302 Extraordinary Trivia

Bob Smith 0:00
If trousers are a single clothing item, why do we call them a pair of pants?

Marcia Smith 0:05
Aha. And do horses sleep standing up or lying down?

Bob Smith 0:11
Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the Off Ramp with Bob

Bob Smith 0:15
and Marcia

Bob Smith 0:16
Smith.

Bob Smith 0:33
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, horses, do they stand up, sleeping or lie down?

Marcia Smith 0:49
What do you think? Bob, what do you think?

Bob Smith 0:51
I think they can do either. I think they can be asleep, standing up. But, you know, I think they lie down sleeping mostly, don’t they?

Marcia Smith 0:58
Well, no, you’re right. They do both

Bob Smith 1:00
Okay?

Marcia Smith 1:01
When I first read that, I thought, Well, are they up or are they down? I’ve seen them both. As big animals that live out in the open plains. Horses are pretty vulnerable to predators while they’re asleep, so they have evolved a part of their anatomy to help them sleep standing up. It wasn’t natural. Isn’t that interesting? But this is interesting. Horses do need to lie down for REM sleep.

Bob Smith 1:24
Okay

Marcia Smith 1:24
Rapid eye movement, and that’s when being a herd animal has its benefits. Because within the herd, some horses will sleep lying down while the others sleep standing up. They kind of take turns.

Bob Smith 1:36
Like being on watch.

Marcia Smith 1:37
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Bob Smith 1:39
Makes sense.

Marcia Smith 1:40
Fortunately, horses need only check this about 30 to 40 minutes of REM sleep a night, so they can get it in short bursts instead of all in one stretch.

Bob Smith 1:49
Isn’t that interesting, because we did one on the elephants a long time ago. They can go with two hours of sleep for the night,

Marcia Smith 1:55
But 30 to 40 minutes.

Bob Smith 1:57
I know big animals, you think they need more.

Marcia Smith 1:59
Yeah? REM sleep. Yeah, interesting.

Bob Smith 2:01
All right. Marcia, here we go with the question, you put on a shirt, not shirts, right?

Marcia Smith 2:06
Right?

Bob Smith 2:06
You don’t put on a pair of sleeves.

Marcia Smith 2:08
You put on a pair of trousers.

Bob Smith 2:10
That’s right. Why are they a pair?

Marcia Smith 2:12
Because they have two legs.

Bob Smith 2:13
Well, shirts have two sleeves, but we don’t call them a pair of sleeves.

Marcia Smith 2:17
No, we do not.

Bob Smith 2:18
So why a pair of pants. We never say put on your pant. Put on your short put on your panty. No, all right. So why do we call pants a pair of pants? Still?

Marcia Smith 2:31
I don’t know why.

Bob Smith 2:31
Okay, my clue was “still.” Because at one point they were separate items.

Marcia Smith 2:37
Oh, really!

Bob Smith 2:37
Yeah, they were once sold separately. Each leg was once sold separately. You bought them like stockings, which is kind of what they were originally. They were originally called pantaloons. Pantaloons can be traced back to a stock character in Italian comic theater in the 1500s named pantaloon or in Italian, pantalone! He wore a bright red vest and breeches with tight fitting stockings. And in later performances, pantaloon also wore longer pairs of red trousers. And when this longer style proved popular in England in the 17th century, it was given the character’s name pantaloon. So that’s where the word pants comes from. It’s short for pantaloons, two separate leg coverings.

Marcia Smith 3:22
Oh, you put them on separately.

Bob Smith 3:23
That’s right.

Marcia Smith 3:24
Oh, didn’t know that.

Bob Smith 3:25
Sometimes they were contrasting colors, so they really look like a pair of different things. They were tied together at the waist, and then they were later joined or connected, sewn together as a single garment, evolving into what we wear today. But our language preserves the fact that they were once separate legs, a pair of pants.

Bob Smith 3:42
Other things sewn together and only described in pairs are trousers, jeans. We don’t say I’m gonna get my jean on j, e, a n,

Marcia Smith 3:50
Yeah.

Bob Smith 3:51
A pair of jeans.

Marcia Smith 3:52
Yeah.

Bob Smith 3:52
Slacks. We never use those terms alone. Trouser Jean or slack. And those are called plurale tantum. You know what that is?

Marcia Smith 4:01
You tell me

Bob Smith 4:02
Nouns that only have a plural form, just so you know? Oh, okay, go to your next party and say, Do you know what a plurale tantum) is?

Marcia Smith 4:09
I’ll be the hit of the party for sure. Okay,

Bob Smith 4:12
And other examples in life, scissors. You never say, I’m gonna cut this with a scissor. Tweezers, stirrups, tongs and handcuffs. Almost all of those things come in pairs. Other things we get are the jitters, the creeps, condolences, surroundings, headquarters and outskirts. You never say I’m from headquarter, and I’m here to help.

Bob Smith 4:34
I’m from headquarters.

Marcia Smith 4:35
It’s always plural.

Bob Smith 4:36
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 4:36
Right you are.

Bob Smith 4:37
You never get a jitter. You get the jitters.

Marcia Smith 4:39
Yeah.

Bob Smith 4:39
I just thought that was interesting. Okay, so I went down that long, long, winding rabbit hole.

Marcia Smith 4:46
Bob in 1876, in Olympia springs, Kentucky, it rained. What?

Bob Smith 4:53
Frogs?

Marcia Smith 4:54
No.

Bob Smith 4:55
Kentucky, it rained. What did it rain? Grasshoppers?It was some kind of Rodent or something wasn’t it?

Marcia Smith 5:01
Nope. Wasn’t an animal.

Bob Smith 5:02
It wasn’t?

Marcia Smith 5:03
No.

Bob Smith 5:03
What did it rain?

Marcia Smith 5:05
Meat.

Bob Smith 5:06
What? Meat? Tell me what that’s all about.

Marcia Smith 5:08
They had a meat festival last year. March 3, 1876 was a cloudless day in Olympia Springs, Kentucky. Late that morning, a resident named Rebecca Crouch was out in her yard making soap when a strange kind of snow began to fall, at least that’s how she described some of the pieces drifting down. They were about the size of snowflakes, only they weren’t white, they were red and looked like beef.

Bob Smith 5:34
But they were meat.

Marcia Smith 5:35
It was meat.

Bob Smith 5:36
What happened?

Marcia Smith 5:37
According to The New York Times, Mr. Harrison Gill, whose veracity is unquestionable, Bob – unlike, apparently poor, Rebecca Crouch, he visited the locality the next day and says, Yep, there’s meat sticking to the fences and sticking around the ground.

Bob Smith 5:53
Good Lord.

Marcia Smith 5:54
The paper also noted that two gentlemen who tasted the meat expressed the opinion that it was either mutton or venison.

Bob Smith 6:01
So did they ever find out what this was?

Marcia Smith 6:03
Well, the leading scientific theory today is that the Kentucky meat shower was the result of a projectile vulture vomit.

Bob Smith 6:12
Oh, my God.

Marcia Smith 6:13
Vultures are common in Kentucky and are known to disgorge their stomach content.

Bob Smith 6:18
Oh, dear.

Marcia Smith 6:19
When spooked. Well, there you have.

Bob Smith 6:20
Oh, that’s disgusting.

Marcia Smith 6:22
They celebrate with meat shower festival now

Bob Smith 6:25
They’re celebrating vulture vomit in Kentucky?

Marcia Smith 6:28
No, a meat shower.

Bob Smith 6:29
Oh, my God.

Marcia Smith 6:30
And the largest piece that fell in that meat shower was four inches. Just so you know.

Bob Smith 6:34
Geez, that’s amazing. All right, well, that’s kind of disgusting. Okay, I’ve got a question for you.

Marcia Smith 6:40
Okay

Bob Smith 6:41
Has nothing to do with food or meat raining from the skies. Dude. How long have people been using dude? And what did originally mean the word dude?

Marcia Smith 6:50
Whoa. How long? I have a feeling it’s longer than I think you know. It’s like in our lifetime.

Bob Smith 6:55
It first appeared in 1883 in the United States.

Marcia Smith 6:59
Oh, geez,

Bob Smith 7:00
So I guess that’s your lifetime, but not mine.

Marcia Smith 7:02
Watch it, buddy.

Bob Smith 7:03
Oh, sorry. And originally that referred to a dandyish fop, you know, a flamboyantly dressed guy.

Marcia Smith 7:08
Oh, really.

Bob Smith 7:09
One theory was it was a shortened version of Yankee Doodle. Another theory claims it might be clipped from attitude, like, Dude, you get a tude.

Marcia Smith 7:17
Uh huh

Bob Smith 7:17
Or an extension of duds, meaning clothing. That dates back to the 16th century. So they think it comes from duds, meaning clothing. And it became, hey, you’re a dude because you’re wearing duds.

Marcia Smith 7:27
Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense.

Bob Smith 7:29
Here’s another one, extra. How long have we been using that term? Do you think?

Marcia Smith 7:32
Extra extra?

Bob Smith 7:33
Where does that go back to?

Marcia Smith 7:35
I don’t know. Bob. How did it start?

Bob Smith 7:37
Well, it’s borrowed from Latin. Goes back a few years 16th century. That is a few that doesn’t mean news boys have been saying extra extra for 500 years, the slangier use of extra to describe something particularly good or impressive – that first emerged back in 1917, a shortened version of extraordinary spelled extra. So that’s where that comes from.

Marcia Smith 7:57
That makes sense.

Bob Smith 7:58
But originally it goes all the way back to Latin in the 16th century, meaning something very unusual and pretty good.

Marcia Smith 8:06
Well, here’s something after you

Bob Smith 8:07
Unless it’s extra bad,

Marcia Smith 8:11
Here’s something after your own heart. The Three Musketeers. Candy Bar, Bob. It started out, did you know in three flavors?

Bob Smith 8:18
No, I didn’t know that.

Marcia Smith 8:20
Yeah.

Bob Smith 8:20
So that’s why they called it Three Musketeers.

Marcia Smith 8:22
What were the flavors?

Bob Smith 8:23
Vanilla, chocolate and – Hmm, something in the middle, caramel. Mayb.

Marcia Smith 8:28
The three flavors were chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

Bob Smith 8:31
Okay

Marcia Smith 8:31
Snickers, the top selling candy bar in the US, debuted in 1930 and in 1932 another well known sweet treat made its appearance. The Three Musketeers candy bar, or more accurately, candy bars. They had three little candy bars in their package.

Bob Smith 8:48
Oh I didn’t know that?

Marcia Smith 8:50
Yeah.

Bob Smith 8:50
So there were three separate bars.

Marcia Smith 8:51
Three different flavors, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. And that’s how they got their name. And they named it after, guess what?

Bob Smith 8:58
The Three Musketeers

Marcia Smith 8:59
A famous novel of the time

Bob Smith 9:01
Yes

Marcia Smith 9:01
Alexander Dumas’s 1844 adventure novel. The Three Musketeers. They remained in the multi pack from 1932 until 1945.

Bob Smith 9:11
So that’s why we don’t associate it as separate bars, because it wasn’t in our lifetime.

Marcia Smith 9:15
Yes. But like many industries at the time, the candy business was impacted by World War Two, when they didn’t have the sugar. And rationing was in effect. When regular production resumed, they decided to save some money and cut down to one piece and chose chocolate as that flavor. And they never went back.

Bob Smith 9:34
Huh. But they kept the name Three Musketeers.

Marcia Smith 9:36
Yeah. So one Musketeer did not sound right.

Bob Smith 9:39
You know, maybe they did a survey or found out, you know, we’re getting returns on the other flavors. You know what happened?

Marcia Smith 9:45
Oh, no, they were all in the same bag.

Bob Smith 9:47
I know, but there may have been somebody, maybe they got some feedback from their customers, you know, like the people who sell the candy. It’s like, you know, people are complaining about these other two flavors. Just stick with one.

Marcia Smith 9:57
I think everybody liked them. But chocolate is often the winner of anything,

Bob Smith 10:00
Yeah. usually. Music question, Marcia.

Marcia Smith 10:03
Yes, sir.

Bob Smith 10:03
The Beatles became rock stars the night they first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Bob Smith 10:07
Yes.

Bob Smith 10:08
February 9, 1964, What other future rock star appeared on the program that night?

Marcia Smith 10:15
That same night?

Bob Smith 10:16
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 10:16
I watched it, Bob. Did you?

Bob Smith 10:18
Yeah, I did watch it. And we’ve got a recording of it on DVD downstairs, so you can go down and check this answer. But go ahead.

Marcia Smith 10:25
I don’t know.

Bob Smith 10:25
Okay. Well, according to the website Mental Floss, Davy Jones of the Monkees was also on Ed Sullivan that night. Now, the Monkees were not yet a band. In fact, they were created by NBC to mimic the Beatles in 1965, but back in 1964, February. Davy Jones was performing on Ed Sullivan with the Broadway cast of Oliver!

Marcia Smith 10:47
He looks like he’d be. Who’s that kid in the

Bob Smith 10:50
Well, he played the Artful Dodger.

Marcia Smith 10:52
Yeah, I was gonna say he looks like he would have been the Artful Dodger.

Bob Smith 10:55
He was already, as a kid, an international stage star,

Marcia Smith 10:59
Okay.

Bob Smith 10:59
playing the Artful Dodger, first in London, then in New York. And another bit of trivia, Davy Jones was nominated for a Tony for his role in Oliver! One of the first rock stars ever nominated for a Tony Award. And yes, he was that good on stage before the Monkees.

Bob Smith 11:15
Okay.

Bob Smith 11:16
Interesting.

Marcia Smith 11:17
Yeah, I can so see him as the Artful Dodger. Very nice.

Bob Smith 11:20
All right!

Marcia Smith 11:21
Bob, oysters can change what – multiple times during their lives?

Bob Smith 11:26
Oysters can change their underpants multiple times

Marcia Smith 11:30
Plural. During their lives.

Bob Smith 11:32
They can change their what – multiple times during their lives? Because – oysters get the – they get some kind of a rock or a contaminant, and they then they turn it into a pearl, right? So is that what we’re talking about? They changed their pearls.

Bob Smith 11:43
Okay, pearls before spine. Okay. Where are we going with this?

Marcia Smith 11:49
This is weird.

Bob Smith 11:50
All right.

Marcia Smith 11:50
They change their sex.

Bob Smith 11:52
What?

Marcia Smith 11:53
Yes.

Bob Smith 11:53
What?

Marcia Smith 11:53
Oysters. Oysters usually start out as boys, and then they turn into females as they grow larger and older to maximize their reproductivity.

Bob Smith 12:05
My God.

Marcia Smith 12:05
The switch allows them to adapt to environmental factors like water temperature, food availability and the health of the reef they’re hanging out on.

Marcia Smith 12:14
Oysters can change their sex multiple times throughout their life to ensure the survival of the population.

Bob Smith 12:21
Wow!

Marcia Smith 12:21
Isn’t that interesting?

Bob Smith 12:22
They have a very interesting life, the social life must be very interesting.

Marcia Smith 12:24
I think I better be a woman tomorrow.

Bob Smith 12:29
And we thought trans stuff was just human beings.

Marcia Smith 12:31
That’s right!

Bob Smith 12:32
Couple more things on this Beatles – the night that they were at the Ed Sullivan Show. We’re talking about the studio audience now, not the hundreds of millions that saw the Beatles on TV. So how many people were there actually, in the Ed Sullivan Theater auditorium?

Marcia Smith 12:46
Oh I bet you – like, uh only 500 or 300

Bob Smith 12:51
They had requests for 50,000 tickets for that show.

Marcia Smith 12:54
Oh, for that show?

Bob Smith 12:55
And only 728 people, okay, in the audience. You know, it’s funny, because one of the people I was fortunate to interview in my career was one of Buddy Holly’s Crickets, and he talked about this. “We were kids from West Texas. We’re at the Ed Sullivan Show. And this is a little theater. We’re thinking, there’s 1000s of people, you know, it just didn’t look right.” It actually threw them off. All right. So now, did everyone with the Ed Sullivan show that worked FOR the Ed Sullivan Show? Okay? Reaalize what a landmark this group’s performance was, The Beatles? What about professional musicians?

Marcia Smith 13:27
I don’t think so.

Bob Smith 13:28
Well, not the professional musicians anyway. The Ed Sullivan, show’s musical director, Ray Block, he was asked by the New York Times what was different about the group, and he said, “The only thing that’s different to me is the hair as far as I can see.” And when he was asked about their future, he predicted, “I’ll give them a year.”

Marcia Smith 13:44
That’s what I said about Rap.

Bob Smith 13:47
Yeah, you were right about that. I mean, that died out right away!

Marcia Smith 13:52
Okay, we’re gonna do Where in the World

Bob Smith 13:55
Where in the World? Okay.

Marcia Smith 13:56
Three clues. See how fast you can get a clue on Bob.

Bob Smith 13:59
Okay

Marcia Smith 14:00
In 1980 this city was the host of the Summer Olympics. 1980 Summer Olympics.

Bob Smith 14:07
Let’s see that was not in – was that in Los Angeles in 1980?

Marcia Smith 14:11
No.

Bob Smith 14:12
Okay. Wasn’t blue too. Wasn’t Atlanta. It is the home of the world famous Bolshoi Ballet. Bolshoi Ballet, so this must be, is it Moscow?

Marcia Smith 14:22
Yeah.

Bob Smith 14:22
All right.

Bob Smith 14:23
All right, Bob, where in the world is this city? It’s the birthplace of Casanova. The Birthplace of Casanova. Okay, we’re talking Italy, I think right. Is it Florence? Nope. Clue two, the San Marco Campbell bell tower can be found here. Oh, well, of course, it’s, I don’t know clue, three famous Fords, bridges, canals and gondolas

Marcia Smith 14:51
kind of gave that one away. Oh, my goodness, all right. Last one, where in the world is this city? The city dates from 3000 BC, making it one. Of the oldest cities in the world, 3000 BC.

Bob Smith 15:04
3000 BC is it in Syria? No.

Marcia Smith 15:08
Clue two, ready? Okay, the Parthenon temple dominates the sky. Oh, of course. Then that’s Athens, of course. Okay, all right. The third clue would have been named after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Bob Smith 15:21
Well, that’s got to be a Borneo somewhere. No, I don’t know, like your wife. All right, Marcia, I got a couple of more of these. Plurae tantum, okay, words when you just can’t have one. All right, when you put something on to shield your eyes, do you put on a sunglass? No. Put on sunglasses. No one puts on a goggle. Goggles are plural, so our binoculars? Well, there are two of all these things. Why would you say bi and then make it plural at the end by knock you fine. I don’t that should be binocular. Okay, bifocals is another one, bi, meaning two, but then you put the S on the end. It’s like a redundancy. It’s not necessary. Why do we do these

Marcia Smith 16:03
things? Give it a rest and go to break.

Bob Smith 16:05
Okay, time for a break. I’m sorry. That’s our grammar lesson. Does this stuff keep you up at night? Blue Rayleigh tandem, that’s always keeping me up now, apparently, because, like I said, when you don’t need just one, all right, we’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, Okay, we’re back. We are I have had my rest from Blue. Rayleigh tantums, no more of those today. Thank you. You’re listening to Bob and Marcia Smith. We are doing the off ramp here. We do it each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and then after that, we put it on podcast platforms, and it’s heard all over the world, that’s right.

Marcia Smith 16:42
Marcia, all right. Mr. Broadcast major Uh oh. Radio was first used to describe the sound broadcasting medium as an industry in 1922 it was commonly called the wireless up until World War Two, right? So where does the word radio come from

Bob Smith 17:01
because it is a radiating thing, right? No radio radiating, no radioactive. No, all right. Tell me.

Marcia Smith 17:12
The word radio is derived from radius, Latin for the spoke of a wheel or a ray of light, because transmitted sounds travel out in all directions from the setter hub, like a spokes of a wheel.

Bob Smith 17:25
Well, you didn’t hear me. I kind of said that radiating. And you said, No, did you Yes, I did.

Marcia Smith 17:30
All right, then I give half of it. Oh, we get half

Bob Smith 17:33
of it, okay, all right, thank you. Well, that’s what you know. Where the term broadcasting came from. I have a feeling you’re going to tell yes, I am. And that is a farming or agricultural term, oh, like you broadcast your seed. That’s right. You pick the seeds up and you broadcast it. You throw them out in all directions, okay, all directions. That’s where it came from, too. So one came from the farm, one came from Latin apparently, right, right. All right. Marcia question for you, what is the only country whose space vehicles have touched down on the moon multiple times in the 21st Century. I’m saying again, what is the only country whose space vehicles have touched down on the moon multiple times in the 21st Century? Now we know the United States and Russia were very big in the 20th century, right? But in the 21st Century, only one country’s space vehicles have touched down on the moon multiple times. What country is it? Geez, I don’t know. It’s happened at least four times. Really, yes, and the countries are the country is China. Oh, really, yes. This is like, are we sleeping or we’re not looking at the right news events, you know. I mean, you’re scrolling, scrolling in your phone. You go, I don’t remember seeing that. Yeah, so far more of China’s vehicles have touched down cleanly on the moon than any other nation.

Marcia Smith 18:51
Do they share their info with us? I don’t think so. I wonder what they’re finding. Oh, no,

Bob Smith 18:56
but these are the times it happened. In 2013 China made its first soft landing on the moon that was the first by any nation since 1976 and then in 2019 China had the first spacecraft in history to land on the far side of the moon. And then in 2020 they had the first lunar sample returned since 1976 and in 2024 it had the first ever far sight of the moon sample return mission. So they’re bringing back things, yeah? But that’s the only country whose space vehicles have touched down on the moon multiple times in the 21st Century. China not noticed

Marcia Smith 19:33
in the regular news now, Interesting, huh? We read a lot of news. Yeah. All right. Bob, ready for a little aka Sure, also known as where I give you a category, and you have to figure out the word. So, okay, today’s category is famous Richards. Famous Richard James, Richards. Okay, all right, so if I said tiny, who’s the famous Richard? Little Richard? Richard? No, no, Little Richard isn’t the famous Richard, no, but that’s

Bob Smith 20:05
a well, of course it is.

Marcia Smith 20:07
It’s rich little. Oh, okay, he’s famous. Well, there’s two Richards that are little. You’re right. You got

Bob Smith 20:14
although rich little isn’t small, okay,

Marcia Smith 20:18
but, okay, braucho, who’s the famous Richard for there? There’s only one answer. It’s pretty obvious.

Bob Smith 20:24
Groucho, Marx. Groucho, Richard, Richard. Groucho, I’m confused about that one. It’s Richard marks, okay, well, I never thought of that. Okay, you said Little Richard Are we still on little Richards? Now that was the first What’s the question for this one? Groucho, why is he? Groucho? Just because his last name is Marx.

Marcia Smith 20:46
Okay, weird. Who’s the famous Richard neutral or reverse neutral or reverse? Yeah? Richard Gere, that’s it. Okay. Cynthia, from Sex in the City.

Bob Smith 21:00
Richard Cynthia from Sex in the City.

Marcia Smith 21:04
Yep, that’s her real name is, okay, tell me Nixon. Cynthia, Nixon, previous, what’s? Who’s the Richard? Richard the first, previous,

Bob Smith 21:17
second, I don’t know what’s this guy’s a comedian, okay? Pryor, oh, my God,

Marcia Smith 21:24
that’s hard. Okay, and this, I don’t know if you’ll get you cranky about the other ones, the roaring artichoke center.

Bob Smith 21:33
Richard the lion hearted, yes. Roaring artichoke center, yes. How does that relate to it

Marcia Smith 21:42
roaring for Lion and artichoke center is the heart. So Lion Heart,

Bob Smith 21:47
God, oh, these were more difficult than the ones you usually do. And I thought those were bad.

Marcia Smith 21:52
Oh, I thought this one was a little too easy.

Bob Smith 21:54
Oh, my. All right, okay, move on, and I go back to my simple questions for you. Okay, all right, we’re going back to the Beatles again. Okay. Oh, yep, yep. How much, yeah? Well, I got interesting stuff here. How much did the Beatles make that night they appeared on Ed Sullivan show back in 1964 I know, $300 a piece. No, they got a nice fee. Did they? Oh, yes, still good fee, but not as much today, I don’t. Okay, 1000 a piece. Okay, it meant so much to show business careers that most rock groups actually played it for free. Did you know that? Yeah. But Brian Epstein, The Beatles manager, only let the group appear in the show if they covered their travel expenses to America and paid them a $10,000 fee, which was a lot of money. That’s the equivalent of $100,000 today. And Sullivan agreed, but only if the Beatles committed to three appearances, which they did, and that turned out to be a bargain for the Ed Sullivan Show. They did it three weeks in a row, right in a row. They did New York. Got that. Did you remember? Yeah, they went to New York, and then they did a show in Miami Beach.

Marcia Smith 22:57
That show in Miami Beach was Ed Sullivan, yeah, yeah,

Bob Smith 23:01
came back again to New York. They did play Washington on that tour as well. Okay, all right, my final question on the Beatles, The Ed Sullivan Show, was the Beatles’ first appearance on US television. True or False? Yes, okay, and the answer is false. So where do you think they first appeared

Marcia Smith 23:22
on TV? Was it? Was it like shindig or something goofy like that? In what was some little thing? Were they on the David Frost show, or some kind of No,

Bob Smith 23:32
they were covered on a news show. Okay, their first appearance was in 1963 now we always think of the Beatles coming to America after Kennedy’s assassination. People talk about that being a relief for American teenagers, but actually, four days before JFK was killed, they appeared on the Huntley Brinkley report. Huntley Brinkley Yes, NBC newscast at night, a four minute segment on Beatle mania, a lengthy piece for nightly news at the time focused on the Beatle mania, craze taking England by storm, and this is interesting. A few days later, on the very day John F Kennedy was killed, the CBS Morning News did a five minute segment on the Beatles in England. That segment was scheduled to re air that evening, but it didn’t, because President Kennedy was assassinated that afternoon, and the next four days were filled with coverage of his murder. So they they did not appear then, but the Beatles segment on CBS eventually did air December 10 on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. So they were on newscasts twice before they came to the United States. The first place they performed, yes, was on The Ed Sullivan Show. I think that’s the answer. Well, no, I said first appearance.

Marcia Smith 24:43
Okay, fine, so there. So what Bob, what is synesthesia?

Bob Smith 24:49
What is synesthesia? Now it’s not anesthesia, no synesthesia. Syn meaning synchronicity, or synchronized or something like that. Together. S I A so people are sleeping together.

Marcia Smith 25:04
This came up while we were watching a television program last night. Oh, really, we were watching high potential, and I said, I have a question on this malady she has.

Bob Smith 25:14
But this is the Caitlin Olsen playing Morgan, yeah, the consultant to the LAPD, right.

Marcia Smith 25:20
All right. We’re watching high potential, and she exhibited this behavior. What? She had this synesthesia.

Bob Smith 25:28
Okay, just wanted to see if you could say, oh, okay, yes, synesthesia, okay? And what is the condition?

Marcia Smith 25:34
It’s basically a crossover of senses. Only two to 4% of the world’s population have this unusual ability. It’s a condition which, among other things, allows people to see and taste colors and shapes and smell flavors.

Bob Smith 25:51
Oh, really, she mentioned that, yes, okay, I didn’t get that.

Marcia Smith 25:55
I see this color every time I hear that. They can even feel the same sensation like touch on their own body that they observe in someone else. Okay, spoken or written words often evoke specific tastes or textures in their mouth. Can you believe that? No, that’s amazing. Certain words they get textures or tastes in their mouth when you hear it.

Bob Smith 26:17
Well, sometimes we get that suggestion and you do taste something you go, I remember that pumpkin pie. You know.

Marcia Smith 26:22
Anyway, it’s believed to be caused by increased connectivity, or cross wiring, between different brain region speech and stays with a person their whole life.

Bob Smith 26:32
So that’s why they have the s, n, y, it’s synchronized. It comes together. Yeah, okay, that’s

Marcia Smith 26:36
where the term cross wiring in their brain. Wow, isn’t that something, wouldn’t that be

Bob Smith 26:41
something to have, and probably a blessing and a curse, right?

Marcia Smith 26:44
Sure, yeah, okay, all right, I’m gonna finish up with some quotes from one of my favorite dudes, especially for quotes, Winston Churchill, okay, he said tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

Bob Smith 27:01
Tax, T, A, C, T, right?

Marcia Smith 27:03
He said, You have enemies. Good. That means you’ve stood up for something in your life. Well, that’s a good one, too. And third, history will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

Bob Smith 27:16
And he did. He wrote a lot of history. He sure did. He wrote the history of the English speaking people. If you’ve never perused that, that’s a fascinating history, because I’ve started, it’s huge. It includes the United States. It includes Australia, all the places where the British lived. Did you read the whole thing? I’ve read parts of it, but it’s nice to see the American part, because, you know, his mother was American, so he has, he has deep roots in the United States. He actually has an ancestor on the Mayflower, believe it or not. Then someone went back

Marcia Smith 27:45
with your with your ancestors. So your relatives hung out with Winston. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, pretty good. Mine hung out with Bill Schwartz,

Bob Smith 27:54
okay, well, well, Bill Schwartz, who moved to Wisconsin in 1822 all right. All right. That’s it for today. I think that’s enough. We could go back to Blue Rui, whatever that thing is. All right, off we go. All right, let’s talk about a pair of pants. Later. You got a pair. What was that double term where you can’t just say one, you have to say both. That’s what we are, Marcia. It’s Bob and Marcia Smith. Your hosts. You don’t go to a host for the offering to hosts, and that’s it for you

Marcia Smith 28:19
have one host. There’s going to be one on this show. Very Are you quitting?

Bob Smith 28:26
All right, you’ve been listening to Bob and Marcia Smith. We hope you join us again when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia.

Bob Smith 28:33
Here on the off ramp. Here, not

Bob Smith 28:37
off ramps. It’s off ramp. Just one off ramp. That’s fine, okay. The off ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Visit us on the web at the offramp. Dot show.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai