April 10, 2025 • 34 mins
Regardless of what polite societies often want us to believe, everyone farts. And we fart often! And, believe it or not, a few rare individuals have been able to turn this embarrassing bodily function into a full-time job. Join Ben and Noel as they explore the weird, weird world of professional flatulence.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians, you have statistically farted about five to
ten minutes before you tuned in.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it in.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Tune it in.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, there he is, Yes me, No, we love farts.
It's fun farting, humor doing it. It feels good, it
feels right, y'all. It's human and that's been And there
was once a time in ridiculous history when farting was
not only a fun thing to do and joke about,
but an actual profession.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's roll the tape. Oh my gosh, wait, do you
guys know any good fart jokes. I know a joke
about a guy who farts on an elevator, but it's
wrong on so many levels. Ridiculous History is a production
of iHeartRadio. First things first, everyone, no matter who you are,
(01:19):
from a king to a popper, everyone farts. Not the
fart would be not only medically fascinating, but it would
probably be dangerous. On the average day, most people are
passing more than a leader of gas per day, spread
out over like thirteen to twenty one incidents.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Isn't there a book about this? Everybody farts?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
There should be surely there is no. I think that's
poops Everybody Poops is the children's book, but Everybody Farts
would be a great follow up.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Surely there should be one, and that should be a series,
a series that we could write. Noel, that's you, oh Man,
and you're Ben, and as apparently you also fart.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yes, yes, even our super producer Casey Pegri. It's just
a medical fact that people do this. However, the vast
majority of human beings do it purely.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
As a.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Labor of love. Purely is a thing that happens in
the human body.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's sort of a regulatory process, right, It keeps your
systems and check your guts and all that. Right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, most of us are amateure farmers. However, there are
a very very small number of people who have managed
to become professional flatialist.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's true, Ben, it's true. And this dates back much
farther than you might think. Or maybe I don't know,
Maybe it's exactly as far as you might think. Maybe
it's even less far than you would think. But where
we're gonna start today's story is in the medieval times.
Like the restaurant you know where you go and you
eat a turkey leg and they got the horses and
the show like and the cable guy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And you cheer for whichever team you're assigned to.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it turns out that restaurant concept based on an
actual history oracle period.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Right, Oh yeah, right, it's not the medium level of
evil the way that some people might assume.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, I thought that for a long time. You spelled
really funny too, like med. I guess it's one of
those words I can never properly spell. But we digress.
I do at least Ben tell us about fartistry in
medieval times.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm glad you asked Noel travel with us, folks to
the reign of King Henry the Second. There's a great
line about King Henry the Second from historicuk dot com
the very first sentence of the poor guy's biography, Henry
two seems to struggle to make an impactable and popular history.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's the first sentence, and that is also printed on
his gravestone. Ouch, that's not true, but that'd be funny.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That would be funny and sad. So King Henry Two,
who reigned from the December of eleven fifty four to
eleven eighty nine, was known for several different, hugely important
things in the course of the history of the United Kingdom.
But did you know, fellow ridiculous historians, that he also
(04:13):
had a notoriously popular gesture.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
That's right, and we're gonna invoke a word here that
every time I see it printed, I think it's a
different word. The word that it actually is is flatulist.
The word I always think it is when I see
it on paper is floutest. Both do involve making sounds
by expelling air from their bodies, but the flatualist is
a little bit different. It is, as we've alluded to,
a professional farter. But what's really cool about this is
(04:41):
it requires a pretty specific set of skills, doesn't it been.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That's right, So this guy Noel was known as Roland
the Farter. He had several other nicknames. They are in French.
At this point, I'd like to ask for some help
from you, Casey. Could you help us out with some
of Roland the Farter's French nicknames?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, so that would be Roland la sarcere, Roland la fartere,
and Roland la Piturey's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But off the record, while the court is not in session,
I have a couple more questions, Casey, could you translate
some of these for us into into English.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
So, uh, roland la fartere fartre pretty self explanatory, right there.
Fart roland, la piture peture derived from pete, which is
the French verb to fart pass gas. So p e
t e r is the verb form, and then peture
is just that kind of personified. And then the last one,
roland la sarcer comes from Old French. And I'm getting
(05:44):
this from a book called on Farting, Language and Laughter
in the Middle Ages by v Allen. And in that
book they write that it's a variation sarce, a variation
on sare to siv. Alternately, sarsier means to dark. Also,
sarsara could simply just be a slip of the pen,
and they meant to write farcar, which is from farsier
(06:07):
to just or to make fun of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, you know, they do say you ever heard somebody
say something was tight as a sieve? Yeah, maybe they're
talking about you know, also leaks like a siev. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
maybe no one says tight as.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Hey, let's start it.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Let's start.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I think it starts today.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, I've excented you. Well, you know, because a siev
just lets certain things pass through so maybe you know
it's about the action of passing, because you know passing
of the guest. I have a question for you, Ben,
and I think you have an answer for me. With
this gester being a British gester, an English gester, why's
he got all these French nicknames? Ah?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Great question. You see, although Henry two was King of England,
he never learned the English language himself because his family
came over from Normandy in ten sixty six, which means
that they spoke Norman French. Now Henry was intelligent, he
spoke Latin as well, which was the language of the
(07:08):
elite at the time, just as French was. So his
court would have a lot of business conducted on Francais.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
All right, So let's pop into this Latin section. Here
there is a book, a document, a collection of ledgers
called the English Liber Feodorum, which translates roughly to the
Book of Fees. And this is where we get the
information that we know about Roland because it was an
account of all the payments that went to various members
of the court, but unfortunately didn't have any dates. It
(07:38):
just had personnel and what they were paid, and you
know what their particular skill was or the action that
they were paid for for. Roland the language is as such,
unim saltem at siphalitum at unim bumbalum executed simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That translates in English to one jump, one whistle, and
one fart. And this happens every Christmas.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Every Christmas because they had a big old shindig soire thing.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And what does he get in return for this very
specific physical stunt.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, Henry the second must have been a huge fan
of this guy, because he was awarded with like lands
and an estate.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Right, Yes, he was granted a manor house Hemmingstone in
Suffolk and depending on which source you read, either thirty
acres of land or a hundred, which is a heck
of a variation.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, but that obvious. He didn't keep particularly good records
back in those days, so you know.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, And we do know that although Roland the Fart
really did exist and really did carry out this very
specific act of a jump, a whistle and a fart
once a year executed, at the same time, we know
that his story gets very murky very quickly. There's actually
(09:01):
very little verifiable information about the guy other than the
Book of fees and later biographers loved this story so
much that if you look back at the timeline all told,
it sounds as if he has been doing he was
doing this for more than one hundred years, which is
clearly not true.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
No, there's no way. And was this like his big finish,
the jump in the whistle on the fire or was
this you know, it sounds like he was sort of
a member of a particular type of performer that would
have had a variety of skills, not just being able
to jump whistle and far simultaneously, but this was his
particular kind of like signature move.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah, he would pull off.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And the fact that he was credited like that in
a legal document that speaks volumes.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, that was the only thing that he legally had
to do. But surely there was a bit of showmanship.
There was a bit of lead into it, you know,
probably a couple of politically sensitive hot take kind of jokes,
because Jester's ough pi such a unique and powerful role
in a court. We also know that Roland was not
(10:08):
the only professional flatialists. We know that there are practices
involving did I see these pictures to you of Japan
in the Edo period? I'm just gonna show this to you.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Noel. Oh, that's a whole genre of art. I've seen
like these prints, these Japanese wood cut prints of like
dudes just you know, with crazy explosive fart lines coming
out of there usually bear behind, right.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
There's this artistic trope of in Japan of depicting farts
both as satire and as weapons of battle. The word
war would be he gossen h e ash g A
S s e n. There were also the Brugador or
farters of Ireland, and there were seven rule other a
(11:02):
ritualistically important or professionally paid flatialists throughout history. Unfortunately, we
do know a lot about one of the most famous,
I would say the most famous flatialist in history.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Talk about lat Yes, yes, La pet that's right, La
Petro Main aka Joseph Pougeol, who was a young Frenchman
from Marseilles, I believe, isn't that right, Marseille.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Marseille, Marseille. Yeah, that's been Casey on the Case, Part.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Two, Part two, and we've got a third one coming up.
But don't don't you, don't you worry. And that was
in eighteen fifty seven, by the way, that that he
was born. Yeah, he was. He was the son of
a baker, and baking becomes another one of his passions
throughout his life. But he there's a really great story
about young Pougeol. When he was a young man, he
(11:55):
was swimming in the sea and realized that he was
actually taking in water up his uh is uh anus.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I was going to say Australia for the euphemism, but
or his rectum, we could just go into the scientific
term series it's yeah uh. And this happened as he
was inhaling. There's a great depiction of this off damninteresting
dot com written by Alan Bellows. He returned to shore
and he freaked out, understandably feeling this water in the
(12:33):
wrong place or an unexpected place, and he immediately goes
back to shore where he is astonished to see quote
a great deal of seawater pouring from his backside. Luckily,
a doctor said that this was not something he needed
to be gravely concerned about, and Joseph, in a way
similar to like a Marvel superhero, discovers that he has
(12:55):
an extraordinary ability.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, he could actually do this with with air in
addition to water, which makes sense, but you know, how
cool is it to be able to realize this is
something he could control and not just a fluke, because
I'm sure he was kind of, you know, understandably freaked
out by it. And then all of a sudden it
became like empowering. It's like I can do this, you know,
for fun. Yeah, And and oh what fun he had.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah. He found that he could deliberately suck water in
through this area of his body and then project it
back out, even creating a spout that went on for
several meters. He thought, you know, this is cool, but
let's see if I can do the same thing with air.
And in addition to discovering that he could do the
(13:39):
same thing with air, he also learned that with the
right contortion rhythm, he could reproduce some songs. And again,
he's a young person at this point, he's still in school.
This is a hit in his class, right.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I can only imagine, can only imagine. I bet the
teachers loved him.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
No, no, they might have. They probably laughed about it
outside of the classroom.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
We haven't even talked about the fact that farts are
are funny.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Still, farts are funny because they're something a little bit
naughty that applies to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's a very equalizer like death. And as Alan wrote
in the in the book that Casey had mentioned earlier,
farts had a We're seen as a reminder of mortality
back in the day, right, so they occupy this important role.
We learned so many fart facts for today's episode, fun
far facts, fun fart facts.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Just so.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We learned that the oldest joke in the world is
a joke about farts, which maybe we can get to
at the end of the story. It's not really related
to this, but it is interesting also objectively, I don't
think it's that funny. I think something's lost in the translation.
But back to the Petal Main, before he becomes this
professional artist, he joined the army.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, and I've seen it in a couple of different
places that he actually got that nickname from his army buddies.
They bestowed it upon him. And as we learned from Roland,
the fart or the peture right, this means fart. But
it took it a step beyond where Roland's name was.
It took it to the level of an artist, the fartist. Yes,
(15:31):
he became known as the fartiste, and when he left
military service, he opened a bakery in his hometown and
he was known for making these amazing brand muffins. But
he decided to take it further and in eighteen eighty seven,
when he was thirty years old, he went on stage
(15:54):
in his hometown, not to do a live baking demonstration,
but to take his flag to the to the theater.
Aren't brand muffins a little bit farty?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, that's one of the common beliefs about them. They
contain fiber which makes people regular, right, so that could
play a role. We also we had a long list
in some old episode of brain Stuff of all the
different foods that are thought to be fart inducing foods.
So of course beans, right, and brand muffins could be
(16:27):
on there.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I hesitate to ask people to write in and tell
us about their experience brand muffins in this regard?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Why why don't hesitates? We welcome your brand stories with
open arms. So what was his performance all about, Ben.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I'm glad you asked Noel. Initially it was met with
a lot of skepticism fart history, said the French audience members.
What on earth could this be. Surely it's a one
time gig, but he won the audience over. He was
a big success. I think now it's time to let
(17:02):
the badger ount of the bag. We have an example
of some of his work, don't wait.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
We do we do? This is what one of his
performances might have sounded like, let's roll the tape.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
What doing that? Ola found.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
No name and we heard it up. I think we've
heard it up.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
This is what Let's stop there. You could hear it
in full.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I can't help I'm such a child. I just think
I just can't help but laugh.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Well, it's his it's his also his real job. I'm
sure he'd be glad to hear that his craft is
respected well in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And what you realized he is, he's like he's doing
bits in between them. He's he's setting up the different
types of right arts that.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
He's doing, giving context like any good impressionists. Let's if
we can stop the let's uh, let's defer to Casey Pegram. Casey,
can you help us out with I know that audio
is really rough, but could you give us any guesses
at what the petal manas saying in these.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Yeah? So you guys sent me this clip, and at
first I didn't know if I was going to be
able to get much of anything out of it, but
I did eventually kind of decode a few different other phrases,
and then I was able to plug those into Google
and actually find a complete transcript of the entire thing
courtesy of somebody on a Reddit. Then that reddit person
was Ariat that was on the r today. I learned
(18:41):
subreddit six years ago. Anyway, So some of my favorites here, well,
to begin with one of the early ones, the pet
de my mother in law's fart, the pet de masson.
That's a pretty rough rue. That's the Mason's part.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
No man uh.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
And then immediately after he says lamemn, which is the
same dry being failed. So wait what he gambled and
he lost?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think? Is the.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a little some extra at the
end of that one.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Was there something about giraffes?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
The draft one is bizarre, so la pete dela and
metical debut. Part of the standing up draft or the
draft as it's standing up, it cuts one.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And that's been Casey on the Case Part three, Part three.
We're a Part three and I'm loving every second of it.
He also the petal man, not our man, Casey. He
also played songs, and he blew out candles, and we
should mention I guess some of the song stuff, because
that's what seems tough to me. Right, Even if you
(20:06):
can expel gas on command, getting the right tone is different.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well, Ben, it's a lot like whistling, my friend. I mean,
you're whistling. You make different challenges by changing the tightness
or looseness of your lips. So I would imagine the
same would apply to the butt.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We're being very like, I'm proud of us for being
as diplomatic. We're doing our best as we are at
this point. It's tough, so we said. The crowd reacted
favorably despite their initial skepticism. So what happened? What happened
to Laptomol after this first show?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Well, he was a hit. He was a massive hit, right, Yeah,
And he parlayed that first performance into a pretty lucrative
contract at the famous Mulin rouge.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, the same one that you've heard about in film.
And the show started to get a hint danger, right,
because people were laughing so much that some women would
pass out because of their laughter and their tight corsets.
And then one guy had a heart attack and died.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That's terrible, but you know, farting is objectively hilarious, and
I guess that's an okay way to go.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Well, they capitalized on it in the marketing. They put
up signs and they had nurses stationed around the theater,
and the signs would be like, this may be dangerous.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Now let's point something out, okay before we go any further. Sure,
this might be grossing you guys out, and I can
understand that. But let's not forget that lepetut Man. Remember
that first story about the intake of the water. Yes, well,
he basically was able to give himself kind of an
automatic enema, right, and he did that up to three
times a day. He was apparently a health food and
(21:51):
a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He did not drink a
drop even in the crazy, absynthe soaked world of the
Mulan Rouge.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Not.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
His effort was devoted entirely to his craft, so his
farts did not smell bad.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That's an interesting point. Yet, Now he did smoke cigarettes
from both ends, so was it completely healthy?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I think everybody smoked cigarettes, and I think that was
just a rite of passage for being French.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It would be abnormal not to at this point in history, right,
And it's true his expellations really did not generate a
noticeably terrible smell. And just to clarify as the Grand Final,
when he's playing the songs, he has an ocarina attached
to the end of a hose and he plays through
(22:40):
the ocarina and the audience sings along with him, a
little bit of crowd work at the end.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And he's a real seasoned pro.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And he gets an exclusive contract with mulin Rouge. Did
we mention that part?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
No, I just said it was a contract, but yeah,
exclusive is right. And it caused him a little bit
of trouble because he, I think, did a piece of
his act like on the street for somebody, or like
a private fart serenade, Yeah, to promote a friend's new
business in eighteen ninety five, and that did not go
(23:15):
over well with the proprietars of the mulon Rouge.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, the owner of the theater sued him for breach
of contract because of this public serenade. His contract allowed
him only to do this sort of performative farting. It's
a weird term, performative farting in the mulin Rouge theater itself.
And this might make the owner of the theater sound
(23:40):
like a real pill. But it's important to note for context.
At the time of this lawsuit, Le pental Mount is
the highest paid entertainer in the entirety of France. He's
like the Michael Jordan of professional farting. That's twenty thousand
(24:01):
for some of his higher performing shows. And that's not
per year, that's a single show. And again that's way
back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, we actually off. Mike tried to run this through
the handy dandy inflation calculator, but it could not crunch
the numbers this time, the timeframe and the currency exchange
was a little too much for the inflation calculator to crunch.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Old Flady can't win them all, but the inflation calculator
will return in future episodes. You have our word. So
he gets sued by the owner of the Mulan Rouge,
and he doesn't take this sitting down, because that's not
(24:44):
part of the act. He instead fights the situation in court.
But while this is going on, the Mulan Rouge decides
to replace him with a different performer.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Now it's really really a rough time. I'm for old
La Petu Man because they replaced him with a lady
f artist named it was just left.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Me.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, yeah, who turned out to be a fraud fatale.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's right. Yeah, Apparently under her enormous petticoats, she was
hiding a bellows that was being worked I'm guessing by
her foot or.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Maybe like thigh master rule. Yeah, but couldn't you see
that he's moving.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And adding insult to injury. Her act was a one
to one ripoff of his act, and it it. You know,
it was quite a kerfuffle.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, it was. It was quite a to do for sure.
No Joseph Parole, not to be defeated, said, you know what,
I'm going to open my own theater. God knows I
have the money in the capitol to do so. So
he opens his own theater and begins working for him himself,
and for years and years and years he is doing
quite well. He builds up a name, people go to
(26:06):
see the world famous Le Petromint, and things are rolling
smoothly along until World War One occurs in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess. I guess things just
got kind of dark and people just weren't in the
same mirthful spirits they used to be, where farts would
would make them, you know, have heart attacks in the aisle,
they were having heart attacks from like serious stuff, like
you know, having bombs dropped on them and things, and
just living in utter fear and terror.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And additionally, his two sons were disabled in World War One.
So he packs up his career as a professional flagelist
and he reopens a bakery, which he was doing at
the beginning of the story. And guess what he's known for, Noel,
(26:57):
Is it the brand Muffins? It is the brand Muffins.
He lives to the ripe old age of eighty eight
years old and expires in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, and leaves behind him a legacy of fartestry that
has actually been carried on today by a pretty admittedly
small group. But there is one guy who is carrying
this mantle, and I mean an appearance on the BBC
(27:30):
in nineteen ninety seven. He goes by the name of
mister Methane and uses the same technique the whole idea
of inhaling air into the sphincter and pushing it back
out and being able to make different tones. And you
can kind of tell by the way he sticks the
microphone right in his butt and then speaks into it
(27:51):
afterwards that he too has a odorless expulsion.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Well, he certainly certainly presents it as such. An we
can talk a little bit about the science of this too,
but first let's let's play a clip of mister Methane
if we've got one handy.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Oh, by the way, this clip was banned from the
BBC on the grounds of bad taste. According to this
this YouTube clip here, you'd be the judge, a man
a mud party of my hatstead. Still, somebody told me
his name was phil.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
O my hot stead. Still his name was phil.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And when just just set the tone. And this guy
is wearing green spandex a with a purple cape and
a green little face mask, and that is mister Methane
and Frank Skinner performing did Run Run, which is backed
(28:57):
by the band the Skinnerettes, for BBC Television nine ninety seven,
but apparently it did not make it to air. I
want to confirm that, but that is what I'm reading here.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
He is not for the record singing. He is just
providing the the wind for this. Praised as a true genius,
a huge star by Howard Stern. He's appeared on numerous
different programs, not just the BBC, but he's on Francis
Scott Talent, Britain Scott Talent. Simon Cowell called him a disgusting.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Creature, did in fact call then that's true.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
But he also mister Methane, not Simon, got to the
German version of the show Dos Super Talent. He made
it to the semi finals. The winner was actually a dog.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, the Germans are into that stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You can read the entire story from his perspective at
his website, which is still up mister Methane dot com.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
He also has a Facebook page where he has six
and ninety five likes. So, you know, an admittedly niche talent,
but very much you know, carrying on the torch of
you know, past heroes like Roland the fartr and La
pate Main.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And since we promised it in the beginning, we can
go ahead. While while we're on the subject of farts,
tell you the world's oldest joke. It has been traced
back to nineteen hundred BCE, and it is Samerian. These
the s Marians lived and was now southern Iraq. And
(30:35):
here it goes. Tell us if you think it still
translates something which has never occurred since time immemorial, semi colon.
Here a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.
That's it, that's the joke.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, I don't I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I don't get it either. It feels like maybe there's
some social commentary that applied more to that time than
it does the twenty eighteen. But it's it's neat that
the world's oldest joke is a fart joke. I suppose, Yeah, yeah,
you said you like fart humor.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I just don't think. I don't know. I would rather
hear hear a fart than that joke.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And someone who did not like poop humor. This might
surprise some of us to learn, was Le Petelm himself.
He did not want to denigrate or diminish the quality
of his artistry and impressions.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, he was a fartiste. He had been working on
this craft for many years. I don't even think we
said that that from the time he found out about
his talent to the time he actually graced the stage
for the first time. He had been like working on
this stuff for like five years or something, and you know,
work shopping him.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, picture him staying up late night at the bakery
just humming songs to himself and trying to figure out
where he could slip the right fart in. And you know, no,
I think this was a pretty good one. This is
this is some fascinating stuff. I gotta speak up in
defense of farts though.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I wonder how many times we said the word fart
in this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Well, we've certainly said the word more often than hopefully
either of us have actually farted during this recording.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Well, I don't know, man, didn't you have a stat
about how often in a day people fart and they
don't even realize it. It's not like they're like big,
you know, boisterous ones. It's just like that kind of
regulation of your gas.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, Like I said in the top of the show,
it's about a leader to one point five leaders of
gas per day, and most people will tend to fart
on average about thirteen to twenty one times.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So we're all on this together.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
We're all in this together. And as I was setting
up in defense of farts, if you ever feel guilty
for laying a particular stinker, remember your farts are going
to be manufactured by the bacteria that lives within your body.
About seventy five percent of your farts are created in
(32:55):
your lower intestine, not by you. So the true culprit
of a smelly fart is not you, but your bacteria.
And that's why le petalumint and other professional flatulists don't
have that smell because they're taking in air from outside
and then expelling it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
But you're saying that the legit way. It's not even
your fault because you're really just farting your farts farts.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, which leads us to a bigger question, who or
what are we farting inside of?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Let us know what you think. You can write to
us at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can check
us out on Facebook and Instagram, or we are Ridiculous
History and we should thank everybody.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, we'd also like to before we go to our
thank you's issue a clarification. Previously we had attributed to
episodes to our research associate, Christopher hasiotis Christopher being the
stand up, great guy that he is, wrote to us
off air to point out that those previous two episodes
(33:53):
were actually the work of our research associate, Eve's Jeffcoat,
and you can find more of Eve's work over at
the Afropunk Solution Sessions show, as well as stuff Mom
Never Told You So do tune in check those out.
Thanks of course to super producer Casey Pegrim, thanks to
Alex Williams who wrote this track, and thanks to you, Noel,
(34:14):
always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You're welcome, Ben goodbye. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Fellow ridiculous historians, you have statistically farted about five to
ten minutes before you tuned in.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it in.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Tune it in.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, there he is, Yes me, No, we love farts.
It's fun farting, humor doing it. It feels good, it
feels right, y'all. It's human and that's been And there
was once a time in ridiculous history when farting was
not only a fun thing to do and joke about,
but an actual profession.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's roll the tape. Oh my gosh, wait, do you
guys know any good fart jokes. I know a joke
about a guy who farts on an elevator, but it's
wrong on so many levels. Ridiculous History is a production
of iHeartRadio. First things first, everyone, no matter who you are,
(01:19):
from a king to a popper, everyone farts. Not the
fart would be not only medically fascinating, but it would
probably be dangerous. On the average day, most people are
passing more than a leader of gas per day, spread
out over like thirteen to twenty one incidents.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Isn't there a book about this? Everybody farts?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
There should be surely there is no. I think that's
poops Everybody Poops is the children's book, but Everybody Farts
would be a great follow up.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Surely there should be one, and that should be a series,
a series that we could write. Noel, that's you, oh Man,
and you're Ben, and as apparently you also fart.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yes, yes, even our super producer Casey Pegri. It's just
a medical fact that people do this. However, the vast
majority of human beings do it purely.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
As a.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Labor of love. Purely is a thing that happens in
the human body.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's sort of a regulatory process, right, It keeps your
systems and check your guts and all that. Right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, most of us are amateure farmers. However, there are
a very very small number of people who have managed
to become professional flatialist.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's true, Ben, it's true. And this dates back much
farther than you might think. Or maybe I don't know,
Maybe it's exactly as far as you might think. Maybe
it's even less far than you would think. But where
we're gonna start today's story is in the medieval times.
Like the restaurant you know where you go and you
eat a turkey leg and they got the horses and
the show like and the cable guy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And you cheer for whichever team you're assigned to.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it turns out that restaurant concept based on an
actual history oracle period.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Right, Oh yeah, right, it's not the medium level of
evil the way that some people might assume.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, I thought that for a long time. You spelled
really funny too, like med. I guess it's one of
those words I can never properly spell. But we digress.
I do at least Ben tell us about fartistry in
medieval times.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm glad you asked Noel travel with us, folks to
the reign of King Henry the Second. There's a great
line about King Henry the Second from historicuk dot com
the very first sentence of the poor guy's biography, Henry
two seems to struggle to make an impactable and popular history.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's the first sentence, and that is also printed on
his gravestone. Ouch, that's not true, but that'd be funny.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That would be funny and sad. So King Henry Two,
who reigned from the December of eleven fifty four to
eleven eighty nine, was known for several different, hugely important
things in the course of the history of the United Kingdom.
But did you know, fellow ridiculous historians, that he also
(04:13):
had a notoriously popular gesture.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
That's right, and we're gonna invoke a word here that
every time I see it printed, I think it's a
different word. The word that it actually is is flatulist.
The word I always think it is when I see
it on paper is floutest. Both do involve making sounds
by expelling air from their bodies, but the flatualist is
a little bit different. It is, as we've alluded to,
a professional farter. But what's really cool about this is
(04:41):
it requires a pretty specific set of skills, doesn't it been.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That's right, So this guy Noel was known as Roland
the Farter. He had several other nicknames. They are in French.
At this point, I'd like to ask for some help
from you, Casey. Could you help us out with some
of Roland the Farter's French nicknames?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, so that would be Roland la sarcere, Roland la fartere,
and Roland la Piturey's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But off the record, while the court is not in session,
I have a couple more questions, Casey, could you translate
some of these for us into into English.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
So, uh, roland la fartere fartre pretty self explanatory, right there.
Fart roland, la piture peture derived from pete, which is
the French verb to fart pass gas. So p e
t e r is the verb form, and then peture
is just that kind of personified. And then the last one,
roland la sarcer comes from Old French. And I'm getting
(05:44):
this from a book called on Farting, Language and Laughter
in the Middle Ages by v Allen. And in that
book they write that it's a variation sarce, a variation
on sare to siv. Alternately, sarsier means to dark. Also,
sarsara could simply just be a slip of the pen,
and they meant to write farcar, which is from farsier
(06:07):
to just or to make fun of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, you know, they do say you ever heard somebody
say something was tight as a sieve? Yeah, maybe they're
talking about you know, also leaks like a siev. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
maybe no one says tight as.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Hey, let's start it.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Let's start.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I think it starts today.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, I've excented you. Well, you know, because a siev
just lets certain things pass through so maybe you know
it's about the action of passing, because you know passing
of the guest. I have a question for you, Ben,
and I think you have an answer for me. With
this gester being a British gester, an English gester, why's
he got all these French nicknames? Ah?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Great question. You see, although Henry two was King of England,
he never learned the English language himself because his family
came over from Normandy in ten sixty six, which means
that they spoke Norman French. Now Henry was intelligent, he
spoke Latin as well, which was the language of the
(07:08):
elite at the time, just as French was. So his
court would have a lot of business conducted on Francais.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
All right, So let's pop into this Latin section. Here
there is a book, a document, a collection of ledgers
called the English Liber Feodorum, which translates roughly to the
Book of Fees. And this is where we get the
information that we know about Roland because it was an
account of all the payments that went to various members
of the court, but unfortunately didn't have any dates. It
(07:38):
just had personnel and what they were paid, and you
know what their particular skill was or the action that
they were paid for for. Roland the language is as such,
unim saltem at siphalitum at unim bumbalum executed simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That translates in English to one jump, one whistle, and
one fart. And this happens every Christmas.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Every Christmas because they had a big old shindig soire thing.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And what does he get in return for this very
specific physical stunt.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, Henry the second must have been a huge fan
of this guy, because he was awarded with like lands
and an estate.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Right, Yes, he was granted a manor house Hemmingstone in
Suffolk and depending on which source you read, either thirty
acres of land or a hundred, which is a heck
of a variation.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, but that obvious. He didn't keep particularly good records
back in those days, so you know.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, And we do know that although Roland the Fart
really did exist and really did carry out this very
specific act of a jump, a whistle and a fart
once a year executed, at the same time, we know
that his story gets very murky very quickly. There's actually
(09:01):
very little verifiable information about the guy other than the
Book of fees and later biographers loved this story so
much that if you look back at the timeline all told,
it sounds as if he has been doing he was
doing this for more than one hundred years, which is
clearly not true.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
No, there's no way. And was this like his big finish,
the jump in the whistle on the fire or was
this you know, it sounds like he was sort of
a member of a particular type of performer that would
have had a variety of skills, not just being able
to jump whistle and far simultaneously, but this was his
particular kind of like signature move.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah, he would pull off.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And the fact that he was credited like that in
a legal document that speaks volumes.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, that was the only thing that he legally had
to do. But surely there was a bit of showmanship.
There was a bit of lead into it, you know,
probably a couple of politically sensitive hot take kind of jokes,
because Jester's ough pi such a unique and powerful role
in a court. We also know that Roland was not
(10:08):
the only professional flatialists. We know that there are practices
involving did I see these pictures to you of Japan
in the Edo period? I'm just gonna show this to you.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Noel. Oh, that's a whole genre of art. I've seen
like these prints, these Japanese wood cut prints of like
dudes just you know, with crazy explosive fart lines coming
out of there usually bear behind, right.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
There's this artistic trope of in Japan of depicting farts
both as satire and as weapons of battle. The word
war would be he gossen h e ash g A
S s e n. There were also the Brugador or
farters of Ireland, and there were seven rule other a
(11:02):
ritualistically important or professionally paid flatialists throughout history. Unfortunately, we
do know a lot about one of the most famous,
I would say the most famous flatialist in history.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Talk about lat Yes, yes, La pet that's right, La
Petro Main aka Joseph Pougeol, who was a young Frenchman
from Marseilles, I believe, isn't that right, Marseille.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Marseille, Marseille. Yeah, that's been Casey on the Case, Part.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Two, Part two, and we've got a third one coming up.
But don't don't you, don't you worry. And that was
in eighteen fifty seven, by the way, that that he
was born. Yeah, he was. He was the son of
a baker, and baking becomes another one of his passions
throughout his life. But he there's a really great story
about young Pougeol. When he was a young man, he
(11:55):
was swimming in the sea and realized that he was
actually taking in water up his uh is uh anus.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I was going to say Australia for the euphemism, but
or his rectum, we could just go into the scientific
term series it's yeah uh. And this happened as he
was inhaling. There's a great depiction of this off damninteresting
dot com written by Alan Bellows. He returned to shore
and he freaked out, understandably feeling this water in the
(12:33):
wrong place or an unexpected place, and he immediately goes
back to shore where he is astonished to see quote
a great deal of seawater pouring from his backside. Luckily,
a doctor said that this was not something he needed
to be gravely concerned about, and Joseph, in a way
similar to like a Marvel superhero, discovers that he has
(12:55):
an extraordinary ability.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, he could actually do this with with air in
addition to water, which makes sense, but you know, how
cool is it to be able to realize this is
something he could control and not just a fluke, because
I'm sure he was kind of, you know, understandably freaked
out by it. And then all of a sudden it
became like empowering. It's like I can do this, you know,
for fun. Yeah, And and oh what fun he had.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah. He found that he could deliberately suck water in
through this area of his body and then project it
back out, even creating a spout that went on for
several meters. He thought, you know, this is cool, but
let's see if I can do the same thing with air.
And in addition to discovering that he could do the
(13:39):
same thing with air, he also learned that with the
right contortion rhythm, he could reproduce some songs. And again,
he's a young person at this point, he's still in school.
This is a hit in his class, right.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I can only imagine, can only imagine. I bet the
teachers loved him.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
No, no, they might have. They probably laughed about it
outside of the classroom.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
We haven't even talked about the fact that farts are
are funny.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Still, farts are funny because they're something a little bit
naughty that applies to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's a very equalizer like death. And as Alan wrote
in the in the book that Casey had mentioned earlier,
farts had a We're seen as a reminder of mortality
back in the day, right, so they occupy this important role.
We learned so many fart facts for today's episode, fun
far facts, fun fart facts.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Just so.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We learned that the oldest joke in the world is
a joke about farts, which maybe we can get to
at the end of the story. It's not really related
to this, but it is interesting also objectively, I don't
think it's that funny. I think something's lost in the translation.
But back to the Petal Main, before he becomes this
professional artist, he joined the army.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, and I've seen it in a couple of different
places that he actually got that nickname from his army buddies.
They bestowed it upon him. And as we learned from Roland,
the fart or the peture right, this means fart. But
it took it a step beyond where Roland's name was.
It took it to the level of an artist, the fartist. Yes,
(15:31):
he became known as the fartiste, and when he left
military service, he opened a bakery in his hometown and
he was known for making these amazing brand muffins. But
he decided to take it further and in eighteen eighty seven,
when he was thirty years old, he went on stage
(15:54):
in his hometown, not to do a live baking demonstration,
but to take his flag to the to the theater.
Aren't brand muffins a little bit farty?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, that's one of the common beliefs about them. They
contain fiber which makes people regular, right, so that could
play a role. We also we had a long list
in some old episode of brain Stuff of all the
different foods that are thought to be fart inducing foods.
So of course beans, right, and brand muffins could be
(16:27):
on there.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I hesitate to ask people to write in and tell
us about their experience brand muffins in this regard?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Why why don't hesitates? We welcome your brand stories with
open arms. So what was his performance all about, Ben.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I'm glad you asked Noel. Initially it was met with
a lot of skepticism fart history, said the French audience members.
What on earth could this be. Surely it's a one
time gig, but he won the audience over. He was
a big success. I think now it's time to let
(17:02):
the badger ount of the bag. We have an example
of some of his work, don't wait.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
We do we do? This is what one of his
performances might have sounded like, let's roll the tape.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
What doing that? Ola found.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
No name and we heard it up. I think we've
heard it up.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
This is what Let's stop there. You could hear it
in full.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I can't help I'm such a child. I just think
I just can't help but laugh.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Well, it's his it's his also his real job. I'm
sure he'd be glad to hear that his craft is
respected well in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And what you realized he is, he's like he's doing
bits in between them. He's he's setting up the different
types of right arts that.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
He's doing, giving context like any good impressionists. Let's if
we can stop the let's uh, let's defer to Casey Pegram. Casey,
can you help us out with I know that audio
is really rough, but could you give us any guesses
at what the petal manas saying in these.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Yeah? So you guys sent me this clip, and at
first I didn't know if I was going to be
able to get much of anything out of it, but
I did eventually kind of decode a few different other phrases,
and then I was able to plug those into Google
and actually find a complete transcript of the entire thing
courtesy of somebody on a Reddit. Then that reddit person
was Ariat that was on the r today. I learned
(18:41):
subreddit six years ago. Anyway, So some of my favorites here, well,
to begin with one of the early ones, the pet
de my mother in law's fart, the pet de masson.
That's a pretty rough rue. That's the Mason's part.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
No man uh.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
And then immediately after he says lamemn, which is the
same dry being failed. So wait what he gambled and
he lost?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think? Is the.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a little some extra at the
end of that one.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Was there something about giraffes?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
The draft one is bizarre, so la pete dela and
metical debut. Part of the standing up draft or the
draft as it's standing up, it cuts one.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And that's been Casey on the Case Part three, Part three.
We're a Part three and I'm loving every second of it.
He also the petal man, not our man, Casey. He
also played songs, and he blew out candles, and we
should mention I guess some of the song stuff, because
that's what seems tough to me. Right, Even if you
(20:06):
can expel gas on command, getting the right tone is different.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well, Ben, it's a lot like whistling, my friend. I mean,
you're whistling. You make different challenges by changing the tightness
or looseness of your lips. So I would imagine the
same would apply to the butt.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We're being very like, I'm proud of us for being
as diplomatic. We're doing our best as we are at
this point. It's tough, so we said. The crowd reacted
favorably despite their initial skepticism. So what happened? What happened
to Laptomol after this first show?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Well, he was a hit. He was a massive hit, right, Yeah,
And he parlayed that first performance into a pretty lucrative
contract at the famous Mulin rouge.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, the same one that you've heard about in film.
And the show started to get a hint danger, right,
because people were laughing so much that some women would
pass out because of their laughter and their tight corsets.
And then one guy had a heart attack and died.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That's terrible, but you know, farting is objectively hilarious, and
I guess that's an okay way to go.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Well, they capitalized on it in the marketing. They put
up signs and they had nurses stationed around the theater,
and the signs would be like, this may be dangerous.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Now let's point something out, okay before we go any further. Sure,
this might be grossing you guys out, and I can
understand that. But let's not forget that lepetut Man. Remember
that first story about the intake of the water. Yes, well,
he basically was able to give himself kind of an
automatic enema, right, and he did that up to three
times a day. He was apparently a health food and
(21:51):
a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He did not drink a
drop even in the crazy, absynthe soaked world of the
Mulan Rouge.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Not.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
His effort was devoted entirely to his craft, so his
farts did not smell bad.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That's an interesting point. Yet, Now he did smoke cigarettes
from both ends, so was it completely healthy?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I think everybody smoked cigarettes, and I think that was
just a rite of passage for being French.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It would be abnormal not to at this point in history, right,
And it's true his expellations really did not generate a
noticeably terrible smell. And just to clarify as the Grand Final,
when he's playing the songs, he has an ocarina attached
to the end of a hose and he plays through
(22:40):
the ocarina and the audience sings along with him, a
little bit of crowd work at the end.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And he's a real seasoned pro.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And he gets an exclusive contract with mulin Rouge. Did
we mention that part?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
No, I just said it was a contract, but yeah,
exclusive is right. And it caused him a little bit
of trouble because he, I think, did a piece of
his act like on the street for somebody, or like
a private fart serenade, Yeah, to promote a friend's new
business in eighteen ninety five, and that did not go
(23:15):
over well with the proprietars of the mulon Rouge.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, the owner of the theater sued him for breach
of contract because of this public serenade. His contract allowed
him only to do this sort of performative farting. It's
a weird term, performative farting in the mulin Rouge theater itself.
And this might make the owner of the theater sound
(23:40):
like a real pill. But it's important to note for context.
At the time of this lawsuit, Le pental Mount is
the highest paid entertainer in the entirety of France. He's
like the Michael Jordan of professional farting. That's twenty thousand
(24:01):
for some of his higher performing shows. And that's not
per year, that's a single show. And again that's way
back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, we actually off. Mike tried to run this through
the handy dandy inflation calculator, but it could not crunch
the numbers this time, the timeframe and the currency exchange
was a little too much for the inflation calculator to crunch.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Old Flady can't win them all, but the inflation calculator
will return in future episodes. You have our word. So
he gets sued by the owner of the Mulan Rouge,
and he doesn't take this sitting down, because that's not
(24:44):
part of the act. He instead fights the situation in court.
But while this is going on, the Mulan Rouge decides
to replace him with a different performer.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Now it's really really a rough time. I'm for old
La Petu Man because they replaced him with a lady
f artist named it was just left.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Me.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, yeah, who turned out to be a fraud fatale.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's right. Yeah, Apparently under her enormous petticoats, she was
hiding a bellows that was being worked I'm guessing by
her foot or.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Maybe like thigh master rule. Yeah, but couldn't you see
that he's moving.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And adding insult to injury. Her act was a one
to one ripoff of his act, and it it. You know,
it was quite a kerfuffle.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, it was. It was quite a to do for sure.
No Joseph Parole, not to be defeated, said, you know what,
I'm going to open my own theater. God knows I
have the money in the capitol to do so. So
he opens his own theater and begins working for him himself,
and for years and years and years he is doing
quite well. He builds up a name, people go to
(26:06):
see the world famous Le Petromint, and things are rolling
smoothly along until World War One occurs in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess. I guess things just
got kind of dark and people just weren't in the
same mirthful spirits they used to be, where farts would
would make them, you know, have heart attacks in the aisle,
they were having heart attacks from like serious stuff, like
you know, having bombs dropped on them and things, and
just living in utter fear and terror.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And additionally, his two sons were disabled in World War One.
So he packs up his career as a professional flagelist
and he reopens a bakery, which he was doing at
the beginning of the story. And guess what he's known for, Noel,
(26:57):
Is it the brand Muffins? It is the brand Muffins.
He lives to the ripe old age of eighty eight
years old and expires in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, and leaves behind him a legacy of fartestry that
has actually been carried on today by a pretty admittedly
small group. But there is one guy who is carrying
this mantle, and I mean an appearance on the BBC
(27:30):
in nineteen ninety seven. He goes by the name of
mister Methane and uses the same technique the whole idea
of inhaling air into the sphincter and pushing it back
out and being able to make different tones. And you
can kind of tell by the way he sticks the
microphone right in his butt and then speaks into it
(27:51):
afterwards that he too has a odorless expulsion.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Well, he certainly certainly presents it as such. An we
can talk a little bit about the science of this too,
but first let's let's play a clip of mister Methane
if we've got one handy.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Oh, by the way, this clip was banned from the
BBC on the grounds of bad taste. According to this
this YouTube clip here, you'd be the judge, a man
a mud party of my hatstead. Still, somebody told me
his name was phil.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
O my hot stead. Still his name was phil.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And when just just set the tone. And this guy
is wearing green spandex a with a purple cape and
a green little face mask, and that is mister Methane
and Frank Skinner performing did Run Run, which is backed
(28:57):
by the band the Skinnerettes, for BBC Television nine ninety seven,
but apparently it did not make it to air. I
want to confirm that, but that is what I'm reading here.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
He is not for the record singing. He is just
providing the the wind for this. Praised as a true genius,
a huge star by Howard Stern. He's appeared on numerous
different programs, not just the BBC, but he's on Francis
Scott Talent, Britain Scott Talent. Simon Cowell called him a disgusting.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Creature, did in fact call then that's true.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
But he also mister Methane, not Simon, got to the
German version of the show Dos Super Talent. He made
it to the semi finals. The winner was actually a dog.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, the Germans are into that stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You can read the entire story from his perspective at
his website, which is still up mister Methane dot com.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
He also has a Facebook page where he has six
and ninety five likes. So, you know, an admittedly niche talent,
but very much you know, carrying on the torch of
you know, past heroes like Roland the fartr and La
pate Main.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And since we promised it in the beginning, we can
go ahead. While while we're on the subject of farts,
tell you the world's oldest joke. It has been traced
back to nineteen hundred BCE, and it is Samerian. These
the s Marians lived and was now southern Iraq. And
(30:35):
here it goes. Tell us if you think it still
translates something which has never occurred since time immemorial, semi colon.
Here a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.
That's it, that's the joke.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, I don't I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I don't get it either. It feels like maybe there's
some social commentary that applied more to that time than
it does the twenty eighteen. But it's it's neat that
the world's oldest joke is a fart joke. I suppose, Yeah, yeah,
you said you like fart humor.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I just don't think. I don't know. I would rather
hear hear a fart than that joke.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And someone who did not like poop humor. This might
surprise some of us to learn, was Le Petelm himself.
He did not want to denigrate or diminish the quality
of his artistry and impressions.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, he was a fartiste. He had been working on
this craft for many years. I don't even think we
said that that from the time he found out about
his talent to the time he actually graced the stage
for the first time. He had been like working on
this stuff for like five years or something, and you know,
work shopping him.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, picture him staying up late night at the bakery
just humming songs to himself and trying to figure out
where he could slip the right fart in. And you know, no,
I think this was a pretty good one. This is
this is some fascinating stuff. I gotta speak up in
defense of farts though.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I wonder how many times we said the word fart
in this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Well, we've certainly said the word more often than hopefully
either of us have actually farted during this recording.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Well, I don't know, man, didn't you have a stat
about how often in a day people fart and they
don't even realize it. It's not like they're like big,
you know, boisterous ones. It's just like that kind of
regulation of your gas.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, Like I said in the top of the show,
it's about a leader to one point five leaders of
gas per day, and most people will tend to fart
on average about thirteen to twenty one times.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So we're all on this together.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
We're all in this together. And as I was setting
up in defense of farts, if you ever feel guilty
for laying a particular stinker, remember your farts are going
to be manufactured by the bacteria that lives within your body.
About seventy five percent of your farts are created in
(32:55):
your lower intestine, not by you. So the true culprit
of a smelly fart is not you, but your bacteria.
And that's why le petalumint and other professional flatulists don't
have that smell because they're taking in air from outside
and then expelling it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
But you're saying that the legit way. It's not even
your fault because you're really just farting your farts farts.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, which leads us to a bigger question, who or
what are we farting inside of?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Let us know what you think. You can write to
us at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can check
us out on Facebook and Instagram, or we are Ridiculous
History and we should thank everybody.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, we'd also like to before we go to our
thank you's issue a clarification. Previously we had attributed to
episodes to our research associate, Christopher hasiotis Christopher being the
stand up, great guy that he is, wrote to us
off air to point out that those previous two episodes
(33:53):
were actually the work of our research associate, Eve's Jeffcoat,
and you can find more of Eve's work over at
the Afropunk Solution Sessions show, as well as stuff Mom
Never Told You So do tune in check those out.
Thanks of course to super producer Casey Pegrim, thanks to
Alex Williams who wrote this track, and thanks to you, Noel,
(34:14):
always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
You're welcome, Ben goodbye. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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