chia because of this, but from the outset, from the moment he regained consciousness, Roy said, do not destroy Monticore. He was like he something happened. He wasn't trying to hurt me, he was trying to protect me, and he was just dragging me away from whatever it was. Roy suggested that possibly he had a stroke and that freaked out the tiger. Tiger picked up on it. Um. It's also been theorized that a woman this is almost like the lone gunman theory. Actually, this is the one. I believe a woman with a beehive hair do, sitting toward the front row or possibly in the front row, was like distracted and confused the tiger um, which I guess maybe the tiger was trying to get Roy away from the beehive. Well, what happened the accounts I read is that this tiger became transfixed on this lady and like started walking towards the lady, and so Roy jumped in between them, and uh, the tiger grabbed ahold of his wrist at this point, and Roy bopped him on the nose with the microphone was going release, release, and he released him and he fell backward at that point, and I think that's when the tiger, the tiger you want to say, lying, that's when he thought that Roy was in trouble because it was a big brujah, all a sudden with him falling over. People rushed out there in the confusion. They think that he grabbed him like you would grab a baby kitten around the neck to pull it off stage. So that's I believe that that's sound sensible. But he didn't let go like they sprayed him when this fire extinguisher and they beat him with the fire extinguisher until he let go and UM cut his uh what do you call it? The yeah, no, but the bleeder the jug. Yeah. Well, Roy is still alive. He survived UM and they actually UM had a final performance in two thousand nine, six years later with monticor with mont Core because he's still alive. Yep Um. And he was at the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. I've been there. It's pretty awesome. Where is this It's in Vegas. I can't remember what hotel it's at, but well, the Mirrage is where they performed, but I feel like they if it's it, maybe at the rush Um. I can't remember. It's also possible it was at another place. But anyway, they have like their lions and a couple of tigers. They have a bunch of stuff, and it's sad because it's a small zoo. But I'm sure these animals are treated better than the average animal at a zoo. But I mean they're in these enclosed habitats. Well, they get investigated, just like modern circuses do. I think their routine checks by which government agency is it the U s d A. The U s d E does that, they do circuses, zoos, that kind of thing. Um. The thing is is, if you're an animal welfare group, you probably don't think the U. S d A is doing enough. And even if they are following the letter of the law, you probably think the letter of the law isn't strong enough. And supposedly every single major circus in the United States has been cited for violating the Animal Welfare Act. Um. So, I think the whole concept behind lion taming and lining training is fascinating for most people. But then you take another step further and you're like, these are wild animals and captivity, Like what are you doing? Yeah, why is your head in its mouth? Exactly? And I'm glad you brought that up, because then in the introduction there's a pretty good description of what a lion can do. A lion's mouth can open up wider than your head is tall a foot three centimeters. It's also, um, capable of crushing a bull spine. I love that reference that that just sounds tough. It is to spine of a bull. Yeah. Um, and uh the clause are about three inches long. Pretty serious stuff. So I mean, yeah, this is very serious stuff if you're a lion trainer. But at the same time, it's like, you know, how do you justify having this act? What's the act for? What's it doing? Yeah? Is it? Is it protecting? Is it conserving? What is it raising awareness? I think people are demanding more explanation than they did and say the time of Clyde Beattie, well yeah, because back then it was fun to poke in pride things that you thought were unusual and exotic, and there wasn't a lot of respect for it. Like the initial circuses before they were these acts were I think they had horse acts, but it was mainly like, look at these animals and cages that you've never seen before, and look there's a pigmy, Yeah, you a bearded lady and that guy stinks so um. And I think Isaac van Jerk was the first guy to put his head in the mouth too, right, right. Unfortunately the lion didn't have finish that job. Yeah. Yeah, we have like a whole suite of circus arts stuff, human cannonball, um man, we've got to we have several others circus arts. Yeah, that's what it's called. If you even look on the channel, it's an entertainment house stuff first dot com slash arts slash circus Arts. It has a sub channel circus arts subchannel at houst first, because that's the kind of site it is. And if you go to that subchannel, you don't even need to do that. You can go to the search bar on the homepage at house to first dot com and type in lion Taming and it'll bring up this article. Yeah. I think we know we talked about something else because I mentioned that I go to the Big Apple Circus when it comes through town. Yeah, I remember talking about that, And that's the one where they have like like a horse they still have the equestrian show and my dogs jumping through hoops, but other than that, it's like clowns and jugglers and uh like the circus all a feats of strength, no animals, no big cat people are the both from the law. Yeah, it's not like the gaudy Ringling Brothers. Now good. I haven't seen the circus. I can't even tell you how long you should you and you should check out the Big Apple Circus. Oh yeah, yeah it's neat all right, we'll check it out. It's like very small and intimate. It's like it feels like what you might expect the circus a hundred years ago to be. Like, will you send me an email when it's coming? I will, Okay, okay, I said search part. By the way, all right, so that means listener mail. Yeah, this is from I'm gonna call this, um we help someone kick heroin? Did you read this? Awesome? Um? Hey, guys, have been meaning to write you for a very long time. I've been listening to you pretty much since day one, learning and loving every step of the way. However, it was almost a year ago I chose to check myself into drug treatment. See I am a marine email marine no longer active duty, but when I was injured, I was given a lot of pain killers and ended up getting addicted to those, and that eventually led to me getting strung out on heroin for years what does this have to do with you? Well, Heroin detox is one of the worst things you can imagine. We were not allowed to listen to music, or watch TV or pretty much do anything but classes and groups. I agree that it helped me being an a media blackout, but I did beg the staff to let me listen to you guys. To my amazement, my doctor was a fan of yours and approved it. Awesome, So while I was going through the worst of the worst of it, you were both there with me. I will spare you the details. So August fifte is not only I think we've both seen the sign feld where Laton's dating the guy who's kicking heroin? Did you dating guy kicking heroin? Yeah? Don't you remember? I remember that? Sorry? Go ahead. Uh So now August fifteenth is not only my birthday I'm twenty nine this year, but also my first birthday off drugs. Oh congratulation. I want to thank you for what you've done for me, and I'm gonna go back and listen to them all again. Um. I know it is a lot to ask, but a shout out would make my day. Dude and Elaine Turley, Elaine, don't tell me, that's a coincidence. Well, it's a it's both an a. Okay, she says, simplify from Elane Turley, that's awesome, and then she says, ps marines are the few and the proud. Female marines are the fewer and the prouder. So way to go, man, Yeah you want to say, man, lady, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah, you kicked heroine with us. That's amazing. Yeah, you can't even think about that. Um. Wow, man, that was a mind blower. Chuck, pretty good one. Uh. If you have a mind blowing story that relates to us, even if it doesn't, that's cool. But if it does, wow, that's even better. Um. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. That's a Twitter handle. Uh. Facebook dot com slash Stuff you should know is where we dwell on Facebook. Um. You can also send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. M