Bob and Marcia discuss historical and trivia topics. They explore Peter the Great’s disguise as a dock worker to learn shipbuilding secrets, leading to Russian modernization. They reveal that cats have 276 facial expressions, as documented by UCLA researchers. Bob and Marcia also delve into movie trivia, such as Robert Redford’s breakout role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and John Wayne winning Lassie in a poker game. They explore various museums, including the Mob Museum and the National Comedy Center. Additionally, they discuss the Curies’ Nobel Prizes, the Minutemen, and the discovery of dinosaurs, highlighting George Washington’s pre-dinosaur era death.
Outline
Peter the Great’s Disguise and Shipbuilding Adventure
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a famous leader who spent two years in disguise as a dock worker.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the time period, guessing it was in the 1600s.
- Speaker 1 reveals the leader is Peter the Great of Russia, who disguised himself as Sergeant Pyotr Mikhailov to learn shipbuilding secrets from the Dutch and British.
- Peter the Great spent four months at the Dutch East India Company shipyard and another four months at the Royal Navy’s Dockyard at Deptford, learning shipbuilding innovations.
- He also visited Arsenal schools, museums, and even attended a session of parliament in disguise.
Peter the Great’s Reforms and Beardlessness Campaign
- Peter the Great modernized Russia, transforming the military and changing the calendar and the way Russian was written.
- He attempted to make Russian men go beardless, similar to modern European men, but faced opposition from the Russian Orthodox Church.
- Peter the Great taxed beards to raise money for the state, with taxes ranging from 100 rubles for nobility to one Kopec for the poor.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the success and failure of Peter the Great’s beardlessness campaign.
Cats’ Facial Expressions
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about an animal with 276 different facial expressions.
- Bob Smith guesses a chimpanzee, but Marcia Smith reveals it is a cat.
- Researchers at UCLA recorded 194 minutes of cat facial expressions at a cat cafe, identifying 276 unique expressions.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the surprising number of expressions cats have compared to humans.
Robert Redford’s Career Launch and John Wayne’s Poker Game
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a role that launched Robert Redford’s career.
- Marcia Smith guesses “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and Bob Smith confirms it.
- Bob Smith shares that Marlon Brando was originally cast as Paul Newman’s co-star but turned down the role due to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a connection between John Wayne, Lassie, and a poker game.
- Marcia Smith is surprised to learn that John Wayne won Lassie in a poker game with Lassie’s owner, Rud Weatherwax.
Cake Trivia and AKA (Also Known As) Game
- Marcia Smith introduces a category called “AKA” (Also Known As) with a focus on cakes.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith play a game where Marcia Smith gives clues about different types of cakes.
- They discuss various cake names and their meanings, such as “sheet cake,” “Devil’s Food Cake,” and “pound cake.”
- Bob Smith expresses his dislike for the category, but Marcia Smith finds it enjoyable.
Lou Gehrig’s Movie Role and Cooper Pedy’s Underground Living
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a famous baseball player who almost replaced Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan.
- Marcia Smith guesses Lou Gehrig, and Bob Smith confirms it.
- Bob Smith shares that Gehrig appeared in a 1937 movie called “Rawhide,” which was panned by critics.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the unusual living conditions in Cooper Pedy, Australia.
- Bob Smith explains that more than half the residents live underground to escape the scorching summer temperatures.
Henry Fonda’s Early Acting Days and Sweating Like a Pig
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a woman who encouraged Henry Fonda to get into show business.
- Marcia Smith guesses Marlon Brando’s mother, and Bob Smith confirms it.
- Bob Smith shares that Brando’s mother ran the Omaha Community Playhouse and was a family friend of the Fondas.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the origin of the phrase “sweating like a pig.”
- Bob Smith explains that the phrase comes from the iron smelting process, where hot iron is poured into molds called “pigs.”
Marie and Pierre Curie’s Nobel Prizes and Bananas’ Curvature
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about a family tradition started by Marie and Pierre Curie.
- Bob Smith reveals that the Curies won Nobel Prizes together in two generations.
- Marcia Smith shares that Marie Curie almost didn’t win her Nobel Prize due to her gender, but an advocate for women in science ensured her inclusion.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the Curies’ contributions to radioactivity and their work during World War I.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about why bananas are curved, and Bob Smith explains it is due to negative geotropism and photosensitive hormones called auxins.
Museum Trivia and Michelangelo’s Hiding Place
- Marcia Smith quizzes Bob Smith about various museums in the United States.
- Bob Smith identifies all the museums as real, including the Mob Museum, National Comedy Center, Spam Museum, Museum of Love, International Banana Museum, Museum of Sex, and Museum of Broken Relationships.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss their interest in visiting these unique museums.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a famous artist who had to hide from a death sentence ordered by a pope.
- Marcia Smith reveals that Michelangelo hid from Pope Clement VII, who was a Medici and wanted him dead for treason.
Minutemen and Historical Figures Before Dinosaurs
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the Minutemen and their significance during the Revolutionary War.
- Bob Smith explains that the Minutemen were a small elite force known for their rapid response and readiness.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith which historical figure died before the discovery of dinosaurs.
- Bob Smith reveals that George Washington died before dinosaurs were scientifically recognized, in 1799.
- Bob Smith shares that the first dinosaur to be scientifically named was Megalosaurus, discovered in 1824 by British naturalist William Buckland.
Quotes and Closing Remarks
- Marcia Smith shares a quote from Horace Greeley about the enduring nature of character.
- Bob Smith appreciates the quote and its emphasis on the importance of character.
- Marcia Smith shares a humorous quote from a Welsh jury foreman about finding a man who stole the mayor not guilty.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith wrap up the show, inviting listeners to contribute facts and questions for future episodes.
- The show credits the Cedarburg Public Library and CPL radio for their support and production of the show.
Bob Smith 0:00
What famous leader spent two years in disguise as a dock worker learning his adversary’s secrets,
Marcia Smith 0:06
and what non human animal has 276 different facial expressions?
Bob Smith 0:12
Wow, yeah, answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 0:18
Marcia Smith. You Music.
Bob Smith 0:36
Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Well, Marcia, this is a tantalizing tale. What famous leader spent two years in disguise as a dock worker learning his adversary’s secrets?
Marcia Smith 0:54
Two years. That’s a long time.
Bob Smith 0:57
It was parts of two years, okay? And it was in Europe.
Marcia Smith 1:00
Do I know this person? You’ve
Bob Smith 1:02
heard of. His name. The year was 1698 oh, well, that figures, doesn’t it?
Marcia Smith 1:08
I go back that far. I don’t know Bob. You
Speaker 1 1:10
remember him? Peter the Great? It was Peter the Great of Russia. Yeah. He spent parts of 1697 and 1698 traveling in disguise to learn how the superpowers Holland and Great Britain built such wonderful ships.
Marcia Smith 1:24
No kidding, yeah, I
Bob Smith 1:26
didn’t know this. He traveled incognito as Sergeant Pyotr mykolov to blend in, and he spent four months working at a shipyard for the Dutch East India Company, where he learned ship building innovations. That was a famous company, wasn’t it? Absolutely and you know, the Britons and the Dutch were exploring the world. What’s so great about their ships? So he spent four months there in Holland, learning about the Dutch East India Company. Then he went to Great Britain and worked in the Royal Navy’s Dockyard at Deptford, learning British shipbuilding. He also visited Arsenal schools, museums, even attended a session of parliament in disguise, the czar of Russian nobody recognized him. So
Marcia Smith 2:05
did it work? Did their ships get better? Yes,
Bob Smith 2:07
they did. He started an ambitious program to modernize Russia. He transformed the military, changed the calendar, changed the way Russian was written, yeah. But the one thing he ultimately failed at, he tried to get Russian men to go beardless, like the modern European men that he saw on this trip. Oh, okay. And he began this beardlessness in a dramatic fashion at a reception in his honor, Peter pulled out a massive Barber’s razor and began to personally shave the beards of all
Marcia Smith 2:37
of his guests. Oh, my God. Well, that’s a little presumptuous, and then he ordered
Bob Smith 2:41
all Russian men to shave their beards. No kidding, very unpopular with everybody, including the Russian Orthodox Church, which considered going beardless blasphemous. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 2:52
it’s pretty pushy.
Bob Smith 2:53
So what did he eventually do? He taxed beards. He put a tax on beards because he figured he could make money for the state, while allowing people to keep their beards. If you were nobility and merchants, the tax could be as high as 100 rubles. If you were a poor person, the tax could be as low as one Kopec. And that’s the story of the world famous leader who spent two years in disguise as a dock worker to learn the secrets of his adversaries. Peter the Great, okay,
Marcia Smith 3:21
very interesting. All right. Bob, what animal has 276 facial expressions?
Bob Smith 3:28
Well, you know, I’d be tempted to say a chimpanzee or something like that. Is it? No, oh, it’s not a nothing, not a member of the primate family. Then, no. What is it? A squid? I can’t imagine. No, this
Marcia Smith 3:39
will surprise and shock you. Okay,
Bob Smith 3:42
I’m ready to be shocked.
Marcia Smith 3:44
It’s a cat. What? What
Bob Smith 3:45
was that? Again? How
Marcia Smith 3:47
many facial 276 unique facial expressions. See,
Bob Smith 3:51
they look the same to me, no matter what they’re mad or happy. Yes, in
Marcia Smith 3:55
2021, Bob researchers at UCLA, who had nothing better to do. Okay, that was, that was editorial,
Bob Smith 4:03
yeah, okay. Recorded 194
Marcia Smith 4:07
minutes of cat to Cat facial expressions at a nearby cat cafe, a cat cafe, Cat Cafe lounge. Oh,
Bob Smith 4:16
my, oh, well, of course, not, not just the cafe, but the lounge. Jesse, yes.
Marcia Smith 4:21
Then they coated all those facial muscle movements, excluding things like chewing and yawning, and discerned 276 unique expressions. 276
Bob Smith 4:31
Yeah, different expressions, yeah, that a cat makes, yeah. Wow.
Marcia Smith 4:35
Humans, by comparison, have about 10,000 cats still have far more expressions than experts realized. As one vet behaviorist put it, there is clearly a lot going on that we are not aware of, even after 10,000 years Bob of domestication and an even greater number of cat videos, which I’ve seen them all. Oh, geez, little lions in our living room. Still have the capacity to surprise. That’s
Bob Smith 5:02
funny. It is. It
Marcia Smith 5:04
is funny.
Bob Smith 5:05
Okay, Marsh, I have a couple of things from the movies. What great American actor can Robert Redford? Thank for the role that launched his career, that really got him onto the big time.
Marcia Smith 5:15
What role Wasn’t he in a twilight zone or something? Well,
Bob Smith 5:18
we’re talking about the huge big time. He has a movie star. Was
Marcia Smith 5:22
he a star in it? Or, Yes, he was a star.
Bob Smith 5:24
He was one of two stars in it. Oh,
Marcia Smith 5:26
was that Butch Cassidy?
Bob Smith 5:28
Yes, that’s right. Marlon Brando was the original choice as Paul Newman’s co star in Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance was up
Marcia Smith 5:36
for a lot of big parts, and he didn’t take all the people that made a lot of money off his rejected parts, I don’t know
Unknown Speaker 5:45
if we should jump down the cliff. Then what you know, but he
Marcia Smith 5:48
had been that friendly with
Bob Smith 5:50
Paul Newman and Marlon Brando, I
Marcia Smith 5:51
don’t know. And Robert Redford did have a certain playfulness, I know. Yeah, Marlon would have had he was
Bob Smith 5:57
funny. I mean, adorable. But apparently, when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. Brando said the tragedy upset him so much he had to turn down the role. So Robert Redford, who had only moderate success in films up to that time, took the role, and his career skyrocketed
Marcia Smith 6:12
from there, and he’s been huge ever since. Yes,
Bob Smith 6:14
and I have another one here, yeah, what did John Wayne Lassie and a poker game have in common? A poker game John Wayne, Lassie in a poker game.
Marcia Smith 6:21
And Lassie, well, that’s the part that throws me off. I don’t know. They’re all on playing cards.
Bob Smith 6:26
No, John Wayne won Lassie in a poker game. Oh, really. Oh, that’s funny. He won Lassie in a poker game with lassies owner Rud Weatherwax, who was a trainer in a game of poker. He didn’t keep the dog, though.
Marcia Smith 6:40
Okay, it’s time for AKA, or also known as, all right? The category is cakes, cakes. And you should know all these, I love cakes. Yes, you
Bob Smith 6:51
do. You know, cakes are one of those things. As you get older, you have them less and less, yeah, and
Marcia Smith 6:56
we get heavier and heavier without, that’s right. What’s the point? I don’t know. So if I said matrimony, what kind of cake am I talking about? A wedding cake. That’s it. You got the idea? Okay, how about a bed covering? A bed covering? Yeah, what kind of cake is that? A bed covering? It’s a cake. Uh huh. Don’t think of a blanket. It’s under the blanket.
Bob Smith 7:17
I’m confused. Sheet cake. Oh, dear God, okay, sheet cake. It’s not in the bed, though. Now I get it. Okay, don’t be literal.
Marcia Smith 7:24
Okay, on the bed. Okay, Satan’s substance. That’s Devil’s
Bob Smith 7:28
Food Cake, right? Inverted upside down. Cakes, correct?
Marcia Smith 7:33
Hashtag, sign,
Bob Smith 7:36
hashtag, sign, that is a cross hatch cake. I don’t know what that would that be, pound
Marcia Smith 7:42
cake, oh, pound cake, oh, god, okay, bananas and kumquats,
Bob Smith 7:47
bananas and kumquats, bananas and kumquats, banana bread, fruit cake, oh, fruit cake. Okay.
Marcia Smith 7:55
And finally, soft baseball hit a
Bob Smith 7:59
pound cake. Soft baseball, hit baseball. Soft, a bundt cake.
Marcia Smith 8:05
That’s it. All right for you.
Bob Smith 8:07
Oh God, I didn’t like that category at all. That was awful. You
Marcia Smith 8:11
did very well. Awful. Awful for you, No, and that’s from aka Marsh’s favorite card game.
Bob Smith 8:17
Okay, all right, back to movies. All right. Now we’re going way back back into the 30s. Okay? What famous baseball player almost replaced Johnny Weiss Bueller in Tarzan? I forgot
Marcia Smith 8:29
six I wasn’t around Bob, but let me just see you can read history books. Yeah, I have Okay, and we do all right. And
Bob Smith 8:38
how was it? What famous baseball player almost replaced Johnny Weiss cop No. Ty Cobb was much earlier than that. Oh, really. Oh, yeah. Like, what the 20s? Cobb was in the teens and the 20s. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 8:49
What about heavy guy? No, wasn’t Babe Ruth. No,
Bob Smith 8:53
a disease is named after him. Yes. Lou Gehrig. Lou Gehrig, yes. At one time, he was considered as a replacement for Johnny Weiss Bueller, but the movie deal fell through. Lou Gehrig did appear in at least one movie, though he was in a 1937 movie rawhide. It was like the series Clint Eastwood starred in. Unfortunately, the film was panned by nearly all the critics of the day. Okay,
Marcia Smith 9:12
all right, Bob, what’s unusual about how the residents of Cooper, petty Cooper, C, O, O, B, E, R of Cooper petty Australia live.
Bob Smith 9:22
What’s unusual about how they live? Yes, that most
Marcia Smith 9:25
of the residents in Cooper petty Australia something weird about how they live. That’s a strange name. Anyway, yeah, I can’t I have no idea what Cooper
Bob Smith 9:33
petty is it something to do with the climate? No, actually, yes. Oh, it does. Okay, yes. Is it because it’s a desert?
Marcia Smith 9:42
Well, it doesn’t say it’s a desert, but it’s pretty darn hot. Yeah, okay, tell me, they live underground. No kidding, yes, yes.
Bob Smith 9:50
So it’s down under. Down Under. Wow,
Marcia Smith 9:53
it’s very good. Okay? Cooper petty is Australian mining town known for producing 70% Of the world’s opals. Did you know that? No, I didn’t know that they also served as the filming location for the 1985 dystopian action movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Okay. However, it’s most famous for the fact that more than half its residents live underground. When Opal was first discovered in the area in 1915 miners flocked to the region, only to find that the summer temperatures could reach a scorching 113 degrees in summer. So rather than bail on this gold mine, so to speak, Opal mine, they prospectors dug houses into the hillside underground where the average temperature remained a balmy 75 degrees. No, then it makes sense to try to get to a cooler place. The network of underground buildings continued to expand over time, with additions including the desert cave hotel and several churches. They went underground too,
Bob Smith 10:56
an underground church, not for the reason you might think right. So my question on this is, are they still mining opals there?
Marcia Smith 11:03
Oh, yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of opals there. 2500 residents live underground, where the temperature remains consistent year after year.
Bob Smith 11:12
Okay, one more movie star. Okay, we’re going way back again. Okay? In 1925 young Henry Fonda, then an office boy for an Omaha Nebraska credit company was asked by a friend of the family to play a role with the Omaha Community Playhouse. It was his first work in show business. Who was the woman who asked him to try out?
Marcia Smith 11:32
We talking Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda was asked by what woman was it? Somebody like Mae West? No. Oh, okay, who’s a
Bob Smith 11:39
friend of the family? Oh, yeah.
Marcia Smith 11:41
I don’t know.
Bob Smith 11:42
It was a woman who was the mother of a one year old son, Marlon Brando Marlin is everywhere. Yeah. Brando’s mother, in other words, encouraged Henry Fonda to get into show business. She ran the Omaha Community Playhouse, no kidding. And they were family friends, the brandos and the fondest and, yeah, really, back in Omaha,
Marcia Smith 11:59
gosh,
Bob Smith 12:00
1925 I thought that was fascinating. I
Marcia Smith 12:02
didn’t know that. Okay, all right, you’ll like this. Bob, the phrase sweating like a pig is interesting because pigs don’t sweat. They don’t have sweat plants. So where do we get the phrase you’re sweating like a pig?
Bob Smith 12:18
Well, we get the phrase from somebody who doesn’t understand pigs. Obviously,
Marcia Smith 12:24
if you think about this, you’ll get the answer, okay, I don’t know where would that be. During the traditional iron smelting process, hot iron was poured into moles lined with sand called pigs, yeah, and arranged with one rudder, feeding in many rows, and the molds were said to resemble a row of piglets sucking a sow.
Bob Smith 12:43
Ah, that’s why they call them pigs. I always wonder why they call it pig iron and stuff like that. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 12:48
pig iron, the phrase sweating like a pig, comes from the fact that as the iron cools, water vapor condenses on its surface, and it’s a signal that you can handle it. Now it’s not too hot,
Bob Smith 12:58
okay? Marsha, in what family tradition. Did madam and Pierre Curie start? Family tradition? Madam and Pierre Curie, what did they start? What family tradition
Marcia Smith 13:08
filling beakers with apple juice? No, I don’t know. The
Bob Smith 13:12
family tradition was winning Nobel Prizes together, because it happened in two generations of their family.
Marcia Smith 13:19
Did you know that? Well, didn’t her daughter win one? Yes, that’s the whole
Bob Smith 13:23
thing, right? In 1903 scientists and spouses, Pierre and Marie Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their study of radioactivity, and they shared the award with another person. Marie Curie almost didn’t win the Nobel Prize, though. Do you know why?
Marcia Smith 13:37
Because she was a woman. That’s
Bob Smith 13:41
exactly right, even though she became the head of the physics laboratory at the Sorbonne in France and received a PhD, Doctor of Science degree. When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize for the study of radioactivity in 1903 they were initially not going to include Marie in the honor only because of her gender. Isn’t that special? Amazing? However, one of the committee members was an advocate for women in science, so he insisted she be included. So she won, and then her husband died. Did you know that he died in a traffic accident in 1906 I did. None. He did. And then she went on to win a second Nobel Prize on her own. That was in 1911 and then 25 years later, the Curies daughter Erin ja Leo Curie and her husband Frederick jollo Curie, they won a Nobel Prize in chemistry together. So that’s two couples in a row in the same family winning Nobel Prizes together. And apparently her work dealt with radioactivity for medicine. So anybody who’s had any kind of radiation treatment for cancer that comes from her work? Yeah, she and her mom both were involved in radioactive work, and of course, her mom died of the
Marcia Smith 14:52
radioactivity. Oh, no, I didn’t know that. Yeah. Well, yeah,
Bob Smith 14:55
she did. You’ve told me before we had a question where you said her papers are still radioactive. Active they can, oh, that’s right, I forgot all about that. So her mom died of that, but mother and daughter worked together during World War One. Madame Curie and her daughter traveled around battlefields with a mobile X ray unit that she invented to help treat wounded soldiers. So you can thank Madame Curie for not only cancer treatment, but any kind of mobile X ray equipment you might find. Okay, all right.
Marcia Smith 15:21
Well, let’s get more serious than that. Let’s talk about bananas. Why are they curved? Bob?
Bob Smith 15:27
Why are they curved? Yes, don’t they just grow that way? Why? What do you mean? Why?
Marcia Smith 15:33
Why do they grow curved? I
Bob Smith 15:34
don’t know. They hang on trees. They hang in bunches. They’re kind of all bunched together, and they’re all curved around the center, yeah, but I don’t understand why. Well, you haven’t asking the question, frankly, go ahead. Really. I
Marcia Smith 15:46
thought you being banana Bob, would find that. Tell me. Okay, this unique curvature is due to scientific concept called negative geotropism, of course, where the stem flexes upward as the plant grows, rather than being pulled down, straight down by the force of gravity, like most fruits and plants and stuff, while most fruits simply absorb sunlight and grow downward toward or into the earth, bananas begin to curve as they strive to find sufficient sunlight to fuel their growth. Oh,
Bob Smith 16:19
so they’re reaching for the sun. That’s it. Yes, I
Marcia Smith 16:22
see this has to do with the unique presence of photosensitive hormones called auxins, which influence how bananas react to light. Auxins
Bob Smith 16:30
pull wagons too. Since Bob au exile, oh, okay, okay. All right, time for a break. All right. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We will be back in just a moment. Okay, we’re back here at the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and its internet radio station. And after it airs on CPL radio, it goes all over the world. Come on, let’s try it again. It goes all over the world, yes, all over the world, on podcast platforms. You know, there have been a lot of crazy concepts for movies the last, I’d say, five or six years. I’ve seen some that are very strange. I saw a Western. Can’t remember the name of it, Western science fiction film, but it wasn’t the first western science fiction film. I’m gonna ask you who starred in up to recently, the only science fiction Western ever made?
Marcia Smith 17:25
Well, that was who started it. What was the name of it?
Bob Smith 17:29
It was called phantom empire.
Marcia Smith 17:31
Oh, never heard of that. No idea came out in 1935 no idea.
Bob Smith 17:35
Gene Autry, yeah. It was a musical science fiction Western, of course, came out in 1935 called phantom empire. It was set 25,000 feet underground. It featured cowboys in Flash Gordon type clothing. Won’t try anything here. Maybe they shot it in Australia. I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 17:55
That’s the sort of thing that when they dug up movies for the million dollar movie in the late afternoon, after school, you’d see things from a million years ago or at school Saturday matinee go, when did they make
Bob Smith 18:10
this? You had school Saturday matinee at schools? Yeah, on Saturday
Marcia Smith 18:13
afternoon, I’d walk over to garden homes, public school in Milwaukee, and we’d all, everybody would be there and we’d see cartoons in a movie
Bob Smith 18:22
on Saturday. Yeah, at your school,
Unknown Speaker 18:24
yeah? Well, we had
Bob Smith 18:26
things like during lunch hour, maybe at school, AJ show movies, but I never thought of going to school ever on Saturday, except for maybe solo and ensemble contests and things like that. Yeah, we
Marcia Smith 18:37
had movie theaters too, but, you know, we had to walk a couple miles to that. So just going to the local school was easy. Wow. Okay, and you could go look for boyfriends. What we’re just little kids, you know, yeah, when I have some of my popcorn,
Bob Smith 18:53
well, that’s how you got your boyfriend. Sure. Okay, all right, Bob, got butter on it.
Marcia Smith 18:57
Okay, Bob, this is your wheelhouse. There are over 35,000 museums in the United States. Wow. Did you know that
Bob Smith 19:06
that’s a list. I want to start matching off those, one
Marcia Smith 19:09
after the other. California has the most, with 700 some of them are quite obscure. Okay, I’m going to go through a list of museums, and you tell me if they’re real or fake. Okay, I’ll tell you at the end how many you got right. Okay,
Bob Smith 19:23
so you’re reading them, and I’m gonna say if it’s real or not. Yeah, you’ll say
Marcia Smith 19:27
real or fake. Okay, all right, the mob Museum, real. The National Comedy center, fake New Jersey. Oh,
Bob Smith 19:38
that’s real. It’s in New Jersey. No, it’s a National Comedy Museum, right?
Marcia Smith 19:41
I have to turn the page. Oh, geez, hold on. Thank you for my god, the spam Museum,
Bob Smith 19:47
yes, that’s real. That’s up in the Minnesota the
Marcia Smith 19:51
Museum of love, nah, international banana Museum, no. Museum of sex. Um. Are probably several of those. And Museum of broken relationships.
Bob Smith 20:06
Who’s gonna want to go to that? Yeah, not
Marcia Smith 20:08
gonna take your boyfriend to that. I got a line waiting to get in there. Oh, god, okay, that was it. And guess what? What? They’re all real museums. Oh
Bob Smith 20:17
no kidding. Yes,
Marcia Smith 20:18
the mob Museum is in Las Vegas. I remember that. Do you Yeah, we didn’t
Bob Smith 20:22
go there, but I remember when we were there, I could see there’s you and I were there, yeah, mob Museum. Ah,
Marcia Smith 20:26
the National Comedy Center is located in Lucille Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, New Jersey. Oh, okay.
Bob Smith 20:33
I knew that there was a comedy museum there, but I thought she was from New York state, so she was from New Jersey. Yeah, okay, and you’ll
Marcia Smith 20:41
find everything there, from Jerry Seinfeld’s puffy shirt to a card catalog of 65,000 June river jokes. Wow. Okay, something, yeah, of course, the spam Museum is in Austin, Minnesota, right, where spam ambassadors give out free samples. Spam bassetter, oh,
Bob Smith 21:01
my god. Anyway, those were all all real museums. Well, then I want to go to all of them.
Marcia Smith 21:06
I’m sure you do get the map out. Let’s
Bob Smith 21:08
plan this trip. Call your daughter. Okay, all right. All right. Marcia, what famous artist had to hide from a death sentence ordered by a pope?
Marcia Smith 21:17
Well, that’s not good. What famous but he wants the Pope to turn in, had
Bob Smith 21:21
to hide from a death sentence ordered by the Pope. Now I’ll give you the Pope. He was a patron or the member of the Medici family. Does that help you? Maybe at the time, the artist Medici
Marcia Smith 21:34
that family sponsored everybody and their brother
Bob Smith 21:38
in Italy, right? Yeah. They were patrons of the arts and everything, but they are also powerful people,
Marcia Smith 21:42
yeah, and the DCS wanted them dead. One of the popes was
Bob Smith 21:46
Medici, and he wanted this artist was a Medici. Yes, he was.
Marcia Smith 21:49
And he wanted this one dick. Well, that’s not very
Bob Smith 21:52
the artist Marsh. We
Marcia Smith 21:52
gotta get to the point here. Don’t know
Bob Smith 21:54
the artist was Michelangelo. This is because the powerful Medici family were patrons of Michelangelo until a popular uprising banished them from Florence in 1527, and Michelangelo made the mistake of remaining in the city and then helping them design fortifications. And the Medici saw this treason. You know, they were furious. He appeared to side with the people who ousted them, and when they returned to power in 1530 Pope Clement, the seventh, who was a Medici, ordered Michelangelo’s death. Money Talks. There we go. And they forced Michelangelo into hiding. But after two months, the death sentence was rescinded. And there is a place he hid, and there are drawings on the wall, really, yeah, there’s places on the wall. There are charcoal drawings and stuff on the wall that he made. They found them. And it’s a place you can actually go these days to see where Michelangelo hid out from
Marcia Smith 22:48
the pope and his and his the pope and his goons.
Bob Smith 22:50
Yeah,
Marcia Smith 22:51
that’s exactly what it is. Yeah, there’s no such thing as popes
Bob Smith 22:56
were very powerful at one point. It wasn’t just a religious leader. They were very, very involved in government and everything and and corruption, a lot of corruption there too.
Marcia Smith 23:04
You betcha. Okay, Bob, who were the Minutemen? And why were they called that?
Bob Smith 23:10
They were the militia of Lexington. I believe it was at Lexington and Concord. And they, they were called Minutemen because they could be called out and assembled that quickly. All right, this is during the Revolutionary War. That’s
Marcia Smith 23:22
my boy. I knew you’d come up with it. I just thought I wonder why they’re called Minute Men. Oh, you didn’t know the Minutemen were a small elite force. About 25% of the American militia hand picked for their youth, strength and speed of response became the Minutemen. So they were a fast, rapid response, ready to any threat of foreign invasion. Yeah, hence the name man,
Bob Smith 23:47
yeah, all right, Marcia. Which of these historical figures? I’m going to give you some names here. Which one of these people died before the discovery of dinosaurs? Kind of an interesting question.
Marcia Smith 23:56
Wait a second. Oh, that’s right. So you mean they found the bones, yeah, they
Bob Smith 24:02
when they discovered dinosaurs, and finally, scientifically saw, okay, this is a creature. All right, okay, which of these historical figures died before the discovery of dinosaurs? Okay, these are names, okay. Gotcha? Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston, Churchill, or Charles Darwin, huh? One of these people was born before the discovery of dinosaurs. I’ll say George. It’s George Washington, that’s right. So he died December 14, 1799 at the age of 67 now, if he’d lived another 25 years, they would have found one. Yes, Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed because they were not scientifically recognized until 1824, that’s when a British naturalist, William Buckland first described Megalosaurus, as he called it, mega loss Megalosaurus, that’s the first dinosaur scientifically named
Marcia Smith 24:54
Big Ass animal,
Bob Smith 24:57
and it was found in Oxfordshire, England. In 1824, so that’s where the first confirmed excavation brought a dinosaur. I wonder
Marcia Smith 25:04
if it was in a Wendy’s parking lot. Well, probably today. Who knows? Okay, so
Bob Smith 25:09
that’s when the dinosaurs were first scientifically.
Marcia Smith 25:12
Never really thought about when I thought was like maybe 1700s Oh, you’d
Bob Smith 25:16
think it would be hundreds of years ago, but people would find these things and think they were dragons or some other dragons, massive bones. What is this?
Marcia Smith 25:24
All right, I gotta wrap up with a couple of quotes. Okay, Horace Greeley, quote, horse
Bob Smith 25:32
Greeley, Horace, Horace Greeley, okay, good. I thought, who’s horse Greeley, oh. Horace Greeley, great newspaper editor and publisher, yes,
Marcia Smith 25:40
and this is sweet. Fame is vapor, popularity and accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character. That
Bob Smith 25:52
is a perfect quote. I love that quote. So all these other things are temporary. They’ll go away, ephemeral. Character is the only one that matters endures.
Marcia Smith 26:00
Yes, exactly. And from a Welsh jury foreman, here’s a quote, My Lord, we find the man who stole the mayor not guilty. Who stole the
Bob Smith 26:11
mayor, M, A, R, E, yeah, we find him not guilty. We find the man who stole the mayor not guilty, the man who killed his wife not guilty. Okay, I’d like to have that juror on my side if something goes awry. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed our little exploration of trivia today. Thanks so much for listening. If you’d like to contribute to the show, you can send us a fact or a question to try to stump the other person with. We get that every once in a while, and it’s so much fun to hear from people go to the off ramp. Dot show that’s our website. Scroll down to contact us and leave us a message,
Marcia Smith 26:48
send me. Send me some questions to dazzle Bob. I’d appreciate it.
Bob Smith 26:52
All right, all right. I’m Bob Smith. I’m
Marcia Smith 26:55
Marcia Smith. Join us again next
Bob Smith 26:56
time when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp.
Bob Smith 27:18
The off ramp is produced an association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, visit us on the web at the offramp, dot show at.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
