SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: Mermaids: Not a real thing

7:38Chuck Bryant:Where in which you just show them photos. But I charge them like 2016 rates and no one can possibly afford that so I go out of business almost immediately. Right, there's like one guy in the town that's like I'll pay$27.50 to see those. Right, step right up, town's only billionaire.

7:56Josh Clark:That's a great idea, no one ever thought of that. It was a terrible idea from beginning to end. Forget going back and betting on the stock market or the outcome of the World Series.

8:06Chuck Bryant:I'm gonna go back and set up a business doomed to fail.

8:10Josh Clark:All right, so let's talk about mermaid lore. Well, we can start here in the more modern age because there are still places that try and take people for money like we were just talking about even.

8:21Chuck Bryant:Yeah, like me.

8:22Josh Clark:In fact, in Israel, on the coast there, they actually have a town called Kiryat Yam. It's a great name. If you go to Kiryat Yam, you could win how much money? Does it even say? A million bucks. A million American dollars.

8:40Chuck Bryant:If you provide incontrovertible evidence of the mermaid that is reputed to live there and appear at sunset. As of 2009 was the first sighting there.

8:52Josh Clark:Yeah, and of course what that is is a ploy to try and get tourists to come and spend money in the town and look for the mermaid.

8:58Chuck Bryant:Sure. Come on, chumps. We welcome you to Kiryat Yam. I'm sure Loch Ness has made plenty of tourist money over the years. Apparently they have a standing offer as well and that's where the mayor of Kiryat Yam got the idea. Yeah, great idea. Sure. And actually I saw that photo too. And it's kind of neat. I don't know what it is or who created it or whatever, but there's allegedly a photo taken obviously from like a cliff down onto a beach. You know a beach that will have like a big just slab of rock surrounded by sand? Yeah, sand and mermaids. Right. There's a mermaid on that rock just kind of looking out at the sea.

9:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And of course, it could be anything. It could be totally doctored. Who knows? But it's from a distance, and at least they didn't go full out like perfect picture of a mermaid or whatever. It's just suggestive enough that people who believe in such things would be like, right there. There's a picture of a mermaid. Totally. So that was found in 2009, or that surfaced in 2009. And since then, the towns - Surfaced? Right. Since then, the towns had that standing offer.

10:07Josh Clark:Correct. So the interesting thing to me about mermaids is the mythology. Did you take mythology in college at all?

10:16Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I did. I always wanted it to interest me more than it did. Me too. It was just, I don't know if it wasn't explained to me quite well enough or just the ancients, non-bicameral mind wasn't fused together enough to interest people in the modern age.

10:36Josh Clark:Well, I think so. I think the stories themselves, as far as good story telling, were just lacking. Because a lot of them were just versions of one another. And there was usually a very basic premise or moral. And in the case of mermaids, a lot of times, a lot of folklore even was rooted in misogyny. Oh yeah, for sure. There'll be a woman to come along and screw your life up.

11:04Chuck Bryant:Right, or if you screw up a woman, she will kill your children or something like that. Like women were not to be trusted and they were murderous and duplicitous in a lot of mythology, it's true.

11:15Josh Clark:The old hag. So it was in various, I mean hundreds and hundreds of books and texts including the Talmud, believe it or not, and we've talked about Pliny the Elder, the beer, and the dude. Yeah. Rome's Planet of the Elder, he, in his natural history, talked about a mermaid-like creature called... The Nereid. Yes.

11:41Chuck Bryant:I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.

11:43Josh Clark:Yeah, N-E-R-E-I-D.

11:45Chuck Bryant:That E-I is a tough transition. It is. Because you want to say like Nereid.

11:50Josh Clark:Yeah. Nereid. These were sea nymphs, half human, half fish mermaids, and he also talked about sea men, and we should point out that Mermen, we made the joke about us being Mermen. I believe Mermen were even first on the literary scene.

12:09Chuck Bryant:Is that correct? Well first at least with mythology or theology I guess. There's a Babylonian god of the sea named Ea. Ea, sports. Just Ea. And he pops up in Babylonian mythology from I think 4 ,000 years ago. And they think that he's actually the progenitor of, or the predecessor I should say, of Poseidon, who is the Greek god of the sea, and Neptune who's the Roman god of the sea. Because the Greeks gave us Western culture, but they just walked around to all of the neighboring cultures and picked their favorite parts and put them together.

12:50Josh Clark:Yeah.

12:50Chuck Bryant:And that was definitely one of them. Yeah, for sure.

12:53Josh Clark:Yeah. Ah. Well, we talked in our, I guess it was in the folklore and fairytale episodes that were twin episodes almost. Yeah. About the original Little Mermaid and how she was Disney-fied to the fullest, but the original story was far darker.

13:15Chuck Bryant:Darker, but also even more touching by far. Yeah. I went back and read the last section of it. Give me a summary at the end. So at the end, this is where it dramatically differs from the Disney story. The Little Mermaid is scorned for another woman. The guy she loves chooses someone else and marries her. And the Little Mermaid is like, dude, I gave up my tail for you. I think a witch has my tongue kind of thing. and I want to get back my life. So her sisters came and bring her this ritual knife and say, you can convert back to a mermaid if before dawn you plunge this knife into this dude's heart, this guy who loves heart, and you get some of his blood on your feet, you will regrow your tail and you can jump into the sea and everything will be just fine again.

14:11Chuck Bryant:So she goes and she finds the guy sleeping with his new bride beside him and she just can't do it. She throws the knife into the sea and becomes sea foam. She disintegrates and becomes sea foam. So she gives her own happiness up for this guy, right? And dies as a result. But even better than that, when she turns into sea foam, she becomes a different mythical creature. Like basically an air nymph that goes around like helping humans. And she can possibly get into heaven if she helps people for 300 years. Hans Christian Andersen wrote it way better than I just recounted it. A lot less ums and likes, but it's worth reading.

15:00Josh Clark:Pliny also talked about mermen back in the day and there would be mermen or seamen who would at night climb up onto ships, there's a quote, that's why I'm reading it, weird, upon which the side of the vessel where he seated himself would instantly sink downward. If you remain there any considerable time, even go underwater.

15:20Chuck Bryant:And that was something that we will see as we talk more about mermaids. They are very, they're often either an omen, that something bad is gonna happen to sailors or coastal dwelling people. Yeah. Or they actually directly cause harm to sailors or coastal dwelling people.

15:39Josh Clark:Yeah, and most times under the guise of something beautiful, like a siren. They are often, well, we haven't even described one. Surely you know that a mermaid has the head and body, torso of a woman, human woman. Usually with huge boobs. Yeah, if you're talking about a sailor's account. Right. Sure. You're like, oh yeah, she was busty.

16:04Chuck Bryant:Did I mention the boobs?

16:06Josh Clark:Yes, you did, sir, seven times. And from the torso down, she's a fish. Maybe webbed feet, maybe not. Very graceful, very fast, and always beautiful.

16:22Chuck Bryant:It depends. Oh yeah? Yeah, there were some of legend that were not ugly. Really? Not ugly, or they were ugly? That they were not. in parentheses beautiful comma ugly.

16:38Josh Clark:Well, I hadn't heard about that.

16:40Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it's in here.

16:42Josh Clark:No, I'm just, I must have missed that part.

16:44Chuck Bryant:It's far more frequent what you were saying that they were beautiful and alluring. Okay. But we'll talk more about that after we take a break, huh? Talk about Josh. We'll talk about Trump. We'll talk about Jerry. Talk about all kinds of stuff.

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19:09Chuck Bryant:Alright, Chuck. We were saying that for the most part mermaids are beautiful. And one of the reasons why they are supposed to be beautiful is because they are frequently accused of luring men, sailors, out to sea to their death. Yeah. And how do you do that? You do that one of two ways. You have a beautiful singing voice. Yep. Or you just straight up look good yourself. That's right. And if you have a beautiful singing voice, you're a siren, in which case you would not be a mermaid because a siren is half bird, half woman.

19:42Josh Clark:Yes.

19:42Chuck Bryant:And they don't even necessarily live in the water or near the water. they're sometimes described as hanging out in fields. Yeah, I guess sometimes you can be very pretty and be a good singer, right?

19:55Josh Clark:You're a mermaid?

19:56Chuck Bryant:Mm-hmm. But the, yeah, it could be. Yeah. Sure. Who am I to disagree?

20:04Josh Clark:You'd be Beyonce. Right. Or Alicia Keys. Right. Or Adele. Oh, you know who I like is Rihanna. Oh, yeah, she's great.

20:14Chuck Bryant:She's very pretty. That part in, what's it called, This is the End? When she played herself? Yeah, yeah. She was pretty great in that. She was pretty funny. Michael Cera spanked her and she just immediately turned around and smacked the heck out of him.

20:27Josh Clark:Yeah, I enjoyed parts of that movie, especially Michael Cera. Yeah. Playing like a coked out jerk. That was really funny. Yeah. So back to The Beautiful Mermaids, though. So there was one in 1000 BCE in Syria, and her name, how would you pronounce that? Adargadis? Oh, I think you nailed it. Yeah? Yeah. All right, we'll go with that. And you'll see a lot of duality in a lot of these stories, and she was one for sure that was a protector, a goddess. I think she protected the fertility of her people and watched over them and fell in love with a human man, as you will often see in a lot of these stories.

21:08Josh Clark:A dude. Yeah, a dude, and it was fine for a little while, like in most stories, and then it goes south.

21:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

21:15Josh Clark:And she kills him.

21:17Chuck Bryant:She crushed him with her greatness.

21:21Josh Clark:Oh, I thought like her big tail or something.

21:24Chuck Bryant:I don't know, well she wasn't a mermaid yet, this is where she becomes a mermaid.

21:27Josh Clark:Oh, that's true, that's right, I forgot about that. So she accidentally kills him, and then is very shamed, throws herself into the lake, because she wants to become a fish. And she's so beautiful that it only works half as good. I really can't figure out the math on that. No. But I guess she's just so beautiful that the human beauty part of her is like, no, I won't be a fish.

21:50Chuck Bryant:Just the lower half can be a fish. Yeah. Because she had toe fungus, so that was easily overcome. But her face was really nice, so the fish part just couldn't overcome that. That's right. So she ended up a mermaid. What a weird story. But not just weird like, oh it's foreign or anything. I'm not being xenophobic but it really says a lot about humanity and how we think of things. Like no, she was so good looking that this magic couldn't even overcome that. Yeah, that's a good point. We place a lot of value on that kind of thing. Alright, should we move on to Germany? Yeah, this one was kind of interesting to me because Germany's landlocked.

22:34Chuck Bryant:Oh, I never really thought about that. Why does Germany have a mermaid mythology?

22:39Josh Clark:Well, I mean, they have lakes. I guess. But mermaids are 100 % ocean dwellers, aren't they?

22:45Chuck Bryant:No, there are some river dwellers.

22:47Josh Clark:Oh, that's right.

22:49Chuck Bryant:Although I think the sirens were specifically river.

22:52Josh Clark:Well, in the German myth, it was a river dweller, correct? Okay, yeah, the Nix's? Yeah, and they lured men into the river. Yeah, it was a river. so they could drown them. Again, the call of the siren, come in here, look how beautiful I am. Right, check these out. And now I'm holding your head underwater. Right. And you can't breathe anymore.

23:12Chuck Bryant:And the guy's like, I regret nothing.

23:17Josh Clark:But this duality that we're talking about is what you see a lot of times in mermaid myths from West Africa, the Mami Wada, the Mother Water. She was a mermaid. who is very nurturing and very loving. If you didn't cross her. Yeah, exactly. That's where the duality comes in.

23:38Chuck Bryant:I don't even know if that's duality. I think that's just a complex person. Good complex character there. Yeah? Yeah. So she's great, but when you cross her, she's murderous. Sure. All right.

23:50Josh Clark:And that's what she did, actually. She had, if you were loyal to her, you could be wealthy from her magic mirror and comb, but if you betrayed her then what this article says is she rains down fury and destruction. Right. Right out of an action movie.

24:05Chuck Bryant:She rained the H word from above.

24:07Josh Clark:But the duality is an important part of it because the physical creature itself is two things. Sure. And they are also two things emotionally and morally.

24:18Chuck Bryant:So the mermaid or merman or merfolk as they're called in this article. Are they really? Yeah, so merfolk are half fish, half people, right? Yeah. But they're not anywhere near unique in the pantheon of mythological creatures throughout the ages, right? There's, again, there's sirens, half birds, half women. There's just tons of, like the minotaur, half man, half bull. Yeah. The centaur was what, half goat or horse and half man? I don't remember if that sounds right. I think half horse. And I was like, where did all these come from? I suspected bestiality, and it turns out I may be right. Oh yeah?

25:03Chuck Bryant:Yeah. What'd you find? There are some scholars out there who believe that this is the product of a much more relaxed attitude toward bestiality than we modern humans have today. Yeah.

25:17Josh Clark:I still never saw that documentary about the horse.

25:20Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it's a good one, zoo.

25:22Josh Clark:Yeah, that fell off my radar.

25:24Chuck Bryant:Man, it's one of those ones where they largely do recreate, like the whole thing's almost recreation. Right. And I usually am not hip on those. It doesn't feel like a documentary to me, but that one changed my mind about that whole technique. They did it so well. Really? Yep. It's rough. I bet. It's rough. Especially like when you think about the animals as well. Yeah, of course. You know? But there's more than just that that makes it rough.

25:51Josh Clark:Man, I need to see that. So I guess we can talk a little bit about some eyewitness accounts. They're all bunk, of course, but they have happened. In World War II, in Japan, on Indonesia's Kai Islands, supposedly they encountered a monster on the beach that had webbed hands and feet and was kind of part human, part fish.

26:12Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it was like, look at these jazz hands.

26:14Josh Clark:You can't do this. And then back in the day, some of our most revered explorers and adventurers reported seeing mermaids like John Smith and Henry Hunton.

26:30Chuck Bryant:And Columbus. John Smith. Everybody loves him.

26:32Josh Clark:Yeah, what was, there's a good quote in here from Columbus because he wasn't too impressed.

26:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah. He said, and here's the thing, I read that in his diary he's referring to himself in the third person. Well, that says a lot. That's odd. Ricky Henderson? Right, or George Costanza. So he says that he saw some, oh yeah, the quote's not in here. You gotta read the quote. He's out sailing around. La-da-da, la-da-dee. Oh, what is that out in the ocean? I think I'll take a look through my spying glass.

27:02Josh Clark:The day before when the Admiral was going to the, and the Admiral is himself.

27:06Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. He was the Admiral of his fleet for sure.

27:10Josh Clark:The day before when the Admiral was going on to the Rio del Oro. That's the river of gold. He said he saw three mermaids who came quite high out of the water but were not as pretty as they are depicted for somehow in the face they look like men.

27:26Chuck Bryant:But I still thought about it.

27:28Josh Clark:Yeah, so. End scene. What they think now, and I don't know how they substantiated this, is that Columbus was seeing manatees.

27:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Have you seen manatees? Yeah, it looks nothing like a human. From enough of a distance though, you're like, wait a minute, what is that? Especially if you've never seen a manatee before. I don't think it looks human-like at all. From enough of a distance. You think? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can see how somebody would, especially if you believe that mermaids existed, and you see a manatee.

27:59Josh Clark:Maybe it's hard for me just to - I can totally get that. Go there and put my mind in that kind of frame.

28:05Chuck Bryant:In the frame of Christopher Columbus?

28:06Josh Clark:Well, just to have never seen a mermaid, to have never seen a manatee, to be high on, what's the green stuff?

28:14Chuck Bryant:Arawak scalps.

28:16Josh Clark:Oh my God. I just blanked on the green.

28:19Chuck Bryant:Marijuana?

28:20Josh Clark:No. The green. The green drink. Absinthe. I don't think absinthe was around with Columbus. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. You're shooting that stuff. I can kind of see it. So he maybe saw a manatee and was like, Eh, they're not so great looking after all. They're not that great.

28:40Chuck Bryant:What's everyone talking about? Yeah, he saw one. This is like Jimmy Carter and the UFOs. Like you're kind of surprised when you hear this that somebody cited it. Apparently Reagan said he saw UFOs as well. John Smith said he saw some. He liked what he saw. He liked the look of the manatees because he said he fell in love with one with long green hair.

29:04Josh Clark:Yeah, he said it wasn't bad looking. or it wasn't unattractive or something like that.

29:09Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

29:09Josh Clark:It was kind of a, he hedged his bets a little bit. Yeah. I guess he wanted to check the rest of her out.

29:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And then he saw she had a tail and was like, oh, can't go there. So what's going on here? Are they hallucinating because they've been on the high seas too long? That's what a lot of people say. Yeah. Other people say that, again, they were predisposed to believing in mermaids because people thought mermaids existed. This was the age of exploration. So it's the beginning of the age of exploration, which means that before then, the oceans were largely unexplored. And there were tons of beliefs in thousands of year old mythologies about creatures that lived in the sea. So if you thought that those things existed, then something that looked kind of like a mermaid could be a mermaid.

29:58Chuck Bryant:So that was probably it. They were just cases of mistaken identity.

30:03Josh Clark:They were highly suggestible.

30:04Chuck Bryant:Yeah, we did one on sea monsters, remember? We did. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good one. I thought that one was going to be awful, and it turned out pretty great. That episode? Yeah. Like, I remember thinking, like, this is not going to go well. Kind of like this one. Yeah. How do you think this one's going? Pretty great.

30:22Josh Clark:All right. Well, let's take a break then and give each other a neck rub, and we'll come back more comfortable than ever. All right.

30:34Josh Clark:All right. Talk about all kinds of stuff. Stuff and sugar.

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31:29Josh Clark:I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever. There's the everyday essential garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir-fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious.

32:15Josh Clark:When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com. Warning, the following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups.

32:27Chuck Bryant:One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Knock, knock, knocking at the door. Knock, knock, knocking at the door. Five, six, who is it? Five, six, who is it? It's Cowie and Elliot. It's Cowie and Elliot.

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33:01Chuck Bryant:There is a dude, I love this guy. His name is Carl Bantz. And he, you're not a Carl Bantz fan?

33:11Josh Clark:Well, I'm not quite sure I understand unless. Did you read the article?

33:16Chuck Bryant:Well, just to set it up. Okay, so a dude named Carl Bantz back in 1990, he wrote an article in a legitimate journal, the journal Limnology and Oceanography, and they published it, and it is an entirely tongue-in-cheek but totally played straight account of the extinct species mermaid.

33:39Josh Clark:Yeah, like where he surmises on, like for real, where they came from, what their biology was, why they left us.

33:48Chuck Bryant:Yep, that they were warm water dwelling, that they ate human flesh, which is why they lured people to their death. He goes so far as to say that they most likely only produced one or two offspring at a time because the females of the species had two breasts and that was it. Okay. You know? Sure. This is the thought that this guy put into this article and the fact that he writes it totally straight and really gives it its due attention. It wasn't that this is going to be a great idea and just the idea itself is hilarious so I don't really have to put any effort into actual execution. He put effort into the execution and he did pretty good.

34:31Josh Clark:I'm not knocking him, I guess. I just don't see why this journal would put something like that out there even. I don't know. I mean, I guess they had a good sense of humor and maybe it was the April Fool's episode. I was wondering if that was the case too

34:43Chuck Bryant:and I forgot to look if it was the April issue.

34:45Josh Clark:Perhaps. He did use the words horny skin folds though. Their skin, he theorized, was not smooth scaled like a regular fish, but it had, quote, horny skin folds.

34:58Chuck Bryant:Like an armadillo. What's interesting is I saw another account from 1830 in Scotland. There's a town called Bembecula on the outer Hebrides, right? Which is like the outer islands, the archipelago. It's the archipelago. That's how you say that, right? Sure. Archipelago? Yeah. Either way, there's a town there. String of islands. Coastal, thank you. A coastal town where in 1830, the whole town swore they saw a mermaid and tried to grab the mermaid. And the mermaid swam away. So some kid threw a rock at it and hit it in its back. and two days later they found it dead on shore and they felt so bad about it that they...

35:43Chuck Bryant:Killed the kid? They buried it. They gave it a funeral with a casket and everything. Wow. And they said that it didn't have scales, that it had kind of rough skin instead. Or any skinfold. Yeah, they didn't use that term. But this is like a thing in 1830 in Scotland. Yeah, pretty interesting when you read the account of it years later. That's my new band name by the way. The horny skin folds? Yeah. Nice.

36:11Josh Clark:Yeah, that is interesting. Maybe there's something there. Right.

36:18Chuck Bryant:How do you keep the folds of the horny skin fold clean? You know? I bet like gunk gets trapped in there. Gross. I don't know. Maybe that's the name of the first single, Cleaning the Folds. The other thing that Bantz did in his article was explain probably why they're extinct now. He came to the conclusion that they're extinct. He said they were warm water, so they would have cohabitated or shared their ecosystem with jellyfish. And as humans started to fish more and more of the sea, we upset the ecological balance. Jellyfish populations were allowed to boom, which is the case. And they stung the mermaids to death because the mermaids had, they lacked the blubber that would protect them not just in cold water, but from jellyfish stings as well.

37:06Chuck Bryant:So they died out from jellyfish stings.

37:08Josh Clark:Yeah, because their upper skin was just regular skin. Right. It wasn't the horny skin folds. Yeah. So it provided no protection. Exactly. Pretty good theory.

37:17Chuck Bryant:It's worth reading. Go check it out. It's called Mermaids, Their Biology, Culture, and Demise. You can find the full PDF online.

37:24Josh Clark:Well, I think we have to address the animal planet snafu.

37:28Chuck Bryant:I don't know if they would call it a snafu. I think they would call it a ratings bonanza.

37:32Josh Clark:Yeah, what was the other, oh, when we talked about the Megalodon, when Discovery Channel aired a Megalodon documentary that appeared by all accounts to be true and was not. Same thing with Mermaids, but they did it twice. They did. They did a sequel because it got, like you said, huge ratings. And this was a documentary, well, not a documentary, It was a mockumentary that looked like, did you watch any clips or anything?

38:02Chuck Bryant:Of the second one, yeah.

38:04Josh Clark:Yeah, I mean, it looked like a show, like a hunting Bigfoot crew. It's like, you know, we got this mermaid. We know where she is, and we're down here hunting. 3 ,000 feet below the surface. Yeah, and they interviewed a guy that looked like Zach Galifianakis. If only it would have been Zach Galifianakis. It would have made it much better. but you know then it was when these shows were at the end and small lettering it was probably not even small but at the end of the credits it's like this was all made up these are actors and yeah but people still buy it

38:35Chuck Bryant:if you go online people are still like arguing over the the legitimacy or credentials of the marine geologist Torsten Schmidt that's a great name it is and people are like well if he were a real scientist he would have been published elsewhere besides this and he's not not published and it's like, that's because he's not real, he's made up. Yeah, this is like settled. Right. They didn't even pretend that it was real. So I don't know if that's the case or not. Well I mean they said it wasn't at the end of the show. Okay, but they didn't come out and say everybody, everybody. Oh well, I see what you mean.

39:09Chuck Bryant:No, right, so actually NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to release, they felt they needed to release a statement after the first one saying like, hey, Mermaids don't exist, no evidence has ever been found. We're Noah, the end. And I bet they'd love that even. Oh yeah. Oh my God, Noah's making a statement about our show. Exactly, yeah. It's gonna be all over the news. Right, and so I guess enough people bought it and bought into it that they were able to release a sequel. And in the sequel, the reason they released the sequel was because Torsten Schmidt had footage of a webbed hand like smacking the windshield.

39:47Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I saw that. This little underwater sub, two man sub, and then swimming off. Yeah. And so they just kept showing that over and over and over again and discussing it with Zach Galifianakis.

40:01Josh Clark:He did look like him, didn't he? A lot. I thought you were gonna say it was found out when Torsten Schmidt showed up on a episode of Two Broke Girls the next week. Right. He was like a waiter.

40:13Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and a progressive insurance ad. It's like customer number two. Exactly. There's one other sighting I wanted to mention. This one is second for my favorite after the Scottish one. Okay. It was in Edom, Netherlands. Is it Edom? Sure. Like the cheese? Yeah. Okay. Two girls were like rowing their boats and found a mermaid and took it home and dressed it up as a little girl and taught it to live on land, but it remained mute its whole life. Like E.T. Yeah. But isn't that cute? That is very cute. They're like, you're coming home with us. Oh you got a family? T.S. We got a family too and it's your new family.

40:50Chuck Bryant:And they just made that story up and told people and it survived? I guess. Interesting. Although they didn't they didn't like they matriculated the mermaid into human society there but we're talking 1430 so who knows what was going on.

41:05Josh Clark:Yeah. They were eating They probably got their hands

41:08Chuck Bryant:on somebody who was like who knows? Yeah. And they're like oh mermaid this is a mermaid. Oh, just someone who had some sort of physical deformation. And made them come live with them. Yeah. Dressed as a girl for the rest of their life. Like Schlitzie or something.

41:23Josh Clark:Yeah, like we did in the freak shows. They would just call them, make up whatever animal they wanted to. That was another great episode too. Are you just recounting the good ones while we do this one?

41:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Just to remind people. It gets better.

41:40Josh Clark:So being a mermaid is an actual job you can get. but back in the day, in the 1940s and 50s, it was a big hit to go to a sea park and have mermaid shows.

41:52Chuck Bryant:And specifically one in, is it Wikiwachi Springs?

41:55Josh Clark:Yeah, Wikiwachi Springs, Florida, near Tampa. And it was a booming business back then. They said between half a million and a million tourists every year, including big famous people like Elvis Presley and Don Knotts. Yeah. Those are the two they mentioned. Those two would trash a place together. Oh, I bet. Don gets into the whiskey, it's all over. So yeah, it was a huge deal back then. They're still doing it there today, but it is a real job. You can go, if you're a great swimmer, you have to know what you're doing.

42:31Chuck Bryant:Oh yeah.

42:31Josh Clark:It seems like, oh yeah, you just put on that tail. But that tail is heavy and awkward. Well, yeah, and plus swimming with your legs together

42:40Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's hard. It's very difficult. Yeah, it's not an easy job from what I can tell.

42:45Josh Clark:Yeah, so apparently once you put, like they look very graceful swimming around in those things, but you go put one on and get in a pool and see what happens.

42:54Chuck Bryant:Right, and this article I think rightly points out that the professional mermaids that you see today are, like this is from years and years and years of practice. Yeah. Like they didn't just get in the water and they're like, yeah, I'm a natural. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, it's gotta be really awkward. Sure, and you also have to know how to hold your breath like a moe. Like a moe? Yeah, I stop myself.

43:18Josh Clark:Yeah, you do, and you have to learn how to swim the mermaid crawl, which is what they name it, but it's not like regular swimming. Right. You know? Yeah. And you can make a little dough, too. A little bit. It said you can be hired as a one-off for a party, what is that like? You go to a neighborhood pool, and everyone gathers around like look at the mermaid.

43:40Chuck Bryant:And claps out of rhythm. That's so funny. And you're like what do you guys want me to do?

43:44Josh Clark:I guess you can do that. But mostly what I've seen are like the shows in some sleepy Florida town. Right. Like Gator Farm and. That was the start. And the wiki-watching mermaids.

43:57Chuck Bryant:Or like at resorts or something like that.

43:59Josh Clark:Yeah, back when they used to love that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And some of these professional mermaids apparently where you use their status as a soapbox for ecology in efforts to keep the oceans clean.

44:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's pretty cool. There seems to be a real thread of that running through the professional mermaid culture. You're like an eco-activist. That's a decent band name too. Professional mermaid culture? Yeah. This one was rich with bands. Band names. Horny skin folds. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you want to know more about mermaids, you can type that word in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

44:45Josh Clark:Actually, in lieu of listener mail today, we are going to ask you for something. Because people often say, like, how can I help the show? Spreading the word is awesome. We always appreciate that. But one thing we haven't asked you to do in a long time is go to iTunes and leave a review. Oh, yeah. Because that makes a big difference if there are reviews, even if they're not favorable. Just be honest. Vote with your conscience. Vote your conscience. And yeah, go to iTunes, leave a review for us, because just having reviews is a good thing. And tell a friend, help spread the word. I feel like years go by before we say things like this.

45:25Chuck Bryant:Yeah, well, I think literally that's the case. Yeah, it's been a long time.

45:29Josh Clark:So we really appreciate, the way the show was built was on word of mouth largely. We really count on that. So tell a friend, go to iTunes, and leave a recommendation. And the other thing that we also need are more jingles.

45:42Chuck Bryant:Oh, yeah.

45:43Josh Clark:These jingles that you hear, these bumpers, are from fans and listeners, musicians.

45:48Chuck Bryant:Very kind ones.

45:49Josh Clark:Yeah, and they really enjoy doing it, and we love throwing them out there. So send us your jingle, and we can't promise we'll use it, but we probably will.

45:57Chuck Bryant:Yeah, because they're pretty great. Yeah, so that's all I got. Well, thanks. If you want to get in touch with us to help us out with any of this stuff, you can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, StuffYouShouldKnow.com.

46:23Josh Clark:For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com.

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