November 21, 2024 • 29 mins
Today’s an important day in Holmes history, so Mango is joined by Part-Time Genius super producer/Sherlockian Mary to explore some lesser-known facts about the greatest detective ever written. Grab a magnifying glass and your deerstalker, and discover the weird connection between Sherlock and Popeye, the real-life man who may have inspired Professor Moriarty, and the unsolved mystery of the first Sherlock Holmes movie!
Yes-- that's a photo of Mangesh as a 3rd grader the first of two years in a row that he went as Sherlock Holmes for Halloween.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Guess what, my gush?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What's that? Mary? Also Mary, I'm supposed to be the
one saying the guest was, but I'll let it slide
this time. What is up? Mary? Okay?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, today is a very important day and we need
to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Is it your Birthda better? It's not my virtue? Oh God,
so much better? No nofense, my goshion, I'm taking I
give up. Why is today so special?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's November twenty first, which is the anniversary of Sherlock
Holmes's first appearance in print. On this day, in eighteen
eighty seven, a British magazine called Beaten's Christmas Annual came
out with Arthur Conan Doyle's very first home story, a
novel called A Study in Scarlett.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, I love a Study in Scarlet. But I had
no idea.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's the best part. A lot of people have no idea.
The exact date of the story publication is weirdly hard
to find. That's because this magazine, which was only published annually,
didn't have a date anywhere on it, just the year,
which is why you'll sometimes find December eighteen eighty seven
given as the date of holmes debut because it said Christmas, right.
But the thing about Sherlock Holmes superfans like me is
(01:18):
we want facts, we don't want guestimates. So a Sherlock
historian named Matthias Bostrom decided to solve the problem of
the overly vague publication date by digging into newspapers of
the time, and he found a series of ads promoting
Beaten's Christmas Annual and Doyle's novel, which was the big
feature in it, that first appeared on November twenty first.
(01:40):
The ad copy said the magazine was available for purchase
for one shilling and now pre orders were not a
thing back then, which meant the magazine must have been
on newstands that day, and November twenty first, eighteen eighty
seven was a Monday, so just to be sure, Boston
went back. He checked papers from the previous week and
found no mention of Beaten's magazine for Sherlock Holmes. Therefore,
(02:02):
we can deduce that today, November twenty first, is the
real anniversary.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I love how analytical and how thorough that is is
really amazing. These are my people. Well, it sounds like
the game's afoot, so less discovered non intriguing facts about
Sherlock Holmes. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part time Genius.
(02:43):
I'm Mongish articular, and today I have my friend and
super producer Mary Philip Sandy in the studio with me.
And right over there observing my every move and scribbling
in a notebook is Dylan Fagan. He better not be
writing a rip rowing uncle of all my adventures. I
have told him over and over not to do that.
(03:03):
So let's get started. Mary. You know, I kind of
vaguely knew you were into Sherila Holmbs, but I had
no idea like how much a part of your life
it was.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, this goes back. My grandparents gave me a
collection of the stories when I was like ten years
old for Christmas. I spent the entire holiday vacation just
hold up in my room reading this book over and
over and over. I still have it, and I still
read it to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And was it just shla Colmbs or was it other
mysteries and mystery novels as well?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It was really just Slack Holms. There was just something
about it that captured my imagination to a degree that
I think a lot of people can relate to because
it's really exciting, really well written, and the characters just
come alive, they jump off the page at you.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And was this a family thing too or just just you?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
No, I was just a lonely nerd in my room
with my Holm stories and I still am. That's really it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Well, the reason I'm asking is because homes definitely had
a presence in my house as well. Like I loved mysteries,
and I loved mystery novel I loved like Encyclopedia Brown,
I loved and It Bliden's The Famous Five. I read
all the Miss Marple and Rachael Poirot in the school library.
But I was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes so much so
(04:14):
that for both third grade and fourth grade Halloween's I
was sholock.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Is there photographic evidence? Okay, but it's definitely true. And
also like I was telling a friend this earlier, but
one of the biggest crisis I remember dealing with and
this is how easy my life was. But like one
of the biggest crisis was in sixth or seventh grade.
Seinfeld used to be aired on Wednesday nights, and this
(04:41):
PBS show Mystery aired on Thursday nights, and my mom
and I would watch Mystery, and then they moved Seinfeld
into the same time slot, and it created all this
conflict because I didn't want to tell my mom I
might want to instead.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I still kind of really he wanted to watch these
mysteries and Jeremy Brett being a Sherlock Holmes or whatever.
But finally my friend Howard jumped in to save the
day and he taped Seinfeld for me weekly, which is
so sweet.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Howard saved today. That's amazing. That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So tell me, did you ever go around the like
neighborhood trying to solve mysteries or anything?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Do I still do that?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I still do that to this debt, No, truly, Like
you know, it'll be like, hmmmm that restaurant. That restaurant's
changed a dishaunting. I wonder why, you know, because in
New York there's always things changing, and there's always a
reason if you pay attention, there is always a reason.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My neighbors love me. I remember in third grade there
was like a new kid in my neighborhood and he
ended up being very sweet kid. But he would stretch
the truth a lot, and so like we biked down there,
we met him, and he's kind of lulky, and he
told us he was like the second grade world boxing
(05:56):
champion or whatever, like something nonsense, very very realistic. Yeah,
of course. And I was like trying to deduce how
you could tell he wasn't. So I was like, see,
you can see he doesn't have any ten lines. Oh yeah,
he hasn't been around the world, like you know that
this is absolutely fake. No.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
A few years ago a friend of mine got catfished
and I helped crack that case. Really Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course we could do a whole episode on that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
For our catfish. Yeah yeah, yeah, well I think we
probably should get started. Do you want to hear that story?
Since you are the resident Sherlock Holmes head, why don't
you start?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Okay? So, like I said, people around the world have
become obsessed with Sherlock Holmes for very good reason. And
today there are statues of Sherlock Holmes in London, in Edinburgh,
in Moscow, and of course in Chester, Illinois, which is
a town of about eight thousand people on the Mississippi River,
and that's actually the home of the only Sherlock Holmes
statue in the United States.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Do you know what's funny is that my old boss,
this eccentric guy named Felix Dennis, he had this garden
of heroes that he had in his backyard. So he
had like a sculpture made of Roger Banister, of like
Bruce Lee, of all these people. And Sherlock Holmes was
in that garden of heroes as he should be, which
is so ridiculous but cool in a way.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It doesn't make sense, but it also kind of does
you know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But that was not Chester, Illinois. So tell me what
does this little town have to do with Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Absolutely nothing. But it is also the home of Elsie
Chrysler Segar, the cartoonist who created Popeye, you know, the
spinacheating sailorman right. Cigar was born in eighteen ninety four,
and he grew up reading Sherlock Holmes. He was a
big fan. He even worked a bunch of Sherlock references
into Thimble Theater, the popular comic strip where he introduced
his famous characters Olive oil, Ham, Gravy, and Popeye. Unfortunately,
(07:47):
Sierra died in nineteen thirty eight. He was only forty three,
and apparently he was working on a Sherlock inspired detective
story that he never got to finish. To honor him,
the town of Chester began putting up statues of the
Popeye character. There's like a trail you can walk around
and see them all. And in twenty nineteen they unveiled
a statue called Sherlock and Cigar. It's the famous detective.
(08:08):
He's wearing his hat and the cape. He's holding a
magnifying glass in a newspaper, but his face was made
to look like Cigars. And there's also a time capsule
buried next to the statue. I love this. They put
a time capsule in the ground under the statue and
they're planning to dig it up on cigars two hundredth birthday.
So everyone mark your calendars on December eighth, twenty ninety four.
(08:30):
We are all going to Chester, Illinois to find out
what's in that time guy.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So that's so crazy. It's also crazy that they switched
out his face for Cigars.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I know, it's really there's pictures of it online. It's
really interesting looking.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Did Cigar have like a curious looking face like anything?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Just perfectly normal looking guy? He doesn't look like Popeye
at all.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
So it is pretty well known that a Scottish surgeon
named doctor Joseph Bell was the model for Sherlock Holmes.
But I was wondering what is the opposite of Holmes.
You know his mortal enemy, Professor Moriarty, and he is
such a memorable character even though he only appears in
a handful of stories. And the crazy thing is that
Conan Doyle actually doesn't build out a huge life story
(09:12):
for him. We know he's exceptionally brilliant. He's a great mathematician,
an astronomer, chess player, a former academic, left teaching and
became a consulting criminal for the London Underworld. But there
are intriguing clues that point to a person who might
actually have been Conan Doyle's inspiration. So, for example, Moriarty
(09:35):
is said to have written a treatise on the binomial
theorem when he was just twenty one, and a book
called The Dynamics of an Asteroid that Holmes says is
so good that no one in the scientific community can
criticize it. Well, it turns out there was an exceptionally brilliant,
high profile Canadian American mathematician and astronomer named Simon Newcombe.
(09:57):
He actually taught at Johns Hopkins for a while well,
and he wrote a paper about the binomial theorem when
he was only nineteen, and this occurred in the eighteen sixties,
which you know, sounds familiar. He also published several papers
about the movements of individual asteroids.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Wow, that's that's kind of uncanny. Don't tell me this
Newcomb guy was also a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
No, but apparently he was super, super intense. His colleagues
were intimidated by him, and it's been said he was
more feared than liked. And apparently Arthur Conan Doyle had
a close friend who was familiar with Nucomb and his work.
So we may have this cranky professor to thank for
one of literature's greatest baddies.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Wow, thank you, professor Newcombe.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Science and medicine are such an interesting part of the
Sherlock Holms stories, and it really makes sense given Conan
Doyle's own career as a doctor. But one thing that
fascinates me is how Holmes influenced and reflected the emerging
field of forensic science. Take fingerprints for example, you know,
dusting a crime scene for Prince is like Law and
Order one oh one. Now, even though people had been
(11:02):
studying fingerprints for centuries, it wasn't until eighteen ninety two
that a murder was solved using fingerprint evidence, and that
was a case in Argentina, and Argentina actually became the
first country in the world to make fingerprinting an official
method of identifying individuals, especially in the context of crimes.
So it's really remarkable that Sherlock Holmes was talking about
(11:23):
fingerprint evidence as early as eighteen ninety in The Sign
of the Four. He was ahead of the times and
way ahead of Scotland. Yard as usual, they did not
use fingerprints until nineteen.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh one, that is crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And there was also a French criminologist named doctor Edmond
Locard who is considered the father of forensic science. In
nineteen ten he worked with the Leon Police Department to
set up the world's first crime investigation lab and that's
where he developed modern techniques like chemical analysis of ink
and handwriting identification. He was also a pioneer of dust analysis,
(11:58):
that is the study of dust, mud, other tiny particles
found at crime scenes, like bits of things tracked in
by shoes or tiny traces of fibers from clothing, and
that work really echoed the level of precision that Holmes
often used to solve cases, and Lecard gave him credit
for all of this. He once said, Sherlock Holmes was
the first to realize the importance of dust. I merely
(12:18):
copied his methods.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
That is incredible. The one thing I think about when
I think about fingerprints, though, is that the one creature
that has fingerprints that can be confused with a humans
is koala's.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So the Koala did it.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It wasn't the officer or the butler.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
My Kohala butler committed that crime. It was nowhere nearar.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So one of the things I can't help think about
is how different Charlock Holmes would be if he were
written today, right, Like, he probably wouldn't be smoking or vaping,
so as bad for you. But you know what's worse
is cocaine.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Cocaine is slightly worse. And Conan Doyle's depiction of the
rug is a fascinating look at the way public perception
of cocaine has changed over the time. So if you
look at the sign of the four which you just referenced,
that came out in eighteen ninety, and it opens with
Holmes injecting himself with what he calls a seven percent
solution of cocaine, and Watson observes that he's been doing
(13:17):
this three times a day for the past several months.
But at the time, cocaine didn't actually carry the stigma
it does today. It was considered a cutting edge medical marvel,
and doctors used it as an anesthetic and prescribed it
for nervousness and lethargy. You could buy cocaine tablets for nausea,
cocaine sprays for nasal congestion, even cocaine toothpaste for gum sensitivity.
(13:40):
So by making homes a cocaine user, Conan Doyle was saying, Hey,
this guy knows the latest trends in science, and he's
got lots of energy.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For solving crist so much energy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But just a decade later, obviously, public opinion shifted. In
nineteen oh one, a doctor named John Willie published a
report of a young patient who'd become addicted to cocaine.
His arms were bruised from the needles, and he was
so sick he couldn't leave his home. Obviously, it's a
very destructive drug, and according to Willie, the young man
(14:13):
was an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to
be like his favorite detective. Now The British Medical Journal
actually covered the case and warned that authors who glamorized
the drug use would quote have much to answer for.
And even though cocaine was still used in medical settings,
more and more people became concerned about its dangers. So finally,
in nineteen oh four, Conan Doyle broke Sherlock's coke habit
(14:37):
in the Adventure of the Missing three Quarter, and Watson
describes his efforts to help Holmes quit cocaine, calling it
quote the drug mania which had threatened once to check
his remarkable career.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Wow, don't do drugs. He like Sherlock Combs. Well, I guess,
don't be like Schurlock Coombs that he did drugs. He
like the later Sherlock Holmes where he's not doing drugs.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
That's the yess.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, here's the fact that I love. Even if you
don't know his name, you probably know the work of
the artist Sidney Paget, who became famous for his illustrations
of Conan Doyle's works. Paget drew over three hundred and
fifty pictures of the Detective and his adventures, and for
many of us, his art shaped our idea of Sherlock
Holmes as much as the stories themselves. I mean I
can see them in my mind even just saying his name.
(15:20):
But there's another illustrator I want to tell you about,
and that's Arthur Conan Doyle's father, Charles Charles Altamont Doyle
came from a big family of creative people. His dad,
that is, Arthur's grandfather, was a well known artist and
political cartoonist. Two of Charles's brothers, Richard and James, that is,
Arthur's uncles, also went on to become successful artists. As
(15:41):
a young man, Charles supported his growing family by selling
book illustrations, but he dreamed of being a world famous
painter and that just was not happening. He struggled with
depression and alcoholism, and eventually he lost his job. He
became unable to work, and he was admitted to a
psychiatric asylum, which back then was a terrible place to be.
(16:01):
And Arthur Conan Doyle had great sympathy for his father's struggles.
He never judged him, and he really admired his father's talent.
So in eighteen eighty eight, he commissioned his dad to
illustrate the book edition of A Study in Scarlet, which
was being published as a standalone novel after its first
appearance in Beaton's magazine. Charles actually drew all those illustrations
from his cell in the asylum. Oh wow, and they
(16:23):
capture some of the most exciting moments of the story.
They're really great, actually. And here's another little detail that
I find really sweet in a story his Last Bow,
Sherlock Holmes goes undercover with a fake name, and Conan
Doyle chose the alias Altamont in honor of his dad.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That is really sweet. You know. I know little things
about Conan Doyle, right, like they was friends with Harry Houdini,
like all all these spiritualist things whatever. But I had
no idea that he came from this artistic family.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, it was in his blood. It was in his blood.
And his dad's art was really incredible. He did a
lot of paintings and other drawings when he was locked up,
and he kind of channeled all of the anger and
frustration helt about being in this asylum into his art.
And it's you know belatedly, I think really really interesting. Actually,
Arthur Conan Doyle had an exhibit of his works after
his dad had died, Yeah, to showcase what he could do.
(17:11):
It was really, really, really touching.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
That's incredible. So after this, I'm going to look up
Arthur Conan Doyle's fathers are and you're going to look
up pictures of me in third grade as Yeah, Sherlock.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Holmes equally equally important.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's important. But that is so sweet. So you know,
illustrations aren't the only way we picture Sherlock Holmes. We
have to shout out some of the great actors who
portrayed him. Basil Rathbone, Jeremy bred, Benedict Cummer, Badge, Will Ferrell.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I always forget that Will Ferrell played Sherlock Holmes. I
actually I haven't seen it, but I do know it's
out there.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean, I can't believe you haven't seen it.
It's this twenty eighteen Buddy comedy Holmes and Watson, with
Will Ferrell and John c Riley, and The Hollywood Reporter
described it as devastatingly unfunny.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, I will I will not put that on the
two watch list. Then it's a shake.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
This seems like such a great idea.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I know what could go wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
But I actually wanted to tell you about another actor
named will and that is William Gillette. Gillette was actually
one of the first people to play Homes and he
helped create two iconic sherlockisms. So backing up a bit,
William Gillette was an American actor and playwright who helped
Arthur Conan Doyle write a play about his famous detective.
It was simply titled Sherlock Holmes. It actually premiered in
(18:26):
New York in eighteen ninety nine and it had a
long run on Broadway. It was followed by a hugely
successful American tour, and then it moved to England and
had a long run there. So Gillette played Homes actually
over a thousand times, becoming very very famous and very
very wealthy. So he designed and built himself a castle
(18:46):
in Connecticut, where he was from. And this is actually
a castle that I made my mom take me to
as a kid. Why how what? I don't know. I
think my aunt had mentioned it or something and I
was like, Oh, we have to go there. And it's
kind of crazy because it's like filled with homes like tricks, right.
He has like trick mirrors so you can see around
(19:06):
the corner of places. He has like little secret passageways.
I remember something having to do with smoke, but I
can't exactly remember, but it was like it was like
exactly the type of thing a kid would design, you know,
like a kid who was obsessed with homes in a way.
But anyway, back to Gillette as homes. When the play premier,
(19:27):
Jellette made a decision that would change Sherlock homes forever.
In the original paget illustrations, Homes is shown smoking a
normal pipe with a straight stem. Gellette actually wanted to
be able to deliver lines while pacing the stage and smoking,
and he realized that with a straight pipe he'd actually
have his hand in front of his mouth all the time,
so he swapped it out for one of those beautiful
(19:48):
curved stem pipes. And that's obviously how we picture homes.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It was a prop decision.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's just a prop.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
It's pretty amazing, right. And the second sherlockism we owe
to Gillette is the phrase elementary, my dear Watson, which,
as any homes head knows, Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote
that phrase, and in the canon Holmes does use the
phrase elementary to describe his deductions, and he addresses his
friend is my dear Watson, but he never puts those
(20:16):
two things together. And Julett added a line to his
play Holmes says to Watson, elementary, my dear fellow, And
later on the other scriptwriters made a slight change, replacing
Fellow with Watson.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, and thank goodness they did, because what else would
we have as a catchphrase? Well, elementary, my dear listeners.
We have a few more facts to go, but before
we get to those, let's take a quick outbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where I'm sitting here
with my super producer Mary and we are talking all
things Sherlock Homes. So, Mary, I am curious, like you know,
there have been a lot of recent adaptations of homes. Yes,
the Downey Junior ones, the Benedict Commer badge. I think
there was elementary, right, like some show on CBS. Which
ones do you like? What do you like in the cannon?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
All right?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, obviously Jeremy Brett is the best. That is the
gold standard as far as i'm yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I mean, look, I could do a whole episode on
my feelings about the BBC Sharlock and what happened there.
But Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were so good. Their performance,
their chemistry together was just really exceptional. I will say
there's actually an adaptation that I haven't seen that I
want to see. It's called Miss Sherlock and it was
made for Hulu Japan. It's set in Tokyo and the
two leads are women. I believe it is the first
(21:47):
major adaptation with Holmes and Watson being women and it's
set in modern day Tokyo. So I'm really excited. Have
to track that down.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
That's really wonder really cool. And did you ever watch
this movie Young Holmes? Yes, I have a friend Lucas
who sent me like the cliff of the last scene,
which is so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Very different vibe than what I'm talking about. Sure, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, but I actually forgot how much I loved Sherlock
Holmes until the BBC series came out. Yeah, with Bendic
Coumer Batche. But I'm curious what about the Aola home stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I have not actually seen that, but I've heard it's
really great. I've heard it's great.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, yeah, I know, my kids have watched in.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Like I tried to get Julian to watch it, but
he wasn't interested. Animation only that's the rule.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
So as long as we're talking about great moments of
film and stage, I want to show you the very
first Shrlock Holmes film. I'd say we can watch it
right now because it's less than a minute long. But
it's also a silent film, which is not great for
podcast purposes.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, not ideal. Well, what is the name of this film.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It is called Sherlock Holmes Baffled, and it was made
in nineteen hundred by the Biograph Company in New York City.
It actually wasn't meant to be shown in theaters. It
was made for a machine called the Mutoscope, which created
a moving image by flipping through a reel of cards.
The device was coin operated and only one person could
watch it at a time. It had a viewfinder at
(23:14):
the top so you could peer in and Sherlock Holmes
Baffled packs a lot into its short run time. First
of all, it's a slapstick comedy. So Holmes finds a
burglar trying to rob his house, and when he tries
to grab him, the burglar disappears, and then he reappears,
and then he escapes through a window, leaving Sherlock Holmes.
(23:36):
You know, baffle right there? It is. It's in the title,
and the disappearing burglar was an impressive effect for the time.
It was done with stop motion photography, which had only
entered the cinematic lexicon a few years earlier. But the
best part is Sherlock Holmes Baffled contains a mystery of
its own that to this day has not been solved.
(23:57):
Nobody knows who the actors.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Are, what, why?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
How come? I mean, if you can remember, this was
made for this like cheap penny arcade device, so it
wasn't a big feature. And back then movie actors often
went uncredited, So we don't know who was the first
person to play Sherlock Holmes in a movie. But we
can watch him failing to catch that thief whenever you want.
It is on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Oh of course it is good. I'll check it out.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What is your last background of you?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay, so you can't talk about Sherlock Holmes without mentioning
his fans, and we did just that a few years
ago in an episode called What does it Take to
Be a super Fan? Everyone should go back and listen
to that one as soon as you're done with this one.
But I want to tell you about a very particular
aspect of the fandom that is really interesting and often overlooked,
and that is the fact that for many, many years,
(24:48):
official Sherlock Holmes fan societies like the Baker Street Irregulars
were for men only, no girls allowed. And you know,
this is the thing with being a Sherlock Holmes fan, right,
these stories exist in a world of white men in
a very different time, which is fine, but to some
extent that spilled over into the fandom and created barriers
that didn't need to exist. And in the nineteen sixties,
(25:09):
a young woman named Evelyn Herzog ran up against this.
She had discovered Sherlock Holmes as a kid, much like
I did, and became a huge fan as a teenager.
She actually wrote to the Baker Street Irregulars, which is
this legendary Sherlockian society founded in nineteen thirty four, and
she was like, hey, how can I join? And they
wrote back saying, well, you can't because a the BSI
is invite only, and also it didn't accept women. I
(25:33):
should mention there were some smaller groups that were co ed,
but you know, the big institutions like the Baker Street Irregulars,
which was and is the most important one of all,
Evelyn couldn't join. So she goes off to college and
she meets some other women who love Sherlock Holmes as
much as she does, and they begin meeting in her
dorm room to talk all things Sherlock. They read papers
and literary journals, they read the journal that the Baker
(25:55):
Street Irregulars put out, and in January of nineteen sixty eight,
inspired by the Women's Rife its movement, they decide they
have had enough, and so they make these big signs
that say things like BSI unfair to women, and they
go pick it in the freezing cold outside a Baker
Street Irregular's dinner in Manhattan. They're marching around on the sidewalk.
At one point the police even show up, but the
(26:17):
women stood their ground.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That is so dramatic, but good for them, right, Yeah,
And I can't believe it took till like nineteen sixty
eight to like make a protest about this thing. So
did the Baker street irregulars change their policies after this incident.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Not right away, no, no, that would have been a
great ending to this, but no, it actually no, you know,
in its own way. It is great because Evelyn and
her friends launched their own society, one that is still
around today. It is called the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes
and it gave women who were excluded from other Sherlockian
groups a community of their own. The BSI did not
end its men only rule until nineteen ninety one, ninety one,
(26:55):
I know, better late than ever. Yeah, but when it
finally did, Evelyn Hertzog was one of the very first
women to be invested in the group. And today both
the BSI and the Adventuresses remain invite only. You guys
can get my number if you want it, but they
welcome members regardless of gender, and we love to see that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That is insane. So do you know anything about this
invitation process?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You have to be nominated by someone, So if anyone
would like to get in touch with me, just contact
part time genius. Don't let me out.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I love that fact, But more than anything, I love
the one that you said about Arthur Conan Doyle's Dad
and those illustrations. I feel like that definitely earns this
week's trophy, so I'm going to give it to you.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Thank you. I'm an award winning Sherlock Holmes podcaster.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Takeure Street O regulars, let them know. Well, that's it
for this episode of Part Time Genius. From Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Will and myself. Thank you so much for listening. And
don't forget we do have an Instagram account. It's just
at Part Time Genius. Hit us up. We're waiting for
your comments and questions and likes. Part Time Genius is
(28:14):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and Me Mongage Chatikler and research by
our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
(28:35):
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Guess what, my gush?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What's that? Mary? Also Mary, I'm supposed to be the
one saying the guest was, but I'll let it slide
this time. What is up? Mary? Okay?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, today is a very important day and we need
to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Is it your Birthda better? It's not my virtue? Oh God,
so much better? No nofense, my goshion, I'm taking I
give up. Why is today so special?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's November twenty first, which is the anniversary of Sherlock
Holmes's first appearance in print. On this day, in eighteen
eighty seven, a British magazine called Beaten's Christmas Annual came
out with Arthur Conan Doyle's very first home story, a
novel called A Study in Scarlett.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, I love a Study in Scarlet. But I had
no idea.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's the best part. A lot of people have no idea.
The exact date of the story publication is weirdly hard
to find. That's because this magazine, which was only published annually,
didn't have a date anywhere on it, just the year,
which is why you'll sometimes find December eighteen eighty seven
given as the date of holmes debut because it said Christmas, right.
But the thing about Sherlock Holmes superfans like me is
(01:18):
we want facts, we don't want guestimates. So a Sherlock
historian named Matthias Bostrom decided to solve the problem of
the overly vague publication date by digging into newspapers of
the time, and he found a series of ads promoting
Beaten's Christmas Annual and Doyle's novel, which was the big
feature in it, that first appeared on November twenty first.
(01:40):
The ad copy said the magazine was available for purchase
for one shilling and now pre orders were not a
thing back then, which meant the magazine must have been
on newstands that day, and November twenty first, eighteen eighty
seven was a Monday, so just to be sure, Boston
went back. He checked papers from the previous week and
found no mention of Beaten's magazine for Sherlock Holmes. Therefore,
(02:02):
we can deduce that today, November twenty first, is the
real anniversary.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I love how analytical and how thorough that is is
really amazing. These are my people. Well, it sounds like
the game's afoot, so less discovered non intriguing facts about
Sherlock Holmes. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part time Genius.
(02:43):
I'm Mongish articular, and today I have my friend and
super producer Mary Philip Sandy in the studio with me.
And right over there observing my every move and scribbling
in a notebook is Dylan Fagan. He better not be
writing a rip rowing uncle of all my adventures. I
have told him over and over not to do that.
(03:03):
So let's get started. Mary. You know, I kind of
vaguely knew you were into Sherila Holmbs, but I had
no idea like how much a part of your life
it was.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, this goes back. My grandparents gave me a
collection of the stories when I was like ten years
old for Christmas. I spent the entire holiday vacation just
hold up in my room reading this book over and
over and over. I still have it, and I still
read it to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And was it just shla Colmbs or was it other
mysteries and mystery novels as well?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It was really just Slack Holms. There was just something
about it that captured my imagination to a degree that
I think a lot of people can relate to because
it's really exciting, really well written, and the characters just
come alive, they jump off the page at you.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And was this a family thing too or just just you?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
No, I was just a lonely nerd in my room
with my Holm stories and I still am. That's really it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Well, the reason I'm asking is because homes definitely had
a presence in my house as well. Like I loved mysteries,
and I loved mystery novel I loved like Encyclopedia Brown,
I loved and It Bliden's The Famous Five. I read
all the Miss Marple and Rachael Poirot in the school library.
But I was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes so much so
(04:14):
that for both third grade and fourth grade Halloween's I
was sholock.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Is there photographic evidence? Okay, but it's definitely true. And
also like I was telling a friend this earlier, but
one of the biggest crisis I remember dealing with and
this is how easy my life was. But like one
of the biggest crisis was in sixth or seventh grade.
Seinfeld used to be aired on Wednesday nights, and this
(04:41):
PBS show Mystery aired on Thursday nights, and my mom
and I would watch Mystery, and then they moved Seinfeld
into the same time slot, and it created all this
conflict because I didn't want to tell my mom I
might want to instead.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I still kind of really he wanted to watch these
mysteries and Jeremy Brett being a Sherlock Holmes or whatever.
But finally my friend Howard jumped in to save the
day and he taped Seinfeld for me weekly, which is
so sweet.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Howard saved today. That's amazing. That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So tell me, did you ever go around the like
neighborhood trying to solve mysteries or anything?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Do I still do that?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I still do that to this debt, No, truly, Like
you know, it'll be like, hmmmm that restaurant. That restaurant's
changed a dishaunting. I wonder why, you know, because in
New York there's always things changing, and there's always a
reason if you pay attention, there is always a reason.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My neighbors love me. I remember in third grade there
was like a new kid in my neighborhood and he
ended up being very sweet kid. But he would stretch
the truth a lot, and so like we biked down there,
we met him, and he's kind of lulky, and he
told us he was like the second grade world boxing
(05:56):
champion or whatever, like something nonsense, very very realistic. Yeah,
of course. And I was like trying to deduce how
you could tell he wasn't. So I was like, see,
you can see he doesn't have any ten lines. Oh yeah,
he hasn't been around the world, like you know that
this is absolutely fake. No.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
A few years ago a friend of mine got catfished
and I helped crack that case. Really Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course we could do a whole episode on that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
For our catfish. Yeah yeah, yeah, well I think we
probably should get started. Do you want to hear that story?
Since you are the resident Sherlock Holmes head, why don't
you start?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Okay? So, like I said, people around the world have
become obsessed with Sherlock Holmes for very good reason. And
today there are statues of Sherlock Holmes in London, in Edinburgh,
in Moscow, and of course in Chester, Illinois, which is
a town of about eight thousand people on the Mississippi River,
and that's actually the home of the only Sherlock Holmes
statue in the United States.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Do you know what's funny is that my old boss,
this eccentric guy named Felix Dennis, he had this garden
of heroes that he had in his backyard. So he
had like a sculpture made of Roger Banister, of like
Bruce Lee, of all these people. And Sherlock Holmes was
in that garden of heroes as he should be, which
is so ridiculous but cool in a way.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It doesn't make sense, but it also kind of does
you know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But that was not Chester, Illinois. So tell me what
does this little town have to do with Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Absolutely nothing. But it is also the home of Elsie
Chrysler Segar, the cartoonist who created Popeye, you know, the
spinacheating sailorman right. Cigar was born in eighteen ninety four,
and he grew up reading Sherlock Holmes. He was a
big fan. He even worked a bunch of Sherlock references
into Thimble Theater, the popular comic strip where he introduced
his famous characters Olive oil, Ham, Gravy, and Popeye. Unfortunately,
(07:47):
Sierra died in nineteen thirty eight. He was only forty three,
and apparently he was working on a Sherlock inspired detective
story that he never got to finish. To honor him,
the town of Chester began putting up statues of the
Popeye character. There's like a trail you can walk around
and see them all. And in twenty nineteen they unveiled
a statue called Sherlock and Cigar. It's the famous detective.
(08:08):
He's wearing his hat and the cape. He's holding a
magnifying glass in a newspaper, but his face was made
to look like Cigars. And there's also a time capsule
buried next to the statue. I love this. They put
a time capsule in the ground under the statue and
they're planning to dig it up on cigars two hundredth birthday.
So everyone mark your calendars on December eighth, twenty ninety four.
(08:30):
We are all going to Chester, Illinois to find out
what's in that time guy.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So that's so crazy. It's also crazy that they switched
out his face for Cigars.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I know, it's really there's pictures of it online. It's
really interesting looking.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Did Cigar have like a curious looking face like anything?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Just perfectly normal looking guy? He doesn't look like Popeye
at all.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
So it is pretty well known that a Scottish surgeon
named doctor Joseph Bell was the model for Sherlock Holmes.
But I was wondering what is the opposite of Holmes.
You know his mortal enemy, Professor Moriarty, and he is
such a memorable character even though he only appears in
a handful of stories. And the crazy thing is that
Conan Doyle actually doesn't build out a huge life story
(09:12):
for him. We know he's exceptionally brilliant. He's a great mathematician,
an astronomer, chess player, a former academic, left teaching and
became a consulting criminal for the London Underworld. But there
are intriguing clues that point to a person who might
actually have been Conan Doyle's inspiration. So, for example, Moriarty
(09:35):
is said to have written a treatise on the binomial
theorem when he was just twenty one, and a book
called The Dynamics of an Asteroid that Holmes says is
so good that no one in the scientific community can
criticize it. Well, it turns out there was an exceptionally brilliant,
high profile Canadian American mathematician and astronomer named Simon Newcombe.
(09:57):
He actually taught at Johns Hopkins for a while well,
and he wrote a paper about the binomial theorem when
he was only nineteen, and this occurred in the eighteen sixties,
which you know, sounds familiar. He also published several papers
about the movements of individual asteroids.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Wow, that's that's kind of uncanny. Don't tell me this
Newcomb guy was also a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
No, but apparently he was super, super intense. His colleagues
were intimidated by him, and it's been said he was
more feared than liked. And apparently Arthur Conan Doyle had
a close friend who was familiar with Nucomb and his work.
So we may have this cranky professor to thank for
one of literature's greatest baddies.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Wow, thank you, professor Newcombe.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Science and medicine are such an interesting part of the
Sherlock Holms stories, and it really makes sense given Conan
Doyle's own career as a doctor. But one thing that
fascinates me is how Holmes influenced and reflected the emerging
field of forensic science. Take fingerprints for example, you know,
dusting a crime scene for Prince is like Law and
Order one oh one. Now, even though people had been
(11:02):
studying fingerprints for centuries, it wasn't until eighteen ninety two
that a murder was solved using fingerprint evidence, and that
was a case in Argentina, and Argentina actually became the
first country in the world to make fingerprinting an official
method of identifying individuals, especially in the context of crimes.
So it's really remarkable that Sherlock Holmes was talking about
(11:23):
fingerprint evidence as early as eighteen ninety in The Sign
of the Four. He was ahead of the times and
way ahead of Scotland. Yard as usual, they did not
use fingerprints until nineteen.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh one, that is crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And there was also a French criminologist named doctor Edmond
Locard who is considered the father of forensic science. In
nineteen ten he worked with the Leon Police Department to
set up the world's first crime investigation lab and that's
where he developed modern techniques like chemical analysis of ink
and handwriting identification. He was also a pioneer of dust analysis,
(11:58):
that is the study of dust, mud, other tiny particles
found at crime scenes, like bits of things tracked in
by shoes or tiny traces of fibers from clothing, and
that work really echoed the level of precision that Holmes
often used to solve cases, and Lecard gave him credit
for all of this. He once said, Sherlock Holmes was
the first to realize the importance of dust. I merely
(12:18):
copied his methods.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
That is incredible. The one thing I think about when
I think about fingerprints, though, is that the one creature
that has fingerprints that can be confused with a humans
is koala's.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So the Koala did it.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It wasn't the officer or the butler.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
My Kohala butler committed that crime. It was nowhere nearar.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So one of the things I can't help think about
is how different Charlock Holmes would be if he were
written today, right, Like, he probably wouldn't be smoking or vaping,
so as bad for you. But you know what's worse
is cocaine.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Cocaine is slightly worse. And Conan Doyle's depiction of the
rug is a fascinating look at the way public perception
of cocaine has changed over the time. So if you
look at the sign of the four which you just referenced,
that came out in eighteen ninety, and it opens with
Holmes injecting himself with what he calls a seven percent
solution of cocaine, and Watson observes that he's been doing
(13:17):
this three times a day for the past several months.
But at the time, cocaine didn't actually carry the stigma
it does today. It was considered a cutting edge medical marvel,
and doctors used it as an anesthetic and prescribed it
for nervousness and lethargy. You could buy cocaine tablets for nausea,
cocaine sprays for nasal congestion, even cocaine toothpaste for gum sensitivity.
(13:40):
So by making homes a cocaine user, Conan Doyle was saying, Hey,
this guy knows the latest trends in science, and he's
got lots of energy.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For solving crist so much energy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But just a decade later, obviously, public opinion shifted. In
nineteen oh one, a doctor named John Willie published a
report of a young patient who'd become addicted to cocaine.
His arms were bruised from the needles, and he was
so sick he couldn't leave his home. Obviously, it's a
very destructive drug, and according to Willie, the young man
(14:13):
was an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to
be like his favorite detective. Now The British Medical Journal
actually covered the case and warned that authors who glamorized
the drug use would quote have much to answer for.
And even though cocaine was still used in medical settings,
more and more people became concerned about its dangers. So finally,
in nineteen oh four, Conan Doyle broke Sherlock's coke habit
(14:37):
in the Adventure of the Missing three Quarter, and Watson
describes his efforts to help Holmes quit cocaine, calling it
quote the drug mania which had threatened once to check
his remarkable career.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Wow, don't do drugs. He like Sherlock Combs. Well, I guess,
don't be like Schurlock Coombs that he did drugs. He
like the later Sherlock Holmes where he's not doing drugs.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
That's the yess.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, here's the fact that I love. Even if you
don't know his name, you probably know the work of
the artist Sidney Paget, who became famous for his illustrations
of Conan Doyle's works. Paget drew over three hundred and
fifty pictures of the Detective and his adventures, and for
many of us, his art shaped our idea of Sherlock
Holmes as much as the stories themselves. I mean I
can see them in my mind even just saying his name.
(15:20):
But there's another illustrator I want to tell you about,
and that's Arthur Conan Doyle's father, Charles Charles Altamont Doyle
came from a big family of creative people. His dad,
that is, Arthur's grandfather, was a well known artist and
political cartoonist. Two of Charles's brothers, Richard and James, that is,
Arthur's uncles, also went on to become successful artists. As
(15:41):
a young man, Charles supported his growing family by selling
book illustrations, but he dreamed of being a world famous
painter and that just was not happening. He struggled with
depression and alcoholism, and eventually he lost his job. He
became unable to work, and he was admitted to a
psychiatric asylum, which back then was a terrible place to be.
(16:01):
And Arthur Conan Doyle had great sympathy for his father's struggles.
He never judged him, and he really admired his father's talent.
So in eighteen eighty eight, he commissioned his dad to
illustrate the book edition of A Study in Scarlet, which
was being published as a standalone novel after its first
appearance in Beaton's magazine. Charles actually drew all those illustrations
from his cell in the asylum. Oh wow, and they
(16:23):
capture some of the most exciting moments of the story.
They're really great, actually. And here's another little detail that
I find really sweet in a story his Last Bow,
Sherlock Holmes goes undercover with a fake name, and Conan
Doyle chose the alias Altamont in honor of his dad.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That is really sweet. You know. I know little things
about Conan Doyle, right, like they was friends with Harry Houdini,
like all all these spiritualist things whatever. But I had
no idea that he came from this artistic family.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, it was in his blood. It was in his blood.
And his dad's art was really incredible. He did a
lot of paintings and other drawings when he was locked up,
and he kind of channeled all of the anger and
frustration helt about being in this asylum into his art.
And it's you know belatedly, I think really really interesting. Actually,
Arthur Conan Doyle had an exhibit of his works after
his dad had died, Yeah, to showcase what he could do.
(17:11):
It was really, really, really touching.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
That's incredible. So after this, I'm going to look up
Arthur Conan Doyle's fathers are and you're going to look
up pictures of me in third grade as Yeah, Sherlock.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Holmes equally equally important.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's important. But that is so sweet. So you know,
illustrations aren't the only way we picture Sherlock Holmes. We
have to shout out some of the great actors who
portrayed him. Basil Rathbone, Jeremy bred, Benedict Cummer, Badge, Will Ferrell.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I always forget that Will Ferrell played Sherlock Holmes. I
actually I haven't seen it, but I do know it's
out there.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean, I can't believe you haven't seen it.
It's this twenty eighteen Buddy comedy Holmes and Watson, with
Will Ferrell and John c Riley, and The Hollywood Reporter
described it as devastatingly unfunny.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, I will I will not put that on the
two watch list. Then it's a shake.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
This seems like such a great idea.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I know what could go wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
But I actually wanted to tell you about another actor
named will and that is William Gillette. Gillette was actually
one of the first people to play Homes and he
helped create two iconic sherlockisms. So backing up a bit,
William Gillette was an American actor and playwright who helped
Arthur Conan Doyle write a play about his famous detective.
It was simply titled Sherlock Holmes. It actually premiered in
(18:26):
New York in eighteen ninety nine and it had a
long run on Broadway. It was followed by a hugely
successful American tour, and then it moved to England and
had a long run there. So Gillette played Homes actually
over a thousand times, becoming very very famous and very
very wealthy. So he designed and built himself a castle
(18:46):
in Connecticut, where he was from. And this is actually
a castle that I made my mom take me to
as a kid. Why how what? I don't know. I
think my aunt had mentioned it or something and I
was like, Oh, we have to go there. And it's
kind of crazy because it's like filled with homes like tricks, right.
He has like trick mirrors so you can see around
(19:06):
the corner of places. He has like little secret passageways.
I remember something having to do with smoke, but I
can't exactly remember, but it was like it was like
exactly the type of thing a kid would design, you know,
like a kid who was obsessed with homes in a way.
But anyway, back to Gillette as homes. When the play premier,
(19:27):
Jellette made a decision that would change Sherlock homes forever.
In the original paget illustrations, Homes is shown smoking a
normal pipe with a straight stem. Gellette actually wanted to
be able to deliver lines while pacing the stage and smoking,
and he realized that with a straight pipe he'd actually
have his hand in front of his mouth all the time,
so he swapped it out for one of those beautiful
(19:48):
curved stem pipes. And that's obviously how we picture homes.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It was a prop decision.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's just a prop.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
It's pretty amazing, right. And the second sherlockism we owe
to Gillette is the phrase elementary, my dear Watson, which,
as any homes head knows, Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote
that phrase, and in the canon Holmes does use the
phrase elementary to describe his deductions, and he addresses his
friend is my dear Watson, but he never puts those
(20:16):
two things together. And Julett added a line to his
play Holmes says to Watson, elementary, my dear fellow, And
later on the other scriptwriters made a slight change, replacing
Fellow with Watson.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, and thank goodness they did, because what else would
we have as a catchphrase? Well, elementary, my dear listeners.
We have a few more facts to go, but before
we get to those, let's take a quick outbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where I'm sitting here
with my super producer Mary and we are talking all
things Sherlock Homes. So, Mary, I am curious, like you know,
there have been a lot of recent adaptations of homes. Yes,
the Downey Junior ones, the Benedict Commer badge. I think
there was elementary, right, like some show on CBS. Which
ones do you like? What do you like in the cannon?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
All right?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, obviously Jeremy Brett is the best. That is the
gold standard as far as i'm yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I mean, look, I could do a whole episode on
my feelings about the BBC Sharlock and what happened there.
But Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were so good. Their performance,
their chemistry together was just really exceptional. I will say
there's actually an adaptation that I haven't seen that I
want to see. It's called Miss Sherlock and it was
made for Hulu Japan. It's set in Tokyo and the
two leads are women. I believe it is the first
(21:47):
major adaptation with Holmes and Watson being women and it's
set in modern day Tokyo. So I'm really excited. Have
to track that down.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
That's really wonder really cool. And did you ever watch
this movie Young Holmes? Yes, I have a friend Lucas
who sent me like the cliff of the last scene,
which is so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Very different vibe than what I'm talking about. Sure, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, but I actually forgot how much I loved Sherlock
Holmes until the BBC series came out. Yeah, with Bendic
Coumer Batche. But I'm curious what about the Aola home stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I have not actually seen that, but I've heard it's
really great. I've heard it's great.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, yeah, I know, my kids have watched in.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Like I tried to get Julian to watch it, but
he wasn't interested. Animation only that's the rule.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
So as long as we're talking about great moments of
film and stage, I want to show you the very
first Shrlock Holmes film. I'd say we can watch it
right now because it's less than a minute long. But
it's also a silent film, which is not great for
podcast purposes.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, not ideal. Well, what is the name of this film.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It is called Sherlock Holmes Baffled, and it was made
in nineteen hundred by the Biograph Company in New York City.
It actually wasn't meant to be shown in theaters. It
was made for a machine called the Mutoscope, which created
a moving image by flipping through a reel of cards.
The device was coin operated and only one person could
watch it at a time. It had a viewfinder at
(23:14):
the top so you could peer in and Sherlock Holmes
Baffled packs a lot into its short run time. First
of all, it's a slapstick comedy. So Holmes finds a
burglar trying to rob his house, and when he tries
to grab him, the burglar disappears, and then he reappears,
and then he escapes through a window, leaving Sherlock Holmes.
(23:36):
You know, baffle right there? It is. It's in the title,
and the disappearing burglar was an impressive effect for the time.
It was done with stop motion photography, which had only
entered the cinematic lexicon a few years earlier. But the
best part is Sherlock Holmes Baffled contains a mystery of
its own that to this day has not been solved.
(23:57):
Nobody knows who the actors.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Are, what, why?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
How come? I mean, if you can remember, this was
made for this like cheap penny arcade device, so it
wasn't a big feature. And back then movie actors often
went uncredited, So we don't know who was the first
person to play Sherlock Holmes in a movie. But we
can watch him failing to catch that thief whenever you want.
It is on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Oh of course it is good. I'll check it out.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What is your last background of you?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay, so you can't talk about Sherlock Holmes without mentioning
his fans, and we did just that a few years
ago in an episode called What does it Take to
Be a super Fan? Everyone should go back and listen
to that one as soon as you're done with this one.
But I want to tell you about a very particular
aspect of the fandom that is really interesting and often overlooked,
and that is the fact that for many, many years,
(24:48):
official Sherlock Holmes fan societies like the Baker Street Irregulars
were for men only, no girls allowed. And you know,
this is the thing with being a Sherlock Holmes fan, right,
these stories exist in a world of white men in
a very different time, which is fine, but to some
extent that spilled over into the fandom and created barriers
that didn't need to exist. And in the nineteen sixties,
(25:09):
a young woman named Evelyn Herzog ran up against this.
She had discovered Sherlock Holmes as a kid, much like
I did, and became a huge fan as a teenager.
She actually wrote to the Baker Street Irregulars, which is
this legendary Sherlockian society founded in nineteen thirty four, and
she was like, hey, how can I join? And they
wrote back saying, well, you can't because a the BSI
is invite only, and also it didn't accept women. I
(25:33):
should mention there were some smaller groups that were co ed,
but you know, the big institutions like the Baker Street Irregulars,
which was and is the most important one of all,
Evelyn couldn't join. So she goes off to college and
she meets some other women who love Sherlock Holmes as
much as she does, and they begin meeting in her
dorm room to talk all things Sherlock. They read papers
and literary journals, they read the journal that the Baker
(25:55):
Street Irregulars put out, and in January of nineteen sixty eight,
inspired by the Women's Rife its movement, they decide they
have had enough, and so they make these big signs
that say things like BSI unfair to women, and they
go pick it in the freezing cold outside a Baker
Street Irregular's dinner in Manhattan. They're marching around on the sidewalk.
At one point the police even show up, but the
(26:17):
women stood their ground.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That is so dramatic, but good for them, right, Yeah,
And I can't believe it took till like nineteen sixty
eight to like make a protest about this thing. So
did the Baker street irregulars change their policies after this incident.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Not right away, no, no, that would have been a
great ending to this, but no, it actually no, you know,
in its own way. It is great because Evelyn and
her friends launched their own society, one that is still
around today. It is called the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes
and it gave women who were excluded from other Sherlockian
groups a community of their own. The BSI did not
end its men only rule until nineteen ninety one, ninety one,
(26:55):
I know, better late than ever. Yeah, but when it
finally did, Evelyn Hertzog was one of the very first
women to be invested in the group. And today both
the BSI and the Adventuresses remain invite only. You guys
can get my number if you want it, but they
welcome members regardless of gender, and we love to see that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That is insane. So do you know anything about this
invitation process?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You have to be nominated by someone, So if anyone
would like to get in touch with me, just contact
part time genius. Don't let me out.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I love that fact, But more than anything, I love
the one that you said about Arthur Conan Doyle's Dad
and those illustrations. I feel like that definitely earns this
week's trophy, so I'm going to give it to you.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Thank you. I'm an award winning Sherlock Holmes podcaster.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Takeure Street O regulars, let them know. Well, that's it
for this episode of Part Time Genius. From Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Will and myself. Thank you so much for listening. And
don't forget we do have an Instagram account. It's just
at Part Time Genius. Hit us up. We're waiting for
your comments and questions and likes. Part Time Genius is
(28:14):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and Me Mongage Chatikler and research by
our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
(28:35):
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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