Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Super Producer Max. Can I
Speaker 1: get some bubbles going? Bubble bubble, bubble, bah blah blah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: though there's a though, the calming, placid waters maybe still
Speaker 1: on top. There's a flurry of activity beneath. So as
Speaker 1: you can tell, we are. We're doing today's episode from
Speaker 1: the Jacuzzi of the mind. They called me ben No,
Speaker 1: how about we how about we invite people into this
Speaker 1: uh hot tub of an episode. This is a this
Speaker 1: is something just picturing, like you know, you're bisecting someone's skull,
Speaker 1: cutting off the top part and you know, just turning
Speaker 1: the brains into into squish and then just kind of
Speaker 1: bathing in it with your arms around the edge off
Speaker 1: someone's head. I don't know, is that weird? I think
Speaker 1: it's weird that I'm saying it out loud. It's going
Speaker 1: with him. It's dark, but hey, just the season, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Uh, And it's also perfect weather,
Speaker 1: some would argue for a hot tub. We also want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to our research associate for
Speaker 1: this week Uh. Max Williams the very same bubble, bubble bubble,
Speaker 1: our resident hot tub expert. He's been this for some
Speaker 1: time now, Uh, much to your chagrin at times been Matt's.
Speaker 1: Max is always bringing up hot tub times, the before times,
Speaker 1: before he knew you. And I think there's been a
Speaker 1: little pomo there, and today I think we can kind
Speaker 1: of take up for that. Yeah, maybe I I have
Speaker 1: a lot of hot tub adventures that are probably not
Speaker 1: fit for a family show, So we'll just go Hitchcock rules. Folks,
Speaker 1: imagine what happened off screen. But yeah, this is our
Speaker 1: long waited hot tub episode. Now. For a lot of
Speaker 1: us in the modern day, at least in the United States,
Speaker 1: you might think of hot tubs and their glory days, Uh,
Speaker 1: somewhere in the same echelon of like the rain of
Speaker 1: water beds, you know what I mean, or seventies conversation pits.
Speaker 1: But if we if we describe a hot tub basically,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what it sounds like, right, you you get
Speaker 1: you might see these in hotels sometimes too. Write you
Speaker 1: get the streams of water that that don't like they
Speaker 1: come from multiple faucets or speak they cascade. I would
Speaker 1: argue they're a little you know, waterfall thingies, and then
Speaker 1: you've got the jets, which is, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. It creates the bubbles that
Speaker 1: that we so know and left. Sometimes you can kind
Speaker 1: of tell the caliber of the hotel you're in by
Speaker 1: the shape of the hot tub. If it's heart shaped, Uh,
Speaker 1: you might be in Vegas. You may have just gotten
Speaker 1: married by an Elvis impersonator. Or it could also be
Speaker 1: one of those rent by the hour to kind of
Speaker 1: kind of motels. Uh. It takes all cons but in general,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's typically round around kind of plastic
Speaker 1: e thing like shell, usually situated within sight, within some
Speaker 1: sort of like wooden frame, and typically they're outdoors. It's
Speaker 1: sort of that's sort of how we think about it
Speaker 1: in general, Like a jacuzzi tub is one thing, but
Speaker 1: a hot tub is for the out of doors. And uh,
Speaker 1: one day, I've got god, I'm coming up with so
Speaker 1: so many inappropriate stories right now. I one time accidentally
Speaker 1: stayed in what's called a love hotel in Japan, which
Speaker 1: is which is uh was a surprise to me in
Speaker 1: a condemnation of my terrible Japanese and uh, you know what,
Speaker 1: just by picking up context skills, but that that had
Speaker 1: an epic hot tub. It took up like half the room.
Speaker 1: The hot tub thing. It's a universal appeal and might
Speaker 1: be surprised learn ridiculous historians. It's quite an ancient appeal.
Speaker 1: Hot tubs are a innovation or an iteration, a spin
Speaker 1: on the ancient love humans have for getting a good soak. Imagine,
Speaker 1: if you will, the first ancient humans stumble across a spring,
Speaker 1: maybe near a mountain, and they realize quickly, hey, this
Speaker 1: is not your usual spring. It's warm, it might even
Speaker 1: be dangerously hot. But let's let's soak our bones here.
Speaker 1: Hunting and gathering is tough. Let's let's take a let's
Speaker 1: take a quick fifteen you know what I mean, just
Speaker 1: a so yeah. I was got to stay in a
Speaker 1: little retreat in a place called Hot Springs, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: I believe, and they literally just have these kind of
Speaker 1: hot tub enclosure things built around these naturally occurring springs. Um.
Speaker 1: I will also hearken back to the story we did
Speaker 1: with Alex Williams to composed our theme about the kind
Speaker 1: of the gentleman who sort of did a bad job
Speaker 1: at wildernessing col that's the one he ended up getting
Speaker 1: like his flesh seared off by Old Faithful or something
Speaker 1: like that. He lay on the thing thinking that it
Speaker 1: was gonna light warm him up, and it really just
Speaker 1: kind of did a number on him. It's dangerous. You know.
Speaker 1: I've been in many like natural springs, and sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm weird about it, man, because something like in
Speaker 1: Uh it was in Guatemala and they said, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go these hot springs, and they were, Okay, they
Speaker 1: weren't freezing, but they were like warm springs. If you
Speaker 1: go to warm springs Georgia here in our home state, Uh,
Speaker 1: then you'll also find that they were. They were managing
Speaker 1: expectations with the names, but some of these things can
Speaker 1: be blistering hot. You're absolutely You're absolutely right, Nolan. I
Speaker 1: think we're on the same page with this, Folks. If
Speaker 1: you get a chance to hang out at a natural
Speaker 1: hot spring, do so. It's a cool experience. People. As
Speaker 1: far as we can tell, I have always loved soaking
Speaker 1: in warm or hot natural springs. Even in ancient history
Speaker 1: we see this happen. The Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia
Speaker 1: was home to Hot Springs and again in a lot
Speaker 1: of hunter gatherers, and we've got innovations from the ancient world.
Speaker 1: Like when you think of the ancient world, you think
Speaker 1: of like Greeks, you think of you know, Roman, the
Speaker 1: Roman era. You also think of ancient Egypt. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise anybody that the ruling class of Egypt was super
Speaker 1: into hot springs. There were a particular sort of folk.
Speaker 1: We gotta lock those down too, you know. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you gotta you gotta good established
Speaker 1: domain dominion around these precious entry points into the Earth's
Speaker 1: geothermal powers. And it really is truly like a harnessing
Speaker 1: of the Earth's natural wonder, you know. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: being very David Attenborough about this, but it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And it's also not something that every would have access
Speaker 1: to because they're not They're not just everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll have these kind of hot spots where they
Speaker 1: will there will be some you know, here and there,
Speaker 1: like again in Hot Springs, North Carolina, when I was
Speaker 1: talking about some of the spots you mentioned, Ben, But
Speaker 1: it's not something that kind of happens randomly. There have
Speaker 1: to be some certain criteria meant to have these um
Speaker 1: take place. Yeah, it's just like the idea of using
Speaker 1: geothermal power. You have to be in the right location,
Speaker 1: just like real estate. It's all location. We do know
Speaker 1: that the very well to do in the ancient world
Speaker 1: started quarreling with the idea of being bound to geography,
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, let's make our own hot water
Speaker 1: type things. And that's uh, that's how we know that.
Speaker 1: In ancient Egypt, the very wealthy had well had the
Speaker 1: peasants build bathing chambers and they would take what you
Speaker 1: would think of as like an old, very old school shower.
Speaker 1: They would have their servants get hot water and then
Speaker 1: you know, like pour the jugs water over their heads
Speaker 1: while they're like brainstorming about the pyramids or the Sphinx.
Speaker 1: And this was cool or actually this was pretty neat
Speaker 1: for the person getting the bath, but all the people
Speaker 1: who had to help make the shower happen probably hated
Speaker 1: their jobs. You know, you gotta heat the water up yourself,
Speaker 1: you gotta carry it all the way to wherever the
Speaker 1: rich person is. That's why I think maybe to your
Speaker 1: point and all the the ancient Greek method was a
Speaker 1: little bit better when they were building on pre existing
Speaker 1: hot springs, and there are some of the first groups
Speaker 1: of people who believed this stuff had a magical power
Speaker 1: to heal, which is also why Warm Springs, Georgia was
Speaker 1: home to a US president once upon a time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the idea too of like just naturally occurring springs
Speaker 1: of any kind. Like there's a little there's a theme
Speaker 1: and this new TV series The Midnight Club, um, which
Speaker 1: is I've I've quite enjoyed, uh, the idea of you know,
Speaker 1: uh springs, natural naturally occurring springs, drinking water, possessing some
Speaker 1: sort of natural healing abilities, and that's something that's really
Speaker 1: you know, persevered throughout history. So yeah, the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: built these like bath houses essentially, or they referred to
Speaker 1: them as thermal complexes on top of hot springs, uh,
Speaker 1: for that very reason. They carved seats into the natural rock,
Speaker 1: and that that is actually how the hot springs situation
Speaker 1: in in North Carolina is as well. You're literally sitting
Speaker 1: in these holida out pieces of rock, these kind of
Speaker 1: boulder deals. They created these very beautiful, aesthetically um kind
Speaker 1: of carved out bath houses where you know, the well
Speaker 1: to do could could relax and and likely cavorted. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we know the bath houses, especially of the
Speaker 1: Greek variety, did have a reputation for being a place
Speaker 1: where hanky panky might occur. Uh with watchful eyes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and deed of whomever you know watches for those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. The Hanks to depict and Turkish bathhouses acquired
Speaker 1: a similar reputation, at least as community centers much later on,
Speaker 1: By the way, but we know that Roman architects started
Speaker 1: creating those public bath houses using a kind of analog
Speaker 1: of modern day concrete, so they were genuinely building out
Speaker 1: these structures instead of just carving out granted really cool
Speaker 1: seats by the rocks. Uh. And this idea took off.
Speaker 1: This was amazing. It was like it took off the
Speaker 1: way like chia pets took off in a more in
Speaker 1: a more modern comparison, everybody needed to to like go
Speaker 1: see and be seen at the bath house. In two
Speaker 1: inter BC, they were building the first public bathhouses. By
Speaker 1: thirty three CE there were almost two hundred there one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy bathhouses in Rome. And this is where
Speaker 1: the aqueduct thing comes in. Aqueducts are so cool. Gravity
Speaker 1: power are ways to move water around an area, and
Speaker 1: they would put cold water. They would transport cold water
Speaker 1: into the bathhouses. And then they used something that was
Speaker 1: new to me at least before starting this episode. They
Speaker 1: used a heating system called the hypo cost to warm
Speaker 1: the water. And then also eventually, uh, they got their
Speaker 1: technology to the point where they could heat the floors
Speaker 1: and walls. Have you guys ever been in a place
Speaker 1: where the heated floor Oh yeah, I think I have,
Speaker 1: like in a fancy hotel. But it's definitely, you know,
Speaker 1: an extra feature for sure. It's not standard in this
Speaker 1: part of the world. I think probably in colder areas
Speaker 1: and probably colder parts of the world it might be
Speaker 1: a little more common. It's in Korea too. I had
Speaker 1: a landlord, well correction, I was living in a friend
Speaker 1: of mine's house. That's but by the way, better way
Speaker 1: to describe that. And he had he had floors in
Speaker 1: his bathroom, like one time he was like out of TWN.
Speaker 1: He's like, if you want, you can use the bathroom
Speaker 1: with the heated floors, and like, will do it? Was nice? Okay,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a very particular bathroom guy. I mean
Speaker 1: that is, like to Knowle's point next, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a pretty custom or bespoke kind of feature in the house,
Speaker 1: so you don't really see them here in the United
Speaker 1: States that often. We're gonna get to Japan in a minute,
Speaker 1: but I want to just even like to take a
Speaker 1: take a quick swing at another um kind of analog
Speaker 1: form of this type of relaxation that you do still
Speaker 1: see like in gems and all of that. You know,
Speaker 1: the sauna, the idea of like a steam room that yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's exactly coals anymore, but I think,
Speaker 1: like you know Scandinavia, there would literally be like a
Speaker 1: thing of coals that you would pour water on and
Speaker 1: it would create steam, and that would be the source
Speaker 1: of the steam that you'd allow you to kind of
Speaker 1: again sort of soak your bones in a in a
Speaker 1: different way, more of a reverse way, and then you
Speaker 1: beat yourself with a branch of course. Oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do be a call back alert guys. Um, do you
Speaker 1: guys remember the episode we did about the Sausage War, Yes,
Speaker 1: the the Honest Expedition. Yeah, yeah, but at the very
Speaker 1: end we're talking about saunas and we're talking about how
Speaker 1: they would have um in Finland, those casts that you
Speaker 1: can put your sausage in with you when you get
Speaker 1: sauna and cook your sausage while you're sitting a sauna.
Speaker 1: I just want to bring that back up because it
Speaker 1: felt fitting too. Yeah, because they are they're they're very
Speaker 1: much multifunctional. They're meant to relax you and allow you
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of a sit down and
Speaker 1: collect your thoughts perhaps, and also again this idea of
Speaker 1: healing properties. But you know, why not be able to
Speaker 1: eat your sausage while you're at it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a shower beer um. But it's Japan that really kind
Speaker 1: of takes to the next level and inspires what would
Speaker 1: go on to become the hot tub that we know
Speaker 1: and love. Oh and we have to point out why
Speaker 1: this became the case. The Roman Empire loved hot tubs,
Speaker 1: but then the Catholic Church had a problem with it,
Speaker 1: and so during the medieval period a lot of them
Speaker 1: disappeared in that part of the world because it was
Speaker 1: seen as a social center that distracted from you know, theocracies.
Speaker 1: This didn't happen in Japan, As he said, Japan really
Speaker 1: creates or leads to what we call the modern hot
Speaker 1: tub today, and they had the geography for it. Again,
Speaker 1: it's an archipelago with a lot of natural hot springs,
Speaker 1: and even like even today, what's really interesting is if
Speaker 1: you go into a Japanese house there there's a soaking bathtub,
Speaker 1: but you wash your body before you get into that bathtub.
Speaker 1: It's like a mini hot spring, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: regular thing. Super cool. Their bathroom so far ahead of ours.
Speaker 1: I agree. I've always also wondered, like, why would anyone
Speaker 1: take a bath just on its own and think that's
Speaker 1: gonna do the trick because you're literally just steeping in
Speaker 1: your own philm after a point, so it's like, do
Speaker 1: the shower, then enjoy the soak in the bathtub. But
Speaker 1: don't get the two twisted. They're not the same, uh.
Speaker 1: And also, a hot tub is not really meant to
Speaker 1: clean yourself per se. It's more of like a fun
Speaker 1: activity and the water is kind of circulating and it's treated,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily going to harbor some of these
Speaker 1: gross things that we're worried about that might just hang
Speaker 1: around if you're soaking in a pool of stagnant warm water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you don't lay in puddles on the street, do you.
Speaker 1: Anti bath Cruise would say, the same logic applies. Max
Speaker 1: is on the fence. Max is like, I've seen some
Speaker 1: good puddles. Yeah, you know, we get those real heavy
Speaker 1: rainstorms here in Atlanta. Just see a good one, especially
Speaker 1: like you know, especially like downtown Atlanta, really deep like
Speaker 1: potholes in the side. They look pretty good to me.
Speaker 1: And you know it's hot outside, jump out in there,
Speaker 1: splash around a little bit. I mean, the water on
Speaker 1: on the street where I live in Atlanta, uh has
Speaker 1: has at points gotten almost a knee level. Uh So
Speaker 1: maybe we'll be maybe we'll street surfers later. But in
Speaker 1: terms of bathing in Japan, which again is just streets
Speaker 1: ahead of the rest of the world, they have three
Speaker 1: types of hot baths. They have the onsen, which I
Speaker 1: think most of us have heard about. Now that's that
Speaker 1: could be a public bathing house or private entity, but
Speaker 1: it's located around hot springs they get that geothermal energy.
Speaker 1: And then they have the They have the CentOS, which
Speaker 1: are a little more like the Roman version. It's constructed
Speaker 1: to imitate natural hot springs, but they use technology to
Speaker 1: heat the water and then the ones. Oh that's the
Speaker 1: word for the ones I was thinking about, Oh, furos.
Speaker 1: Those are the whole, the whole hot tubs, and they're
Speaker 1: they're really the antecedent of the modern hot tub. But
Speaker 1: this is the strange each thing. Man, if you live
Speaker 1: in the US and you love hot tubs, you owe
Speaker 1: a big thank you to American veterans returning from World
Speaker 1: War Two, the ones who were stationed in Pacific Theater
Speaker 1: and in Japan. They got on board with this hot
Speaker 1: tub culture and they brought it to the US. I
Speaker 1: wonder also if they brought those futuristic bid days you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. That's absolute Wait, what are
Speaker 1: you just describing bidays as futuristic in general? Or is
Speaker 1: there a futuristic type of BI day that I might
Speaker 1: not be aware of? Oh the you're you're aware of it.
Speaker 1: The Toto brands like the washlet Yeah, yeah, well the
Speaker 1: one that uh that spins around in a circle, It
Speaker 1: spins you right round, baby, right round. I've I've been
Speaker 1: I was, I encountered one that would like today music
Speaker 1: for you? So but can you hear you do your
Speaker 1: business and eats and you know, we'll have nature sounds
Speaker 1: and then I had to come back to us toilets barbaric,
Speaker 1: absolutely barbarica. Now I completely agree. So we have now
Speaker 1: a guy who needs no introduction, although we're going to
Speaker 1: introduce him knowing what we know now about pop culture.
Speaker 1: And you know, he just sounds like a made up
Speaker 1: cartoon character. But the guy, you know what, the chicken
Speaker 1: or the egg? What came first? The Jacuzzi or the
Speaker 1: person Roy Jacuzzi? Uh, And the answer is Roy Jacuzi.
Speaker 1: But now it just sounds like a bad pseudonym for
Speaker 1: a pimp or something like water bed crime. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels like his commercial would play after Donna on the
Speaker 1: Wolfman's Yeah, that's what I think. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: he like runs crooked card games. This is nominative determinism
Speaker 1: has worked in reverse and against this poor man who
Speaker 1: was a good inventor. You know, it's clearly, yeah, he
Speaker 1: just got associated with the with the wrong thing, you know,
Speaker 1: the wrong crowd, the wrong thing water. But again, they're
Speaker 1: they're perfectly legitimate uses for the Jacuzzi, but I think
Speaker 1: people tend to not call them jacuzzis anymore because there's
Speaker 1: a sleeze associated with that word. For some reason. So
Speaker 1: hot tub. Uh, this is a little bit less, but
Speaker 1: it's still even that has itself. Well. I also I
Speaker 1: also believe that Jacuzzi is a brand of tub. You
Speaker 1: can't go around calling everything a hot tub because it
Speaker 1: might be offensive because it's like, no, no no, that's not
Speaker 1: a Jacuzi brand hot No. But but but that's the same
Speaker 1: as Xerox became just ubiquitous for mimeographs or whatever, like
Speaker 1: coke became ubiquitous for soda. I mean, people will definitely
Speaker 1: use Jacuzi in the same way. Yeah. Well, you guys
Speaker 1: are talking about is what's called a generic trademark, and
Speaker 1: there are lots of lawsuits about it. You will also
Speaker 1: hear about companies asking people not to call everything they're
Speaker 1: branded product the most notorious. By the way, I'm speaking
Speaker 1: from experience, the Frisbee people, you can't call it a
Speaker 1: Frisbe unless Frisbee makes it. Otherwise it's like a throwable
Speaker 1: fline disc. But the disc. I'm I'm fascinated by this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think you raise a good point about generic
Speaker 1: jacuzzis how do we get that. The problem there, though,
Speaker 1: has been the try as they may, you can't really
Speaker 1: put that Genie back in the bottle and and honestly
Speaker 1: it's a credit to the innovation of the brand in question.
Speaker 1: Um you know what I mean. So it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: they wouldn't want people to do that because it's really
Speaker 1: just free advertising for them. But to the point it
Speaker 1: gets it can muddle the conversation where it's like you
Speaker 1: can call everything an aspirin. It's not an aspirin. It's
Speaker 1: it's a seat of menefin or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Yes, it can cause well,
Speaker 1: well it can cause major brand recognition. It can muddle
Speaker 1: that brand's recognition at the same time, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally makes sense. And that's that could be an
Speaker 1: episode all its own as well. Uh, the four Jacuzzi
Speaker 1: became synonymous with hot tub. We've got to talk about
Speaker 1: Roy Jacuzzi's great uncle. And one thing that might surprise
Speaker 1: a lot of people is the jacuzzi wasn't invented for
Speaker 1: bound bound mount sexy times. It was invented for what
Speaker 1: we would call hydrotherapy, right like it was meant to
Speaker 1: help I also really quickly, yes, I also really People
Speaker 1: do want to point out too that I think more
Speaker 1: people think about sexy hot tub times than actually participate
Speaker 1: in them. It doesn't work, and it's it's you get overheated,
Speaker 1: and if there's you know, vigorous movement going on, you're
Speaker 1: gonna you might pass out. It's not it's not the
Speaker 1: best idea. They say, you know, limit your time in
Speaker 1: the Jacuzi too, you know, thirty minutes at a time,
Speaker 1: which no one listens to. They also drink when you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to drink. That's another thing. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: have that other thing in the equation. It's a recipe
Speaker 1: for disaster. But in eight roy Jacuzi is great. Uncle
Speaker 1: thought it would be a cool idea like raise a
Speaker 1: Lynsky from like Honey I shrunk the kids style to
Speaker 1: put an aerating pump into a bathtub people doing this
Speaker 1: to provide some comfort, some pain relief to his son
Speaker 1: who had really bad roomor toward arthritis, had only fifteen months.
Speaker 1: Uh and as we know hydrotherapy, this this does work.
Speaker 1: You know, in in sports medicine they always altered in
Speaker 1: between hot and cold and things like that. And a
Speaker 1: soak in a in a hot tub is much more
Speaker 1: or ice cold bath is much more of a of
Speaker 1: a remedy than like a luxury. Yeah, and people have
Speaker 1: believed in the curative powers of water for such a
Speaker 1: long time. I always love to point out that here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, where old Office was a place called Ponts
Speaker 1: City Market, there's actually an underground spring that was built
Speaker 1: over and it was something that for thousands of years
Speaker 1: local populations had thought of as a sacred spring. Uh.
Speaker 1: So history is all around you. The world is a
Speaker 1: palam tested basically, And uh does that have to do
Speaker 1: with Ponts de lay On and and him being you
Speaker 1: know and those explorer who saw the Fountain of u Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's where the connection. Well, from the real quick backstory,
Speaker 1: it was a grift. The street has named that because
Speaker 1: so not completely above board. People wanted to lean into
Speaker 1: advertising and have folks pay to go to the springs
Speaker 1: to try to cure various maladies, and they totally ripped
Speaker 1: them off. But that's Jacuzzi. The Jacuzzi family is not
Speaker 1: associated with that. They're, like we said, doing hydrotherapy and
Speaker 1: it can have efficacy, It can at least help relieve suffering. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily going to cure anything, but it will
Speaker 1: help ease the pain or the symptoms. So let's learn
Speaker 1: a little bit about these guys, the Jacuzzis, which sounds
Speaker 1: like a great upcoming HBO show. They came from Italy
Speaker 1: in the nineteen hundreds and they were always inventors. I
Speaker 1: am so impressed with people who are full time inventors.
Speaker 1: They made what they make, water pumps for agriculture. They
Speaker 1: made the world's first submersible pump, which doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: a big deal until you need one, by the way, uh,
Speaker 1: I think that's what led them to the idea of
Speaker 1: the hot tub. I think that's right. And the idea
Speaker 1: of the submersible pump is to literally pull water up
Speaker 1: from the ground. And this was what inspired the type
Speaker 1: of hydraulic pump that was used to create that you know,
Speaker 1: hydro therapy situation that could turn a bathtub into you know,
Speaker 1: something a little a little more sparkly and potentially you know, curative,
Speaker 1: because it moves the water around, It circulates the water
Speaker 1: around the you know, the joints and the parts of
Speaker 1: the body that are in pain, and that can make
Speaker 1: a difference as well. So Roy he used the idea
Speaker 1: that he had, you know, observed from his great uncle,
Speaker 1: and UH created what he branded as the Roman, which
Speaker 1: was a you know, a bath a bathtub that had
Speaker 1: jets that would do a fifty fift air to water ratio.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack that a little bit. I imagine that this
Speaker 1: has to do with the strength of the jets and
Speaker 1: and how you know, how much air was being combined
Speaker 1: with the water to create that effect. Yeah, it's how
Speaker 1: much punches in the pump, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And this uses uh air propulsion. So these are air
Speaker 1: jetted hot tubs, which will later be a technology we
Speaker 1: see in countless other knockoff versions this. However, the Roman,
Speaker 1: you have to say it like that, folks. The Roman
Speaker 1: get quiet, storm with it one more time. The Romans Roman.
Speaker 1: There it is, so the Roman, right, that's the JR.
Speaker 1: So that's for That's for chuahuas Uh. The Roman is
Speaker 1: the very first of its kind that people have heard about.
Speaker 1: But if you are a if you're a World War
Speaker 1: two veteran, you might be familiar with this particular reindeer game.
Speaker 1: People love this, and people started making a lot of
Speaker 1: claims about how it helped out their various health conditions.
Speaker 1: These claims are often not founded in science just important
Speaker 1: to note, and Jacuzi wasn't out trying to build people,
Speaker 1: and we're just like, hey, we got the future tubs
Speaker 1: right here. They only wanted the Jacuzi family only wanted
Speaker 1: the Roman to be indoors at first, right, and maybe
Speaker 1: help other people who had things like Ruman toy darthritis.
Speaker 1: But folks recognized a social opportunity. If you could get
Speaker 1: a hot tub out on a porch in like a
Speaker 1: nice cat been in the woods or something, you can
Speaker 1: gather around, you know, put it by your pool, you know,
Speaker 1: have a party, you can unwind, you can have the
Speaker 1: equivalent of a shower beer, even though you're not supposed to.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of how if you're
Speaker 1: ever at a gathering in someone's house for some reason,
Speaker 1: the kitchen often becomes the central hangout area, even when
Speaker 1: there's like a living room with the TV. People were
Speaker 1: just drawn to the hot tub. They wanted to congregate
Speaker 1: around it, sort of the way that wildlife in the
Speaker 1: savannah might congregate around water. Source. Yeah, I want to see.
Speaker 1: This is roughly around the same time it was depicted
Speaker 1: in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie Licorice Pizza where the
Speaker 1: water bed was a big thing. I think it was
Speaker 1: maybe a little earlier, like maybe like seventies six or
Speaker 1: seventy seven, but it was in nineteen seventy nine that
Speaker 1: the hot tub there was just like a craze. You know.
Speaker 1: Businesses started making their own versions of that, because again
Speaker 1: it's hard to how do you get patent the spat
Speaker 1: specifics of putting a water pump in a in a bathtub? Water? Oh,
Speaker 1: I am Ben Waterson for the purposes of this dumb bit,
Speaker 1: and I have copyrighted the temperature of water. I don't
Speaker 1: guess you guys say that, but there was a school
Speaker 1: in Ohio who recently got a copyright on the on
Speaker 1: the word of the so stupid things can happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's more of like a troll than
Speaker 1: it is something that would actually be functional, and in
Speaker 1: a court of law, I would argue. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like whoever came up with the first fidget spinner,
Speaker 1: they're either kicking themselves because they didn't padent it or
Speaker 1: it's too you know what. While it is novel, it's
Speaker 1: also generic enough that other people can make it in
Speaker 1: different shapes, and it's just about combining these ball bearings
Speaker 1: with these little plastic wings. Same with the hot tub,
Speaker 1: same with the water bed. You know, you had like
Speaker 1: the original, except no substitutions. Except people accepted tons of substitutions.
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen eighties you had the Watkins Brothers.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of nominat of dem terminism. There
Speaker 1: could be the Waterkins Brothers. They released their own spa
Speaker 1: made of something called Rovell, which was a material that
Speaker 1: could be like extruded. Uh. It was a coming from
Speaker 1: Tao that made it um So it was essentially like
Speaker 1: like what do you call that? Been like vacuum extrusion
Speaker 1: kind of like almost like you know, you can create
Speaker 1: shapes out of plastic essentially or out of like a
Speaker 1: plastic type material. Um. So then you can get all
Speaker 1: these like vinyl acrylic uh kind of seats instead of
Speaker 1: using polyester resin. So there were you know, these surface
Speaker 1: problems that have been the thing because in the seventies
Speaker 1: you had a lot of leakage and problems with cracking
Speaker 1: of acrylic hot tubs and you know all of that,
Speaker 1: and they were heavy. You could now have lighter weight
Speaker 1: ones that could be sexier colors and and have little
Speaker 1: butt shaped you know seats because it was all used
Speaker 1: this kind of vacuum extrusion, uh you know process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were able to more easily make bespoke, customized molds.
Speaker 1: And this material science is important evolution because in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy when everybody jumped on are jumped into the hot
Speaker 1: tub trend, they were using a lot of fiberglass. And
Speaker 1: like you said, fiberglass can crack, it can splinter, it's
Speaker 1: it's got problems. But with this innovation from Rovell and
Speaker 1: the Watkins Brothers, hot tub sales reached two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand. I've got in n I've got some weird
Speaker 1: hot tub facts. I just want to share one this like,
Speaker 1: we'll do it at the end, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: spoil one right now. You guys, as we were recording
Speaker 1: this episode, as you were hearing it, seventeen thousand people
Speaker 1: are currently sitting in a hot tub right now, right now,
Speaker 1: people in heaven, right now. How many How many of
Speaker 1: them do you think are peeing? Somebody just stopped, so
Speaker 1: we just stopped. We know it's you. So these are
Speaker 1: really popular, but there are still a lot of knock offs,
Speaker 1: right and This is a status symbol item. To have
Speaker 1: a hot tub means that you have gotten ahead of
Speaker 1: the Joneses in your social circle. By the ninety nineties,
Speaker 1: consumers are starting to get wise to this. At hot
Speaker 1: tub manufacturers, if they want to stay in the game,
Speaker 1: they have to make stuff that's a little bit higher quality.
Speaker 1: And that's when we start seeing replacements for the old
Speaker 1: school wooden cabinet where the mold and the and the
Speaker 1: pumps would go inside. Now they have a synthetic cabinet
Speaker 1: and this doesn't need all the maintenance that a wooden
Speaker 1: structure would need. So wooden structure starts to become niche,
Speaker 1: then it becomes obsolete. Uh, and like we see with
Speaker 1: every you know what this reminds me of. This reminds
Speaker 1: me of the early days of soda. When soda was
Speaker 1: first coming out, there were there was this vast panopoly
Speaker 1: of different brands. You know, everybody had a soda brand,
Speaker 1: and now it's it's really narrow to just the top performers.
Speaker 1: And that's what been to with hot tubs. Yeah, it's right.
Speaker 1: And you know, like any boom, oftentimes, like many booms,
Speaker 1: rather oftentimes there's gonna be a bust. Uh, when things
Speaker 1: rise in popularity so quickly and everyone's got to have,
Speaker 1: and there's a feeding frenzy, it either just kind of
Speaker 1: meat it peaks early, or people get kind of tired
Speaker 1: of there's a general waning interest. Um. So at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, hot tubs are coming in all the first
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes, and all these different companies are making
Speaker 1: different ones. They're being um, they're being marketed in different ways.
Speaker 1: They're being designed to fit both inside of homes and
Speaker 1: in yards. Some of them are leading more into the
Speaker 1: therapeutic kind of angle of it all if you look.
Speaker 1: So we're now at a place where the hot tub
Speaker 1: where it's it's kind of old hat, but I mean
Speaker 1: we still love it. That's where this is. This whole
Speaker 1: conversation came from the idea to explore this. You know,
Speaker 1: hot tubs are the kinds of things that you look
Speaker 1: for in a mountain cabin rental getaway. You know, would
Speaker 1: I go so far as to buy one? I don't know?
Speaker 1: There are you know. Coleman, for example, makes an inflatable
Speaker 1: hot tub that you can put in your backyard. How
Speaker 1: comfortable am I having an inflatable anything in my backyard.
Speaker 1: I I don't know. It's hard to say. You gotta
Speaker 1: get one of the what are the fun doodle guys
Speaker 1: are not fundals. The wavy wavy arm dudes from dealers,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta get them. Uh man, I used
Speaker 1: to have one of those there. Those are more like
Speaker 1: a novelty, you know, decoration. But the idea of having
Speaker 1: an above ground pool, it's really easy to kind of
Speaker 1: rag on people for that. It's sort of like a
Speaker 1: sign of like, Okay, you can't quite afford a pool,
Speaker 1: so you're getting get enough above ground pool. It tend
Speaker 1: to get a little grimy. No shade to anybody that
Speaker 1: has an above ground pool. I'm just saying this is
Speaker 1: the perception I think at large. Uh. Same with like
Speaker 1: an inflatable hot tub. They do seem pretty cool. But
Speaker 1: do I want to be that guy that has an
Speaker 1: inflatable hot tub? Do I really want one that back?
Speaker 1: Can I just do a cabin thing? Feels like it
Speaker 1: does feel like glamping thing? I agree. Um So now
Speaker 1: where we're used to this, we've got literally inflatable hot
Speaker 1: tubs you can buy. Uh. There are some models that
Speaker 1: lean more into the efficacy of the therapeutic jets and
Speaker 1: all of that. There are some that are just like,
Speaker 1: you know, totally leaning into the absurdity and seventies and
Speaker 1: nests of it because it's a throwback thing at this point.
Speaker 1: But if you look back, this was in fact a
Speaker 1: very very, very very interesting idea. It was two things
Speaker 1: kind of combined from history, uh and modern kind of
Speaker 1: you know, industrial revolution to make something kind of new.
Speaker 1: And it also came up in the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: again with like the Waterbed, where there were spokes people
Speaker 1: that became you know, synonymous with these products, like Suzanne Summers,
Speaker 1: uh and the what was it the thime Master or whatever.
Speaker 1: I believe Suzanne Summers was also initially a hot tub spokesperson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a shout out to a previous episode we
Speaker 1: did here. Uh. So we talked about reality television with
Speaker 1: our pal an A from Ailey's Eike Eist and ethnically Ambiguous,
Speaker 1: and we talked about that frighteningly dystopian TV show Queen
Speaker 1: for a Day. The Jacuzzi Brothers advertised on Queen for
Speaker 1: a Day it was part of your prize if you
Speaker 1: got your wish because you had the worst, most tragic
Speaker 1: sob story as graded by an audience. That's how Dystopiated is.
Speaker 1: Check out our episode there. But yeah, we're nailing a
Speaker 1: really important thing here in current society and even back then,
Speaker 1: which wasn't too long ago, one of the main ways
Speaker 1: to make a new product popular was to have people
Speaker 1: who are liked in the public sphere endorse it. So
Speaker 1: right now, I would posit that we could take something
Speaker 1: that's I don't know, like some weird you don't really
Speaker 1: need it type of invention, and then if you get
Speaker 1: enough celebrities to say they like it, then everybody will
Speaker 1: want one. It doesn't really matter what it is. The
Speaker 1: hot tub played the same role, you know, big celebrities
Speaker 1: at the time, like you mentioned Suzanne Summers, j Mansfield,
Speaker 1: They're they're endorsing this, and people are thinking, I want
Speaker 1: to be like Suzanne Summers. I also want to feel
Speaker 1: I have made it and Suzanne's never let me wrong before,
Speaker 1: whether or not that was true. So you also see
Speaker 1: this in television shows and movies. People are relaxing and
Speaker 1: unwinding and all sorts of things across the Yeah, in
Speaker 1: game show in terms of the prize, you know, like
Speaker 1: yourself hot tub installation for your home, you know, patio
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. And now you can see
Speaker 1: the hot tub. The hot tub craze may have cooled
Speaker 1: down a bit, but it's still very much it's still
Speaker 1: very much there, you know, like you can find countless
Speaker 1: hot tubs at hotels. You'll find them both in the
Speaker 1: rooms and you know by the pool area. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have hot tubs in their house. Some of
Speaker 1: the more fancy ones have a lot of customized wile options.
Speaker 1: They can see like nine people, because there's nothing worse
Speaker 1: than being at a hot tub party and they're not
Speaker 1: being enough room for everyone. Uh. The one thing I
Speaker 1: really like, and there's a boring thing for me to like,
Speaker 1: but I'll say it. I like that they have self
Speaker 1: cleaning technology. Now that is a game changer if you've
Speaker 1: ever had to clean the pool. And I imagine again
Speaker 1: training as a family show, I imagine there are people
Speaker 1: who have had to clean hot tubs and hated the experience.
Speaker 1: Oh god, yah, yeah, I mean I just you know,
Speaker 1: I remember h having a neighborhood pool and and then
Speaker 1: they're being a real commotion when the little kid, you know,
Speaker 1: pooped in the pool. And then some somebody had to
Speaker 1: deal with that. Somebody had to deal with that. I
Speaker 1: know it's a dirty job. Picture the local lifeguard, teenagers
Speaker 1: drawing straws. Who's got to be the poop man today?
Speaker 1: But either way, we know that this started out as
Speaker 1: an invention that just was meant to help relieve the
Speaker 1: pain of one person, and now it really has helped
Speaker 1: millions of people. And you know, at this point, like
Speaker 1: that's the main story. But at this point we've got
Speaker 1: some tangents, some things that Max you thought were interesting,
Speaker 1: so weird hot tub facts I thought were interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: pop culture loves a hot tub. Even now, you guys
Speaker 1: remember Hot Tub time Machine. I can't believe that was
Speaker 1: in twelve years ago. Actually saw it. I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about it though lately as we've been talking more about
Speaker 1: hot tubs. Well, the plot is basically the title. It's
Speaker 1: one of those films. I like that though, so I
Speaker 1: feel like you just saw it now by hearing the title.
Speaker 1: So before we close out today, let's let's round robin
Speaker 1: a list of the most incredible best hot tubs in
Speaker 1: the world. Also, I would I would just like the
Speaker 1: post of people if they want to look at these
Speaker 1: while we're reading them off because they're very impressive. Go
Speaker 1: to Outside online and the eight most Spectacular Hot Tubs
Speaker 1: in the World, because they're they're pretty awesome. Alright, well
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued. What what do we have here? Well, the
Speaker 1: first one is that it on its surface looks like
Speaker 1: something you might see in like the Super Smash Brothers
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong Country stage. Because it's literally like a like
Speaker 1: an old school barrel with like, you know, metal kind
Speaker 1: of brackets on it. And these two fellas sitting there.
Speaker 1: But it's like in the wilderness and there's a massive
Speaker 1: waterfall just off to the left of it. Looks absolutely remarkable. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, depends on your position on the sound of
Speaker 1: rushing water, if you find that distressing or or soothing.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody found that soothing. People are distressing. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe I'm just I'm a different kind of
Speaker 1: cat guy. We're just making you know, we're making room
Speaker 1: for everybody. However, you react to water. If you don't
Speaker 1: like waterfalls, then uh, fear not, because there are many
Speaker 1: other very fancy hot tubs. Let's go to Queenstown, New Zealand. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's the Mata Corey Lounge. It's on the shore of
Speaker 1: Lake Wakatipu, and it's got a incredibly you know what
Speaker 1: I would call it. This hot tub is just extra.
Speaker 1: It's perched on a balcony where you have like access
Speaker 1: to a helicopter, you can charter a boat. Uh, they've
Speaker 1: got an on site chef and they give you a
Speaker 1: hot stone massages. And if you don't like that hot tub,
Speaker 1: then there's another whirlpool. Yeah, let's read this is also
Speaker 1: a list of hot tubs that you cannot afford. Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's accurate. And let's let's drive for
Speaker 1: realism here. The list goes on like there are hot
Speaker 1: tubs in Wyoming that will blow your mind Iceland as well.
Speaker 1: Right now, as we are recording, we do have to
Speaker 1: note that there is some signs, Like here's some science
Speaker 1: I did find. If you spend fifteen minutes in a
Speaker 1: hot tub per day for one week, you can have
Speaker 1: an eleven percent drop in QUARTI zone, the stress hormone.
Speaker 1: It really does change your chemistry a little cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: You ever heard of Jackson Hole? Yeah, to get away
Speaker 1: for the rich and famous. I do want to point
Speaker 1: out that I was able to get a price estimate
Speaker 1: on that one is only for Obviously we wouldn't get
Speaker 1: this room because we're gonna go as booge as possible.
Speaker 1: But like the lowest end room is only dollars a night,
Speaker 1: highest end ones about and only has a king size bed.
Speaker 1: So Ben, you're gonna be sleeping at the foot of
Speaker 1: the bed. Do they take Ben Bucks, I'll just get
Speaker 1: I'll get the other room. Okay, Yeah, that works to me. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's after a four thousand foot tram
Speaker 1: ride straight up. I mean, I think we gotta go, guys,
Speaker 1: let's do Yeah, this is what I would call, like, uh,
Speaker 1: an infinity hot top. Think of it like those infinity
Speaker 1: pools you see in like a crazy galatial Hollywood estates.
Speaker 1: And uh, then of course we should also mentioned the
Speaker 1: are the creme de la creme of the estimated twenty
Speaker 1: six million functioning hot tubs all across the world, where
Speaker 1: every year forty three thousand bottles of champagne are opened.
Speaker 1: What about how you should have done a little speck on.
Speaker 1: I mean this is based on the maca way open
Speaker 1: the story talking about chopping off someone's skull cap and
Speaker 1: making a hot tub of the mind. I wonder how
Speaker 1: many people end up dead in hot tubs. That, my friend,
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a darker statistic, but I
Speaker 1: have it partially. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission
Speaker 1: the CPSC, more than three hundred people die each year
Speaker 1: in an accident related to a hot tub. So that
Speaker 1: could be slipping by the hot tub, that could be
Speaker 1: falling asleep, that could unfortunately be eating, drowning, maybe asphyxiation,
Speaker 1: but a heart attack based on sexual activity mixed with
Speaker 1: alcohol mixed with heat. Yeah, but that's this is why,
Speaker 1: this is why you'll here directed like, don't spend more
Speaker 1: than twenty minutes in a hot tub. But I I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest, I have flagrantly disregarded that rule us
Speaker 1: every time, same same, But again, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: here to tell you how to live your life. I
Speaker 1: found an incredibly pointed headline on the Tampa Bay uh
Speaker 1: dot com website. It says, by Judy Stark, meant to soothe,
Speaker 1: the hot tub can kill bum bum bum? Is this
Speaker 1: from April of ninetn I just that's such a great headline.
Speaker 1: But um, and speaking of other great headlines, my headline
Speaker 1: for today this is a fun episode Noel Brown and
Speaker 1: I hope you found an interesting folks. If this doesn't
Speaker 1: quite heat your tub, I have no fear. We are.
Speaker 1: We are boldly going to a place our history show
Speaker 1: has yet to explore. We hope you joined us on
Speaker 1: our continuing mission. Those are all the hints we're gonna
Speaker 1: drop today. But yeah, what a pleasure I would I
Speaker 1: agree with you. No, that's that's the headline. We end on.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to Mr Max Williams, our super producer.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to our Resetreach associate wait for it, Mr
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Indeed, thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Speaker 1: Christopher astiotis here in spirit, heves Jeff Coats love following
Speaker 1: eaves On on social media The South Africa Adventures. Yeah
Speaker 1: South African Uh, literary adventures? Um with eaves That should
Speaker 1: be a Discovery Channel show or you know, National geographic show.
Speaker 1: Let's get a little high more highbrow um and hey,
Speaker 1: thanks see you, Ben. We finally hot tubbed it up together,
Speaker 1: even if it was only in the hot tub of
Speaker 1: our minds. Right on, then next list to water beds
Speaker 1: or water boarding or maybe too well, baby water beds. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough, We'll see you next time puts for more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.