Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how earlier in uh, in a previous episode,
Speaker 1: we had said we would maybe do more ghost or
Speaker 1: monster spooky stories leading into Halloween. Yes, yes, I do
Speaker 1: remember that. Then we're a little early for Halloween. But
Speaker 1: you know what, we're so chock full of monsters that
Speaker 1: we're we just we just got them spelling out of
Speaker 1: the sides. So we're gonna start early with a story
Speaker 1: about something called the Aswang. Yes, you're right, You're you're right,
Speaker 1: I think either way. Uh, you are correct. We were
Speaker 1: talking about a very specific type of monster. And before
Speaker 1: we get to it, let's introduce one of our favorite monsters,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, Super producer Casey Pegram Casey, are you
Speaker 1: okay that I referred to you as a monster? As
Speaker 1: that love it Casey on the case. So, growing up,
Speaker 1: were you into monsters? No? I mean, I'm I'm clearly
Speaker 1: a monster myself because I'm meeting cheese. It's on this show.
Speaker 1: Unastraptable in behavior, borish. Oh gosh, I hate myself now.
Speaker 1: Of course I love monsters. Yeah, yeah, I was a
Speaker 1: little frightened of them. I thought they lived under my
Speaker 1: bed and in my closet. Um. Do you remember that
Speaker 1: movie The Willies Barely a deep cut has young Sean
Speaker 1: Aston in it, and it's sort of an are You
Speaker 1: Afraid of the Dark style camp fire tail movie where
Speaker 1: it's an anthology, And there was one in particular where
Speaker 1: there was a really creepy, gangly kind of pumpkin head
Speaker 1: looking monster with long, skinny fingers who menaced the children
Speaker 1: at a middle school, and that stuck with me. Then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's strange when you think of how profoundly some of
Speaker 1: those things can impact us as children. I was addicted
Speaker 1: to scary stories to tell in the dark. Covers alone
Speaker 1: are like nightmare fuel, pure nightmare fuel, and the guy's
Speaker 1: a legit folklorist. And one of the things I loved
Speaker 1: about it was that it was it was different from
Speaker 1: the usual fair of monstrosity that we see in the US.
Speaker 1: I've also wondered, I don't know how much the games
Speaker 1: done in this, but I've also wondered and marveled at
Speaker 1: the sheer variety of goblins ghouls, which is a monsters
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world, like just what we
Speaker 1: would categorize as vampires, just that category alone contains hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of creatures that many people have never heard of,
Speaker 1: but in their countries of origin, these creatures are taken very,
Speaker 1: very seriously. And one of them is the ash Yeah,
Speaker 1: the aswang is um sort of a pamp e on
Speaker 1: of monsters, right. It's sort of like in Japanese culture
Speaker 1: you've got the yokai, which are just kind of a
Speaker 1: stand in for any kind of goblin or the magical
Speaker 1: creature or whatever. And here's the thing. I wanted to
Speaker 1: pose this to you before we get too much. We're
Speaker 1: talking about our childhood um obsession and fear and um
Speaker 1: you know PTSD associated with monsters. But as a thirty
Speaker 1: five year old man uh and Ben, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna spill your age, your ageless, but I
Speaker 1: don't think monsters are real anymore. That is not something
Speaker 1: that keeps me up at night. It's it's just normal
Speaker 1: baseline anxiety that keeps me up at night. Now, that's
Speaker 1: my monster. But in other countries that's not quite the case.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely true. Hey, can I have some cheese? It's
Speaker 1: do you have any thanks? Can you guys tell we're
Speaker 1: recorded on a Friday afternoon. Thanks man. So, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely true. These are taken seriously, and the ass one
Speaker 1: is just one example. You will hear other names for
Speaker 1: it too, like the tick tick or the clean clean
Speaker 1: or the US long. But I think you're right. Our
Speaker 1: fears tend to evolve with us, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Our monsters grow up with us. That sounds way more
Speaker 1: cryptic than I intended. And in the Philippines, where they
Speaker 1: as well originates, they have often been taken very seriously
Speaker 1: as like a legitimate, credible physical threat to you and
Speaker 1: your loved ones. Yeah, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: you probably if you grew up in the Philippines, tasty
Speaker 1: and got a good crunch, good trying to do it
Speaker 1: off the mike goodbyte. Yeah, that's that's probably good etiquette.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you know, if you grew up
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, or you know somebody that grew up
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, chances are you've met somebody that, whether
Speaker 1: they themselves or someone they know or possibly their grandpa
Speaker 1: or something, or you know, a loved one will have claimed,
Speaker 1: uh with full belief, to have either encountered one of
Speaker 1: these creatures possibly been attacked by one of them, or
Speaker 1: even maybe know someone who met their untimely end at
Speaker 1: the hands or claws or fangs or dripping intestines, dripping intestines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can we go through some of us of this? Yeah, okay. So,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, aswang is kind of an umbrella. It's
Speaker 1: herb and in different regions of the Philippines you will
Speaker 1: hear different descriptions of what an aswang actually is. And
Speaker 1: despite its different variations, it is probably the most frightening
Speaker 1: mythical creature in this type of folklore. So one thing
Speaker 1: that's always kind of the common thread is that their
Speaker 1: shape shifters, I can somehow change shape. The big differences
Speaker 1: arrive when we ask what shapes they change into. So
Speaker 1: we mentioned that they can have long clause, do we
Speaker 1: mention the torso thing yet? You you alluded to it, Ben,
Speaker 1: But but give us give us the quicken dirty. So
Speaker 1: there's the appearance of a person. It's just a torso
Speaker 1: arms in the head and they're flying. They levitate and
Speaker 1: their intestines dripped down under them, just kind of dragging
Speaker 1: like a like a train. And they eat unborn children
Speaker 1: and toddlers. Usually they want to eat the livers and
Speaker 1: the hearts. Yeah, and there's even one that I think
Speaker 1: has some sort of specially adapted tongue that they can
Speaker 1: use to suck out the fetus from a pregnant woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a like a very evil mosquito exactly. Yes. So
Speaker 1: they're sometimes described as very very thin, they're always described
Speaker 1: as kind of fast, and some of them make different noises, right,
Speaker 1: that's going to be importantly Yeah, that's right. There's some
Speaker 1: that look like pigs um who make obviously pig type noises,
Speaker 1: snorting and you know, grinding their teeth, and and they're
Speaker 1: also quite large. Then they're also like werewolf type oswang
Speaker 1: that um are you know about, like you would think
Speaker 1: some of them look more like a regular dog. Some
Speaker 1: of them look like maybe like a hyena or a
Speaker 1: jackal or something like that, or some kind of any
Speaker 1: kind of like wild kind of rabid beast. But then
Speaker 1: you have the scariest of all that there's a great
Speaker 1: connection between this and the way we look at these
Speaker 1: kind of creatures vampires. You've got the ones that look
Speaker 1: mainly like you or I, but they are still out
Speaker 1: for blood, livers and hearts, right, because they can shift
Speaker 1: into a human form and then shift I guess into
Speaker 1: their more monstrous forms, as legend would have it. As
Speaker 1: legend would have it. Yes, very important, very important. They
Speaker 1: also have these weird, these techniques that are so fascinating.
Speaker 1: For instance, um, if you read on mythology dot net
Speaker 1: just a quick overview of Aswong. There, it's apparently common
Speaker 1: for Askewong to turn plants into doppel gangers of their
Speaker 1: victims to hide evidence of their hunting from locals. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, then, I mean, that's a pretty I mean
Speaker 1: it's a dark power, but it's pretty neat power, right.
Speaker 1: And so they do it in two ways. They might
Speaker 1: make a doppel ganger of a corpse so it looks
Speaker 1: like the person died without an Aswhong attack. Or they
Speaker 1: might make a doppel gang er of a living person.
Speaker 1: When they make one of a living person a living victim,
Speaker 1: then the doppelganger goes to that person's home, they fall ill,
Speaker 1: and they die. Why are we telling you all of this? Well,
Speaker 1: we're telling you this because this story comes into play
Speaker 1: in a very strange and ingenious way. Shortly after World
Speaker 1: War Two, the Philippine Army is fighting an insurgency led
Speaker 1: by communist rebels known as the hook ba llahap and
Speaker 1: pardon my pronunciation, I am not a Tagalic speaker. Well,
Speaker 1: you're not going to try the alternate pronunciation for when
Speaker 1: they sort of shifted their their purposes. That one's even harder.
Speaker 1: It's got like an energy pronounced that energy on its own.
Speaker 1: M So this this army is having the age old
Speaker 1: a series of problems that organized armies have when they
Speaker 1: run into guerrilla forces. Right there, They're fighting an enemy
Speaker 1: that is often invisible, able to blend in with the
Speaker 1: local non fighting population, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: they're like, how do we how do we combat this?
Speaker 1: We need a method of our own. We need something
Speaker 1: we could do that will um squash this rebellion, and
Speaker 1: it may need to be an unconventional method because this
Speaker 1: also just for the background here, Uh, these guys who
Speaker 1: were also called Huck's h u K there fighting against
Speaker 1: the status quo. Uh, the wealthy Filipinos who had collaborated
Speaker 1: with Japanese invaders right because originally they um were part
Speaker 1: of the team. Right during the during World War Two,
Speaker 1: when the Philippines were leagued up with the US fighting
Speaker 1: against the Japanese. UM this group was was fighting the
Speaker 1: good fight, right, and then after the end of the
Speaker 1: war they started, they kind of became installed as de
Speaker 1: facto militia or military of the communist government, right right right,
Speaker 1: because it's you can see how they feel very short
Speaker 1: changed in this at this position because the collaborators with
Speaker 1: the Japanese have grabbed a ton of land afterwards, and
Speaker 1: they own a bunch of resources, and the inequality of
Speaker 1: the country, which was already very extreme, is just going
Speaker 1: to continue as though nothing has changed. So of course
Speaker 1: they want a rebellion. Of course they want a different government.
Speaker 1: And just to try my hand at butchering and pronunciation,
Speaker 1: they did change the name after this Switchero happened to
Speaker 1: Huckbo ng Bayan Leban SAHAPONS, known as the Anti Japanese Army.
Speaker 1: That was pretty good, man, I thought that was pretty good.
Speaker 1: But not only were they against the Japanese army, they
Speaker 1: ultimately ended up becoming against the Filipino government because they
Speaker 1: believe that the President Manuel Roxas was a sympathizer with
Speaker 1: or or a collaborator. I guess with what the Japanese,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use about that, Yeah, that he was collaborating
Speaker 1: with them to enrich himself. Uh and then also you know,
Speaker 1: in his capitalism. So that's obviously not gonna fly with
Speaker 1: these guys. But there's another another player enters the game, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the big one, because lets we forget, the US is
Speaker 1: involved and has an interest here and they want to
Speaker 1: get those uh those huckbows literally running for the hill.
Speaker 1: So inter Air Force Brigadier General Edward G I read
Speaker 1: this originally, and I thought I said Landslide, which would
Speaker 1: have been an awesome last name for a general, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately it is Lansdale, Um. And he is a huge
Speaker 1: proponent of a little something called psy ops. Ben bless
Speaker 1: us with your military history, acumen. What psy ops? Thank
Speaker 1: everybody knows psychological operations also known as psychological warfare. This
Speaker 1: includes everything from propaganda given to soldiers over the radio
Speaker 1: to things like post armies that we have mentioned before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like in Vietnam, Um, the US military used the sounds
Speaker 1: recorded sounds of like wailing damned ancestors of the Vietcong,
Speaker 1: and it it works. So I would say psy ops
Speaker 1: a sort of the art of freaking out your enemy, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way to describe its intimidation,
Speaker 1: and Landsdale is very, very familiar with this. There's a
Speaker 1: great book by an author named Max Boot called The
Speaker 1: Road Not Taken Edward Landsdale in the American Tragedy in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: which touches on some of Lansdale's activities. Lansdale is no
Speaker 1: stranger to psy ops. He's a he's a huge fan
Speaker 1: of psychological warfare, and he has he has chops, he
Speaker 1: has some has some things on his resume that are
Speaker 1: unethical but impressive. He orchestrates a campaign in Vietnam that
Speaker 1: makes nearly a million refugees flee the country because he
Speaker 1: hired a soothsayer to predict good fortune for South Vietnam
Speaker 1: and bad luck for the North. Wow, so not firing
Speaker 1: a shot, just getting into people's head. Yeah, you want
Speaker 1: reminds me. There's an episode of Monty Python where it's
Speaker 1: like the most dangerous joke in the world and they
Speaker 1: use it against their enemies, and only every like major
Speaker 1: commander can only hold like one word of the joke
Speaker 1: at a time, because if they themselves read it in
Speaker 1: one go they would be stricken mad or whatever. So
Speaker 1: they hold it up for the enemy to see it.
Speaker 1: You see it takes some kind of a minute to
Speaker 1: recognize what it is, and then they all just laugh
Speaker 1: themselves to death. Uh, you know, obviously kind of a
Speaker 1: silly satirical version, but sort of describing this phenomenon that
Speaker 1: we're talking about here using people's thoughts and attitudes and
Speaker 1: preconceived ideas against them. Yes, and we have a quote,
Speaker 1: uh from Landsdale himself. It's something called the Aswong Project
Speaker 1: dot com SI war in the Philippines. Aswong and the
Speaker 1: c I A. So this is before his Vietnam and stuff,
Speaker 1: by the way, So Lansdale says, a combat SI war
Speaker 1: squad was brought in to the Philippines. It planted stories
Speaker 1: among town residents of an Asswhong living on the hills
Speaker 1: where the hooks were based. So they spread these They
Speaker 1: spread these rumors, and then two nights later, after giving
Speaker 1: the stories time to sort of percolate up to the hucks,
Speaker 1: the ambushers silently snatched the last man of a patrol
Speaker 1: and they killed him. They punctured his neck with two
Speaker 1: holes as if a vampire bit him, and they hung
Speaker 1: his body up by the heels to exanguinate him, to
Speaker 1: d drain him of all blood and then they took
Speaker 1: the corpse and they dragged it back to the trail
Speaker 1: where the guy would have disappeared, and he just plopped
Speaker 1: his body out there. So what happened next, Well, they
Speaker 1: like littered these corpses, you know, with all around the area.
Speaker 1: And it did not go over well with the with
Speaker 1: the invading forces right or the you know, attempting to
Speaker 1: overthrow forces right right, the communist rebel groups. They returned,
Speaker 1: they were trying to look for their comrade. And can
Speaker 1: you imagine how frightening that is? Like, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It may sound silly for people to be frightened of
Speaker 1: a mythological monster, right, but imagine you work with someone,
Speaker 1: like think of all your coworkers. You work with someone,
Speaker 1: You go out to a party with them, they disappear,
Speaker 1: You come back the next day and you find them
Speaker 1: with bite marks and no blood. That's frightening. I might
Speaker 1: fall for that. I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean? You know, tensions are already running high in
Speaker 1: this true in the situation, just like guerrilla warfare. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's the here's the kicker. Though this was psy ops
Speaker 1: on the surface, but psy ops typically doesn't involve war
Speaker 1: crimes because you're not supposed to. You know, they're capturing
Speaker 1: these people and then there basically torturing and murdering them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know they're They're not like putting them in pow camps.
Speaker 1: They are using them, using their flesh and blood as
Speaker 1: some kind of crazy horror show to freak out their
Speaker 1: their comrades. And that brings us to an interesting question
Speaker 1: here because you know, it's this event is not something
Speaker 1: that happened across the Philippines for you know, years and years.
Speaker 1: It was this single operation. But they may not have
Speaker 1: been actually scared of Naswong at all. They may have
Speaker 1: just been scared of getting kidnapped and used as you know,
Speaker 1: psychological torture for their compatriots. And a Huck squadron at
Speaker 1: this time was about a hundred to three hundred soldiers,
Speaker 1: and we don't know whether they were actually scared of
Speaker 1: of a fictional creature or whether they were scared of
Speaker 1: the very real and very ruthless as you mentioned c
Speaker 1: I A right. Yeah, he had another trick that he
Speaker 1: liked to use Lansdale called the Eye of God. And
Speaker 1: this is much similar to the ghost tape kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: We will hear about in Vietnam um where they basically
Speaker 1: I don't know if they used a spooky voice over
Speaker 1: the loudspeakers, but they were like calling out the names
Speaker 1: of prominent huck you know, the commanders and threatening them
Speaker 1: with certain death. And you know, I mean, can't you
Speaker 1: picture of being kind of Scooby duod out like that?
Speaker 1: Oh get to the best part though, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So adding insult to injury, they would also um creep
Speaker 1: into their camp and paint these spooky eyes on the
Speaker 1: tent or wherever the people were sleeping the house, I
Speaker 1: guess they had little huts. This is like they were
Speaker 1: in their villages. I guess. For some reason, that seems
Speaker 1: even creepier to me, to even creepier than hearing a
Speaker 1: weird noise, waking up and finding this non consensual artwork,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. This didn't like you know,
Speaker 1: clear the Huck's out overnight or anything. I mean it.
Speaker 1: You know, it took about four years before Louis Taruk,
Speaker 1: who had been the eater of of this organization for
Speaker 1: quite some time, actually surrendered and accepted a prison sentence.
Speaker 1: So you know, I mean, it's really interesting to read
Speaker 1: about this stuff. And it's certainly a fascinating uh type
Speaker 1: of warfare that often you mentioned earlier. Max Boot historian
Speaker 1: says that this tactic was actually considered a war crime
Speaker 1: because they were killing these Filipino soldiers um deliberately instead
Speaker 1: of you know, capturing them um as enemy combatants. And
Speaker 1: then of course they were mutilating their corpses too, so
Speaker 1: not not a good look, but I guess effective. I
Speaker 1: don't know what do you think then? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: definitely not a good look, but certainly effective. And the CIA,
Speaker 1: so we clarify here, the CIA is telling the Filipinos
Speaker 1: soldiers in the army to attack the communist rebels and
Speaker 1: use these tactics, and they do work. I mean, by
Speaker 1: the fifties, I think, as we mentioned, the huck certain
Speaker 1: serious decline and Lansdale will go on to do more
Speaker 1: of this sort of stuff, especially in Vietnam. As we
Speaker 1: mentioned before, the type of techniques he applied were also
Speaker 1: sometimes called black combat. He also did another another psyop
Speaker 1: we should mention. He would have different messages broadcast. Know
Speaker 1: you had mentioned earlier, the messages warning rebel leaders and
Speaker 1: so on, but they would also fly planes very low
Speaker 1: overhead and broadcast messages to make the rebels believe spies
Speaker 1: were in their midst and they couldn't trust one another.
Speaker 1: So eventually the rebels surrender, And there's no argument about it.
Speaker 1: These tactics were very useful to Landsdale and to the
Speaker 1: Army of the Philippines. The question that we have to
Speaker 1: ask ourselves is at what price victory? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? It's not right to desecrate corpses. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not And um, you know, I think our
Speaker 1: boy Lansdale would go on to use slightly less brutal
Speaker 1: techniques later in his career, but I guess this was
Speaker 1: just kind of a different time. He's also for anybody
Speaker 1: who wants a little bit of a lost treasure story.
Speaker 1: He also shows up in the old legend of Yamashita's Gold,
Speaker 1: which is this horde of treasure that was stolen by
Speaker 1: the Japanese forces during World War two and hidden somewhere
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, and the according to the story, it's
Speaker 1: still there and you can go search for it yourself,
Speaker 1: as many other treasure hunters have tried over the past
Speaker 1: few decades. We should mention the existence of this treasure
Speaker 1: is largely not taken seriously by a lot of experts,
Speaker 1: but of course who doesn't want to find it. You
Speaker 1: can read more about that by checking out work of
Speaker 1: the author Sterling Sea Grave, who claims the gold was
Speaker 1: secretly seized by the US government after the location was
Speaker 1: discovered by interrogating and torturing uh yamashitas driver a major
Speaker 1: Kojima Kashi. And then here's where Lansdale comes in. Apparently
Speaker 1: he supervised the torture allegedly. Yeah, okay, he's a hardened mofo,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. I mean, if he's hanging up dudes
Speaker 1: by their toes and stabbing him in the side of
Speaker 1: the neck and draining their blood and for the purposes
Speaker 1: of spooking some enemy combatants, and then this guy could
Speaker 1: probably do just about anything. How many um, I guess
Speaker 1: folkloreic beliefs or mythological monsters. Do you think people honestly
Speaker 1: believe in? Because I've heard in Iceland that people still
Speaker 1: believe in uh fairies or nos trolls. Maybe, yeah, maybe trolls.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, I don't know. Man, like I
Speaker 1: I I want to believe You're very molder about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I'm just moldy, um and and and sad
Speaker 1: and beaten down by life. Ben. But no, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know who are we to say? Who are we
Speaker 1: to say that's that's a good question, um, And you
Speaker 1: know what that makes me think of? You know the
Speaker 1: people who are to say, wow is awkward. Let's do
Speaker 1: the listener mail, Let's do it well. Dominic Allen has
Speaker 1: this to say, Hello, Jents, just listen to your episode
Speaker 1: on the naming of California, and you asked us to
Speaker 1: tell you if we ever have seen a griffin. I
Speaker 1: have seen part of one, rather own part of one.
Speaker 1: Maybe this ties in beautifully with today's episode two. We
Speaker 1: just asked a question, what mythological creatures do you believe in?
Speaker 1: Dominic says he owns one. I shouldn't dilly dally and
Speaker 1: explain myself in there was a man called John mannvel
Speaker 1: Or was there who wrote a book called The Travels
Speaker 1: of Sir John mannvel Or did he? In this travel book,
Speaker 1: he visits Asia and talks about the weird and wonderful
Speaker 1: people and creatures that live there, one of them being
Speaker 1: a griffin. This is also one of the more boring creatures.
Speaker 1: He talks about He states that griffins are from a
Speaker 1: country called Baccaria, and had talents so long as the
Speaker 1: quote or quote so long, and so large, on great
Speaker 1: upon his feet, as though they were horns of great oxen,
Speaker 1: or of bugles, or of kind, so that men make
Speaker 1: cups of them to drink of. So what I meant
Speaker 1: was I have a drinking horn which is made from
Speaker 1: the supposed claw of a griffin. I interjected with that
Speaker 1: supposed at least that's what I tell people. I'm part
Speaker 1: of a fourteenth century living history group in England and
Speaker 1: it is a great conversation piece, as drinking horns weren't
Speaker 1: as popular in that time, but a griffin claw is
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing. The travels of Sir John Manville could
Speaker 1: be a good podcast topic. I agree the people in
Speaker 1: the book are pretty ridiculous. Thanks for the podcast, look
Speaker 1: forward to more as they come. Always be ridiculous, not
Speaker 1: going to be a problem, Dominic out now. We literally
Speaker 1: are are contractually alligated a kid doing this, like we
Speaker 1: get in trouble if we don't. But also that's so amazing.
Speaker 1: This really inspires me to ask more questions on the show, Dominic.
Speaker 1: Thank you for also bonus points if you can send
Speaker 1: us a picture. Man, Oh yeah, we'd love that. And
Speaker 1: I assume that you're not doing the fourteenth century living
Speaker 1: history thing all the time, just because you did send
Speaker 1: us an email. This arrived via email, not via uh
Speaker 1: pigeon or parchment or a pigeon carry imparchment, But that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I would love to see a picture of this drinking horn.
Speaker 1: And I'm completely on board with the travels of Sir Mannville.
Speaker 1: Our next listener mail is one that uh I, I
Speaker 1: think both of us are really gonna dig. It is
Speaker 1: from Darren T and it's titled hangus the Monkey. Hi,
Speaker 1: says Darren. I listened from the start, but that's my
Speaker 1: first time writing. I've just heard your recent podcast pasked
Speaker 1: on the Heartletpool Monkey. I live in Thornaby on Tease,
Speaker 1: ten miles up the road from Hartlepool, Heartlepool. He notes
Speaker 1: his tea side, not time side, and he goes on
Speaker 1: to say I was taught about this as a lesson
Speaker 1: on propaganda and racism in primary school, showing how people
Speaker 1: with nothing to go on but propaganda about how all
Speaker 1: Frenchmen are short, wild and Harry can lead to this stuff.
Speaker 1: Whether this is a true story or not, it works
Speaker 1: as a great teaching tool, although I personally don't believe
Speaker 1: it is true. I think it was just an excuse
Speaker 1: for mocking nickname for people from the area. Here's the
Speaker 1: part you like. Noal like Macum's, which are people from Sunderland,
Speaker 1: and Smoggy's, which are people from Middlesbrough. But it's a
Speaker 1: bit of fun. Thanks for the hours of entertainment, Darren. Ps.
Speaker 1: You pronounced all the town side towns and cities correctly.
Speaker 1: Thank you? Can Casey, can we get a Hallelujah clip o? Perfect?
Speaker 1: So I gotta say, Darren, thank you for writing. I
Speaker 1: am loving these very specific derogatory nicknames Mackam's, Smoggy's. Does
Speaker 1: every town in England's have one of these? We don't
Speaker 1: have anything like that for Atlanta. Guess I guess people
Speaker 1: just say redneck, right, it's true. Well, maybe if you're listening,
Speaker 1: you can suggest a cool mocking nickname for people from Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I will say this about that episode. I do think
Speaker 1: we kind of glossed over the fact that this was
Speaker 1: an interesting teachable moment about racism and mothering and this
Speaker 1: idea that this monkey supposedly was, you know, immediately identified
Speaker 1: as being a Frenchman, and that was how Frenchmen were
Speaker 1: depicted in these political cartoons of the time. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a something to be said about that.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if we mentioned this in the
Speaker 1: episode either, but there is actually a play about the
Speaker 1: Hartley Pool Monkey. I think we did, but it's if
Speaker 1: we didn't describe it. It's so cool to look at
Speaker 1: because it's this really amazing puppetry. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with the play war Horse, Um, that's got
Speaker 1: this amazing like multi layered, uh puppetry sculpture kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's what the Harleypool Monkey play is about. And
Speaker 1: it does kind of take a little liberty and talk
Speaker 1: more about that, like the way we treat immigrants and
Speaker 1: things like that, and so it's it's a there's a
Speaker 1: kind of a twofold story there. And thank you again
Speaker 1: to Dominic and Darren for writing in. Thank you, fellow
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians for giving us a listen to day. While
Speaker 1: we're thanking people, let's go ahead and thank our super producer,
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Thanks also to our research associates, Eves Jeff's
Speaker 1: Code who helped us out with this one. H and
Speaker 1: also Christopher Haciotis, who continues to be a mensch and
Speaker 1: we love him dearly and I think we might actually
Speaker 1: have him on. We might have him on for an episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's coming back. It's over to Uh thanks to
Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed our theme, and UH thanks to
Speaker 1: thanks to Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister for not showing
Speaker 1: up on this episode. I have a feeling we haven't
Speaker 1: seen the last of him. I hear that laugh in
Speaker 1: the distance and I don't think it's Casey piping it
Speaker 1: through the headphones. It haunts me a night man. Yes,
Speaker 1: and speaking of haunting, we want to hear some of
Speaker 1: your favorite ridiculous historical events involving the supernatural or allegations thereof.
Speaker 1: You can tell us about these on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter,
Speaker 1: and we particularly like to give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our Ridiculous Historians Facebook page. It's one of the classiest
Speaker 1: joints on the Internet. Yeah, and when one last little plug,
Speaker 1: Ben and I recently appeared on a three part episode
Speaker 1: of Behind the Bastards, which is a really really amazing show.
Speaker 1: Out of our l a wing hosted by Robert Evans,
Speaker 1: who is just a cracker jack writer and researcher, and
Speaker 1: he was kind enough slash sadistic enough to have you
Speaker 1: and I on for a four hour podcast marathon about
Speaker 1: the infamous Alex Jones. Yeah, it's a it's a great listen.
Speaker 1: Robert's a great guy. It is not for children. There
Speaker 1: is strong language. If you want to hear me and
Speaker 1: Ben eff and and Jeffen, that's the place to do
Speaker 1: it and mature themes. But that was a good shout. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and follow behind the bastards. If you like us, you're
Speaker 1: gonna really dig that show. It's true and all three
Speaker 1: parts of that trifecta are out. Now. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a real commitment. It's a road trip. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's it. Man. Let's uh, let's try to continue
Speaker 1: our habit of uh not desecrating corpses to win wars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not digging up pope corpses to make points. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, Halloween, y'all, not even telloween all year?
Speaker 1: Send us Jesus