August 30, 2018 • 33 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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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
First things first, everyone, no matter who you are, from
a king to a pauper, everyone farts. Not to 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 one incidents. Isn't there a book about this,
(00:45):
Everybody farts? There should be, surely there is. I think
that's poops. Everybody Poops is the children's book, But Everybody
Farts would be a great follow up. 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 far Yes, yes,
(01:06):
even our super producer Casey Pegrum. Just it's just a
medical fact that people do this. However, the vast majority
of human beings do it purely as a labor of love. Purely.
Is a thing that happens in the human body. That's
sort of a regulatory process, right, It keeps your your
(01:28):
systems and check your guts and all that. Right. Yeah,
most of us are amateur farters. However, they're very very
small number of people who have managed to become professional.
Flatti list. It's true, Ben, it's true, and this date's
back much farther than you might think. Or maybe I
don't know, maybe it's exactly as far as you might think.
(01:49):
Maybe it's even less far than you would think. But
where we're going to 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 the show I can the cable guy
and you cheer for whichever team you're assigned to. Yeah,
it turns out that restaurant concept based on an actual
historical period, right, Oh yeah, right, it's not uh the
(02:14):
medium level of evil the way that some people might assume. Yeah,
I thought that for a long time. She spelled really
funny too, like M E. D. It's it's one of
those words I can never properly spell. Um. But I
we digress. I do at least, Ben tell us about
fartestry in medieval times. I'm glad you asked Noel travel
with us, folks to the reign of King Henry the Second.
(02:36):
There's a great line about King Henry the Second from
historic uk dot com. The very first sentence of the
poor guy's biography, Henry two seems to struggle to make
any impactable in popular history. That's the first sentence, and
that is also printed on his gravestone. Ouch, that's not true,
(02:57):
But that'd be funny. 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
(03:18):
ridiculous historians, that he also had a notoriously popular jester.
That's right, And we're gonna 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
as flaty list. The word I always think it is
when I see it on paper is flout ist. I
both do involve making sounds by expelling air from their bodies,
(03:39):
but the flaty list is a little bit different. Um.
It is, as we've alluded to, a professional farter. But
what's really cool about this is it requires a pretty
specific set of skills, doesn't it better? That's right, So
this guy Nol was known as Roland the farter. He
had several other nicknames. They are in French. At this point,
(04:02):
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. Yeah, so that would be roland Less,
Roland lefart, and Roland la petur is but off the
record while the court is not in session. I have
(04:24):
a couple more questions, Casey, could you translate some of
these for us into a into English. So, uh, Roland
lefarter farterre pretty self explanatory right there. Fart, Roland leetur
petur derived from pete, which is the French verb to
fart pass gas, So p e t r is the
verb form, and then peteur is just that kind of personified.
(04:47):
And then the last one, roland Less, comes from Old French.
And I'm getting 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 sars,
a variation on sorrey to sieve. Alternately, sarcier means to darn. Also,
(05:09):
sarcara could simply just be a slip of the pen,
and they meant to write farce air, which is from
farcier to just or to make fun of. Well, you
know they do say you ever heard somebody say something
was tight as a sieve. Maybe they're talking about you know,
those are leaks like a sieve. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
(05:29):
maybe no one says tight as a Hey, let's start it.
Let's start. I think it starts today. Well, you know,
because a sieve just let certain things pass through. So
maybe you know it's about the the action of passing,
because you know, passing of the gas. I have a
question for you, Ben, and I think you have an
answer for me. Um. With this jester being a British
(05:50):
jester and English jester, why has he got all these
French nicknames? Ah? 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
(06:11):
Henry was intelligent, he spoke Latin as well, which was
the language of the elite at the time, just as
French was. So his court would have a lot of
business conducted. All right, So let's pop into this Latin
section here there is a book, a document, a collection
of ledgers called the English Liver Feodorum, which translates roughly
(06:34):
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 just had um 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
(06:56):
is as such, unum saltum at syphiliteum at um bumble
um executed simultaneously. That translates in English to one jump,
one whistle, and one fart. And this happens every Christmas,
every Christmas because they had a big old shindig soire
um thing. And what does he get in return for
(07:18):
this very specific physical stunt. Yeah, Henry the second must
have been a huge fan of of this guy, because
he was awarded with like lands, like and and an estate. Right, Yes,
he was granted a manner house hemming Stone in Suffolk
and depending on which source you read, either thirty acres
(07:41):
of land or a hundred, which is a heck of
a variation. Yeah, but that was. He didn't keep particularly
good records back in those days, so you know, yeah,
and we do know that although Roland the Farter really
did exist and really did carry out this very specific
act of a jump, a whistle and a fart once
(08:02):
a year executed, at the same time, we know that
his story gets very murky, very quickly. There's actually 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,
(08:23):
it sounds as if he has been doing he was
doing this for more than a hundred years, which is
clearly not true. No, there's no way. And it was
this like his big finish, the jump in the whistle
in the far, 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.
(08:44):
But this was his particular kind of like signature move
he would pull off. And the fact that he was
credited like that in a legal document that speaks volumes, well,
that was the only thing that he legally had to
do but surely there was a bit of showman ship.
There was a bit of lee into it, you know,
probably a couple of politically sensitive hot take kind of jokes,
(09:06):
because jesters occupies such a unique and powerful role in
a court. We also know that Roland was not the
only professional flat list. We know that there are practices
involving Did I see these pictures to you of Japan
(09:26):
in the Edo period? I'm just gonna show this to
you knowl Oh, that's a whole like genre of art.
I've seen like these prints, these Japanese woodcut prints of
like dudes just you know, with crazy explosive fart lines
coming out of there usually bear right. There's this artistic
(09:47):
trope of in Japan of depicting farts both as satire
and as weapons of battle. The word where would be
he gossan h e ash g A S S E N.
There were also the brugade or or farters of Ireland,
and there were several other ritualistically important or professionally paid
(10:15):
flat lists throughout history. Unfortunately, we do know a lot
about one of the most famous, I would say the
most famous flag lists in history. Yes, yes, that's right,
Le pet A k A. Joseph Peugeot, who was a
young Frenchman from Marseilles. I believe that Marseilles, Marseilles, Marseille.
(10:40):
That's been Casey on the Case, Part two, Part two,
and we've got a third one coming up. Don't don't you,
don't you worry? And that was in eighteen fifty seven.
By the way, that that he was born, Um, 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 Pug
(11:01):
when he um was a young man, he was swimming
in the sea and realized that he was actually taking
in water up his uh his uh anos. I was
going to say Australia for the euphemism, but or his
(11:21):
wrecked him. We could just go into the scientific term
series yeah uh. And this happened as he was inhaling.
There's a great depiction of this off damn interesting dot
com written by Alan Bellows. He returned to shore and
he freaked out, understandably feeling this water in the wrong
(11:41):
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 an
(12:04):
extraordinary ability. Yeah, he could actually do this with uh,
with air in addition to water, which makes sense. Um,
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
(12:25):
and and oh what fun he had. Yeah, he found
that he could deliberately suck water in through this area
of his body and then projected 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
(12:46):
to discovering that he could do the 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 school. Uh this is a
hit in his classroom. You can only imagine. Can I
bet the teachers loved him? They might have. They probably
(13:10):
laughed about it outside of the classroom. We haven't even
talked about the fact that farts are are are funny. Still.
Farts are funny because there something a little bit naughty
that applies to everyone, you know what I mean. She's
pretty equalizer like death. And as Allen wrote in the
(13:33):
in the book that Casey had mentioned earlier, uh, farts
had a We're seen as a reminder of mortality back
in the day, so they occupied this important role. We
learned so many fart facts for today's episode, fun fart facts,
fun fart facts. Just so. We learned that the oldest
joke in the world is a joke about farts, which
(13:55):
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 let before
he becomes this professional fartist, he joined the army. Yeah,
and I've seen it in a couple of different places
(14:16):
that he he actually got that nickname from his army buddies.
They bestowed it upon him. And as we learned from
A Roland, the Farter or the pet tour right, this
means fart, but it takes it, took it a step
beyond where Roland's name was. It took it to the
level of an artist, the fartest. Yes, he became known
(14:41):
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 eight seven, when he was
thirty years old, he went on stage in his hometown,
(15:04):
not to do a live baking demonstration, but to take
his flatulence to the to the theater. Aren't brand muffins
uh a little bit farty? 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
(15:27):
of all the different foods that are thought to be
fart inducing foods. Of course beans, right, and brand muffins
could be on there. I don't know. I hesitate to
ask people to write in and tell us about their
experience brand muffins. In this regard, why don't hesitates welcome
your brand stories with open arms? So what was his
(15:47):
performance all about? Ben, I'm glad you asked Noel. Initially
it was met with a lot of skepticism. Fartestry said
the French audience members, what on earth could this be?
And surely it's a one time gig. But he won
the audience over. He was a big success. We I
(16:08):
think maybe now it's time to let the badge round
of the bag. We have an example of some of
his work, don't we? We do we do? This is
what one of his performances might have sounded like, let's
roll the tape. But whatever found, that's fame. I thought
(16:34):
that faith anything, and we heard it up. I think
we've heard it up. This is let's stop there. You
could hear it in full. I can't help I am
such a child. I just think I just can't help it. Laugh. Well,
(16:55):
it's his it's his also his real job. I'm sure
he'd be glad to hear that his craft is affected
well in And what you realized too is he's like
he's doing bits in between. He's he's setting up the
different types of fart's doing, giving context, like any good impressionists,
let's if we could stop the let's let's defer to
(17:16):
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 pet mona is saying
in these? 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
(17:38):
into Google and actually find a complete transcript of the
entire thing, uh, courtesy of somebody on Reddit. Then that
Reddit person was Ariyott, and that was on the r today.
I learned subreddit six years ago. Anyway, So some of
my favorites here, well, to begin with one of the
early ones, the pet ma bell mare my mother in
(17:58):
law's fart ma pette de maison. That's a pretty rough rue.
That's the mason's part, thank uh. And then immediately after
(18:19):
he says lemm sec it's to monke, which is the
same dry being failed. So wait, he gambled and he
lost I think is the Yeah, yeah, there's there's a
little sum extra at the end of that one. Was
there something about giraffes? Yeah? Yeah. The draft one is bizarre.
That So the pet de Lameto debut part of the
(18:49):
standing up draft or the draft as it's standing up,
it cuts one. Uh. And that's been Casey on the
case Part three, Part three. We're at part three and
I'm loving every second of it. He also, uh, the
Peto man, not our man, Casey. He also played songs
and he blew out candles, and we should mention I
(19:09):
guess some of the song stuff, because that's what seems
tough to me. Right, even if you can expel gas
on command, getting the right tone is different. Well, man,
it's a lot like whistling, my friend. I mean, you're whistling.
You make different tones just by changing the tightness or
looseness of your lips. So I would imagine the same
would apply to uh, to the butt. We're being very like,
(19:34):
I'm proud of us for being as diplomatic. We're doing
our best as we are at this points. So we said.
The crowd reacted uh favorably despite their initial skepticism. So
what happened? What happened to the Peto man after this
first show, Well, he was a hit. He was a
massive hit, right, yeah, and he he he parlayed that
(19:57):
first performance into a pretty creative contract at the famous
Mulin Rouge, Yeah, the same one that you've heard about
in film. And the show started to get a hint
of danger, right because people were laughing so much that
some women would pass out because of their laughter. And
they're tight corsets. And then one guy had a heart
(20:19):
attack and died. That's terrible, but you know, farting is
objectively hilarious, and uh, I guess that's an okay way
to go. Well, they capitalized on it in the marketing.
They put up signs and they had nurses stationed around
the theater and the signs of like this maybe dangerous.
Now let's point something out, okay before we go any further. Um,
(20:40):
this might be grossing you guys out, and I can
understand that. But let's not forget that La Patu man.
Remember that first story about the intake of the water. Yes, well,
he basically was able to give himself kind of an
automatic animal, right, and he did that up to three
times a day. He was apparently a health food and
a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He did not drink a drop,
(21:04):
even in the crazy, absinthe soaked world of the Mulan Rouge.
Not a drop. His effort was devoted entirely to his craft,
so his farts did not smell bad. That's an interesting point. Yeah. No,
he did smoke cigarettes from both ends, so it was
it completely healthy. I think everybody smoked cigarettes, and I
(21:24):
think that was just a rite of passage for being French.
It would be abnormal not to at this point in history, right. Uh,
and it's true, his expellations really did not generate a
noticeably terrible smell. And just to clarify, as the grand finale,
when he's playing the songs, he has an ocarina attached
(21:46):
to the end of a hose and he plays through
the ocarina and the audience sings along with him, a
little bit of crowd work at the end. Yeah, and
he's a real seasoned pro and he gets an exclude
of contract with Mulan Rouge. Do we mentioned that part? No,
I just said it was a contract, but yeah, exclusive
is right, and uh, it caused him a little bit
(22:07):
of trouble um because he I think did a piece
of his act like on the street for somebody, or
like a private uh fart serenade, Yeah, to promote a
friend's new business in And that did not go over
well with the proprietors of the Mulan Rouge. Yeah, the
owner of the theater sued him for breach of contract
(22:31):
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 Mulan Rouge theater itself. And this
might make the owner of the theater sound like a
real pill, but it's important to note for context. At
(22:53):
the time of this lawsuit, Le petal Mount is the
highest paid entertainer in the entirety of France. He's like
the Michael Jordan's professional farting. That's twenty thousand francs 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
(23:15):
the late eighteen hundreds. Yeah, we actually off. Mike tried
to run this through the handy Daindy inflation calculator, but
it could not crunch the numbers this time. The time
frame and the currency exchange was a little too much
for the inflation calculator to crunch. Old Flaty can't win
them all, but the inflation calculator will return in future episodes,
(23:37):
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 part of the act. He
instead fights the situation in court. But while this is
(23:58):
going on, the moon On Rouge decides to replace him
with a different performer. Now it's really really a rough
time for old La Peto Man because they replaced him
with a lady fartist um named it was just Le
fem pet Man, Yeah, yeah, who turned out to be
(24:23):
a fraud fatale. It's right. Yeah. Apparently under her her
enormous petticoats, she was hiding a bellows that was being
worked I'm guessing by her foot or maybe like thigh
master rules, But couldn't you see that? And adding insults injury?
(24:43):
Her act was a wonder one rip off of of
his act um and it it you know, it was
quite a kerfuffle. Yeah, it was. It was quite a
to do for sure. No, Joseph Pruole not to be defeated, said,
you know what, I'm gonna open my own theater. God
knows I have the money in the capital to do so.
(25:05):
So he opens his own theater and begins working for himself,
and for years and years and years he is doing
quite well. He builds up a name people go to see,
the world famous Le Peto mant and things are rolling
smoothly along until World War One occurs in nine Yeah,
I don't know, I guess, I guess things just got
(25:27):
kind of dark, and uh, people just weren't in the
same mirthful spirits they used to be where where farts
would would make them, you know, have heart attacks in
the aisle they were, 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.
And additionally, his two sons were disabled in World War One.
(25:52):
So he packs up his career as a professional flash
list and he reopens a bait which he was doing
at the beginning of the story. And guess what he's
known for, nol Is it the brand Muffins. It is
the brand Muffins. He lives to the ripe old age
(26:12):
of eighty eight years old and expires in nineteen Yeah,
and leaves behind him a legacy of of of fartestry
that has has actually been carried on today by a
pretty admittedly small group. Um. But uh, there is one
(26:33):
guy who is carrying this mantle um and and I
mean in appearance on the BBC in nine he goes
by the name of Mr Methane and uh 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
(26:55):
the way he sticks the microphone right in his butt
um and then speaks into it afterwards that he too
has a odorless expulsion. 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 Mr Methane if we've got got one handy. Oh,
(27:16):
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 party of
my heartstits still somebody, it's always His name was Pail. Oh,
(27:44):
his name was Bill just just set the tone. This
guy is wearing green spandex with a with a purple
cape and a green little face mask. And that is
Mr Methane and Frank Skinner and performing did do Run Run,
(28:05):
which is backed by the band The skinnerets Um for
BBC Television unit enty seven um, but apparently it did
not make it to air. I want to confirm that,
but I that is what I'm reading here. He is
not for the record singing. He is just providing the uh,
the wind for this Praised as a true genius, a
(28:26):
huge star by Howard Stern. He's appeared on numerous different programs,
not just the BBC, but he's on Frances Got Talent,
Brittain's Got Talent. Uh. Simon Cowell called him a disgusting
creature did in fact call him that. That's true, but
he also Mr Methane not Simon got to the German
(28:47):
version of the show Dos Super Talent. He made it
to the semifinals. Uh. The winner was actually a dog.
You know. The Germans are into that stuff. You can
read the entire story from his perspective at his website,
which is still up Mr methane dot com. He also
has a Facebook page where he has six thousand five likes. So,
(29:09):
you know, an admittedly niche talent, but very much you know,
carrying on the torch of of of you know, past
heroes like rolland the Farter and La Peto Main. And
since we promised it in the beginning, we can go
ahead while while we're on the subject of farts, tell
(29:30):
you the world's oldest joke. It has been traced back
to nineteen hundred b c E. And it is Samarian.
Uh these the Marians lived and was now southern Iraq.
And here it goes. Tell us if you think it
still translates something which has never occurred since time immemorial,
(29:52):
semi colon Here a young woman did not fart in
her husband's lap. That's it. That's the joke. Stand. I
don't get it either. It feels like maybe there's some
social commentary that applied more to that time than it doesen.
But it's it's neat that the world's oldest joke is
a fart joke. Yeah, you said you like fart humor.
(30:14):
I just don't think. I just I like, I don't know.
I would rather hear up here of fart than than
that joke and uh, someone who did not like poop humor.
This might surprise some of us, learned, was La petel
Man himself. He did not want to denigrate or diminish
the quality of his artistry and impressions. He was a fartiste.
(30:35):
He had been working on this craft for many years.
I don't even think we we said that that from
the time he found out about his talent. At 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, you know, work shopping him. Yeah,
picture him staying up late night at the bakery just
humming songs to himself and trying to figure out where
(30:57):
he could slip the right fart in. And you know, well,
I think this was a pretty good one. This is
this is some fascinating stuff. I gotta speak up in
defensive farts though. I wonder how many times we said
the word fart in this episode. Well, we've certainly said
the word more often than hopefully either of us have
actually farted during this recording. Well, I don't know, man,
(31:17):
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. Then
it's just like that that kind of regulation of your gas. Yeah,
like I said in the top of the show, it's
it's about a leader to one point five leaders of
gas per day, and most people will tend to fart
(31:39):
on average about thirteen to twenty one times. So we're
all on this together. We're all in this together. And
as I was, 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 of
(32:02):
your farts are created in 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 Peto Mant and
other professional flash lists don't have that smell because they're
taking an air from outside and then expelling it. But
you're saying that the legit way, it's not even your
(32:23):
fault because you're really just farting your farts farts, right,
which leads us to a bigger question, who are what
are we farting inside of? Let us know what you think.
You can write to us at Ridiculous at how stuff
works dot com. You can check us out on Facebook
and Instagram. Or we are Ridiculous History and we should
thank everybody. Yeah, we'd also like to before we go
(32:43):
to our thank you issue, a clarification. Uh. Previously we
had attributed to episodes to our research associate, Christopher Haciotis. Christopher,
being the stand up, great guy that he is, wrote
to us off air to point out that those previous
two episodes were actually the work of our research associate,
(33:05):
Eve's Jeff Code. 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 Pegrum,
Thanks Alex Williams who wrote this track, and thanks to
you Noel, always a pleasure. You're welcome, Ben, goodbye,
First things first, everyone, no matter who you are, from
a king to a pauper, everyone farts. Not to 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 one incidents. Isn't there a book about this,
(00:45):
Everybody farts? There should be, surely there is. I think
that's poops. Everybody Poops is the children's book, But Everybody
Farts would be a great follow up. 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 far Yes, yes,
(01:06):
even our super producer Casey Pegrum. Just it's just a
medical fact that people do this. However, the vast majority
of human beings do it purely as a labor of love. Purely.
Is a thing that happens in the human body. That's
sort of a regulatory process, right, It keeps your your
(01:28):
systems and check your guts and all that. Right. Yeah,
most of us are amateur farters. However, they're very very
small number of people who have managed to become professional.
Flatti list. It's true, Ben, it's true, and this date's
back much farther than you might think. Or maybe I
don't know, maybe it's exactly as far as you might think.
(01:49):
Maybe it's even less far than you would think. But
where we're going to 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 the show I can the cable guy
and you cheer for whichever team you're assigned to. Yeah,
it turns out that restaurant concept based on an actual
historical period, right, Oh yeah, right, it's not uh the
(02:14):
medium level of evil the way that some people might assume. Yeah,
I thought that for a long time. She spelled really
funny too, like M E. D. It's it's one of
those words I can never properly spell. Um. But I
we digress. I do at least, Ben tell us about
fartestry in medieval times. I'm glad you asked Noel travel
with us, folks to the reign of King Henry the Second.
(02:36):
There's a great line about King Henry the Second from
historic uk dot com. The very first sentence of the
poor guy's biography, Henry two seems to struggle to make
any impactable in popular history. That's the first sentence, and
that is also printed on his gravestone. Ouch, that's not true,
(02:57):
But that'd be funny. 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
(03:18):
ridiculous historians, that he also had a notoriously popular jester.
That's right, And we're gonna 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
as flaty list. The word I always think it is
when I see it on paper is flout ist. I
both do involve making sounds by expelling air from their bodies,
(03:39):
but the flaty list is a little bit different. Um.
It is, as we've alluded to, a professional farter. But
what's really cool about this is it requires a pretty
specific set of skills, doesn't it better? That's right, So
this guy Nol was known as Roland the farter. He
had several other nicknames. They are in French. At this point,
(04:02):
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. Yeah, so that would be roland Less,
Roland lefart, and Roland la petur is but off the
record while the court is not in session. I have
(04:24):
a couple more questions, Casey, could you translate some of
these for us into a into English. So, uh, Roland
lefarter farterre pretty self explanatory right there. Fart, Roland leetur
petur derived from pete, which is the French verb to
fart pass gas, So p e t r is the
verb form, and then peteur is just that kind of personified.
(04:47):
And then the last one, roland Less, comes from Old French.
And I'm getting 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 sars,
a variation on sorrey to sieve. Alternately, sarcier means to darn. Also,
(05:09):
sarcara could simply just be a slip of the pen,
and they meant to write farce air, which is from
farcier to just or to make fun of. Well, you
know they do say you ever heard somebody say something
was tight as a sieve. Maybe they're talking about you know,
those are leaks like a sieve. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
(05:29):
maybe no one says tight as a Hey, let's start it.
Let's start. I think it starts today. Well, you know,
because a sieve just let certain things pass through. So
maybe you know it's about the the action of passing,
because you know, passing of the gas. I have a
question for you, Ben, and I think you have an
answer for me. Um. With this jester being a British
(05:50):
jester and English jester, why has he got all these
French nicknames? Ah? 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
(06:11):
Henry was intelligent, he spoke Latin as well, which was
the language of the elite at the time, just as
French was. So his court would have a lot of
business conducted. All right, So let's pop into this Latin
section here there is a book, a document, a collection
of ledgers called the English Liver Feodorum, which translates roughly
(06:34):
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 just had um 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
(06:56):
is as such, unum saltum at syphiliteum at um bumble
um executed simultaneously. That translates in English to one jump,
one whistle, and one fart. And this happens every Christmas,
every Christmas because they had a big old shindig soire
um thing. And what does he get in return for
(07:18):
this very specific physical stunt. Yeah, Henry the second must
have been a huge fan of of this guy, because
he was awarded with like lands, like and and an estate. Right, Yes,
he was granted a manner house hemming Stone in Suffolk
and depending on which source you read, either thirty acres
(07:41):
of land or a hundred, which is a heck of
a variation. Yeah, but that was. He didn't keep particularly
good records back in those days, so you know, yeah,
and we do know that although Roland the Farter really
did exist and really did carry out this very specific
act of a jump, a whistle and a fart once
(08:02):
a year executed, at the same time, we know that
his story gets very murky, very quickly. There's actually 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,
(08:23):
it sounds as if he has been doing he was
doing this for more than a hundred years, which is
clearly not true. No, there's no way. And it was
this like his big finish, the jump in the whistle
in the far, 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.
(08:44):
But this was his particular kind of like signature move
he would pull off. And the fact that he was
credited like that in a legal document that speaks volumes, well,
that was the only thing that he legally had to
do but surely there was a bit of showman ship.
There was a bit of lee into it, you know,
probably a couple of politically sensitive hot take kind of jokes,
(09:06):
because jesters occupies such a unique and powerful role in
a court. We also know that Roland was not the
only professional flat list. We know that there are practices
involving Did I see these pictures to you of Japan
(09:26):
in the Edo period? I'm just gonna show this to
you knowl Oh, that's a whole like genre of art.
I've seen like these prints, these Japanese woodcut prints of
like dudes just you know, with crazy explosive fart lines
coming out of there usually bear right. There's this artistic
(09:47):
trope of in Japan of depicting farts both as satire
and as weapons of battle. The word where would be
he gossan h e ash g A S S E N.
There were also the brugade or or farters of Ireland,
and there were several other ritualistically important or professionally paid
(10:15):
flat lists throughout history. Unfortunately, we do know a lot
about one of the most famous, I would say the
most famous flag lists in history. Yes, yes, that's right,
Le pet A k A. Joseph Peugeot, who was a
young Frenchman from Marseilles. I believe that Marseilles, Marseilles, Marseille.
(10:40):
That's been Casey on the Case, Part two, Part two,
and we've got a third one coming up. Don't don't you,
don't you worry? And that was in eighteen fifty seven.
By the way, that that he was born, Um, 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 Pug
(11:01):
when he um was a young man, he was swimming
in the sea and realized that he was actually taking
in water up his uh his uh anos. I was
going to say Australia for the euphemism, but or his
(11:21):
wrecked him. We could just go into the scientific term
series yeah uh. And this happened as he was inhaling.
There's a great depiction of this off damn interesting dot
com written by Alan Bellows. He returned to shore and
he freaked out, understandably feeling this water in the wrong
(11:41):
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 an
(12:04):
extraordinary ability. Yeah, he could actually do this with uh,
with air in addition to water, which makes sense. Um,
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
(12:25):
and and oh what fun he had. Yeah, he found
that he could deliberately suck water in through this area
of his body and then projected 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
(12:46):
to discovering that he could do the 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 school. Uh this is a
hit in his classroom. You can only imagine. Can I
bet the teachers loved him? They might have. They probably
(13:10):
laughed about it outside of the classroom. We haven't even
talked about the fact that farts are are are funny. Still.
Farts are funny because there something a little bit naughty
that applies to everyone, you know what I mean. She's
pretty equalizer like death. And as Allen wrote in the
(13:33):
in the book that Casey had mentioned earlier, uh, farts
had a We're seen as a reminder of mortality back
in the day, so they occupied this important role. We
learned so many fart facts for today's episode, fun fart facts,
fun fart facts. Just so. We learned that the oldest
joke in the world is a joke about farts, which
(13:55):
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 let before
he becomes this professional fartist, he joined the army. Yeah,
and I've seen it in a couple of different places
(14:16):
that he he actually got that nickname from his army buddies.
They bestowed it upon him. And as we learned from
A Roland, the Farter or the pet tour right, this
means fart, but it takes it, took it a step
beyond where Roland's name was. It took it to the
level of an artist, the fartest. Yes, he became known
(14:41):
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 eight seven, when he was
thirty years old, he went on stage in his hometown,
(15:04):
not to do a live baking demonstration, but to take
his flatulence to the to the theater. Aren't brand muffins
uh a little bit farty? 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
(15:27):
of all the different foods that are thought to be
fart inducing foods. Of course beans, right, and brand muffins
could be on there. I don't know. I hesitate to
ask people to write in and tell us about their
experience brand muffins. In this regard, why don't hesitates welcome
your brand stories with open arms? So what was his
(15:47):
performance all about? Ben, I'm glad you asked Noel. Initially
it was met with a lot of skepticism. Fartestry said
the French audience members, what on earth could this be?
And surely it's a one time gig. But he won
the audience over. He was a big success. We I
(16:08):
think maybe now it's time to let the badge round
of the bag. We have an example of some of
his work, don't we? We do we do? This is
what one of his performances might have sounded like, let's
roll the tape. But whatever found, that's fame. I thought
(16:34):
that faith anything, and we heard it up. I think
we've heard it up. This is let's stop there. You
could hear it in full. I can't help I am
such a child. I just think I just can't help it. Laugh. Well,
(16:55):
it's his it's his also his real job. I'm sure
he'd be glad to hear that his craft is affected
well in And what you realized too is he's like
he's doing bits in between. He's he's setting up the
different types of fart's doing, giving context, like any good impressionists,
let's if we could stop the let's let's defer to
(17:16):
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 pet mona is saying
in these? 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
(17:38):
into Google and actually find a complete transcript of the
entire thing, uh, courtesy of somebody on Reddit. Then that
Reddit person was Ariyott, and that was on the r today.
I learned subreddit six years ago. Anyway, So some of
my favorites here, well, to begin with one of the
early ones, the pet ma bell mare my mother in
(17:58):
law's fart ma pette de maison. That's a pretty rough rue.
That's the mason's part, thank uh. And then immediately after
(18:19):
he says lemm sec it's to monke, which is the
same dry being failed. So wait, he gambled and he
lost I think is the Yeah, yeah, there's there's a
little sum extra at the end of that one. Was
there something about giraffes? Yeah? Yeah. The draft one is bizarre.
That So the pet de Lameto debut part of the
(18:49):
standing up draft or the draft as it's standing up,
it cuts one. Uh. And that's been Casey on the
case Part three, Part three. We're at part three and
I'm loving every second of it. He also, uh, the
Peto man, not our man, Casey. He also played songs
and he blew out candles, and we should mention I
(19:09):
guess some of the song stuff, because that's what seems
tough to me. Right, even if you can expel gas
on command, getting the right tone is different. Well, man,
it's a lot like whistling, my friend. I mean, you're whistling.
You make different tones just by changing the tightness or
looseness of your lips. So I would imagine the same
would apply to uh, to the butt. We're being very like,
(19:34):
I'm proud of us for being as diplomatic. We're doing
our best as we are at this points. So we said.
The crowd reacted uh favorably despite their initial skepticism. So
what happened? What happened to the Peto man after this
first show, Well, he was a hit. He was a
massive hit, right, yeah, and he he he parlayed that
(19:57):
first performance into a pretty creative contract at the famous
Mulin Rouge, Yeah, the same one that you've heard about
in film. And the show started to get a hint
of danger, right because people were laughing so much that
some women would pass out because of their laughter. And
they're tight corsets. And then one guy had a heart
(20:19):
attack and died. That's terrible, but you know, farting is
objectively hilarious, and uh, I guess that's an okay way
to go. Well, they capitalized on it in the marketing.
They put up signs and they had nurses stationed around
the theater and the signs of like this maybe dangerous.
Now let's point something out, okay before we go any further. Um,
(20:40):
this might be grossing you guys out, and I can
understand that. But let's not forget that La Patu man.
Remember that first story about the intake of the water. Yes, well,
he basically was able to give himself kind of an
automatic animal, right, and he did that up to three
times a day. He was apparently a health food and
a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He did not drink a drop,
(21:04):
even in the crazy, absinthe soaked world of the Mulan Rouge.
Not a drop. His effort was devoted entirely to his craft,
so his farts did not smell bad. That's an interesting point. Yeah. No,
he did smoke cigarettes from both ends, so it was
it completely healthy. I think everybody smoked cigarettes, and I
(21:24):
think that was just a rite of passage for being French.
It would be abnormal not to at this point in history, right. Uh,
and it's true, his expellations really did not generate a
noticeably terrible smell. And just to clarify, as the grand finale,
when he's playing the songs, he has an ocarina attached
(21:46):
to the end of a hose and he plays through
the ocarina and the audience sings along with him, a
little bit of crowd work at the end. Yeah, and
he's a real seasoned pro and he gets an exclude
of contract with Mulan Rouge. Do we mentioned that part? No,
I just said it was a contract, but yeah, exclusive
is right, and uh, it caused him a little bit
(22:07):
of trouble um because he I think did a piece
of his act like on the street for somebody, or
like a private uh fart serenade, Yeah, to promote a
friend's new business in And that did not go over
well with the proprietors of the Mulan Rouge. Yeah, the
owner of the theater sued him for breach of contract
(22:31):
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 Mulan Rouge theater itself. And this
might make the owner of the theater sound like a
real pill, but it's important to note for context. At
(22:53):
the time of this lawsuit, Le petal Mount is the
highest paid entertainer in the entirety of France. He's like
the Michael Jordan's professional farting. That's twenty thousand francs 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
(23:15):
the late eighteen hundreds. Yeah, we actually off. Mike tried
to run this through the handy Daindy inflation calculator, but
it could not crunch the numbers this time. The time
frame and the currency exchange was a little too much
for the inflation calculator to crunch. Old Flaty can't win
them all, but the inflation calculator will return in future episodes,
(23:37):
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 part of the act. He
instead fights the situation in court. But while this is
(23:58):
going on, the moon On Rouge decides to replace him
with a different performer. Now it's really really a rough
time for old La Peto Man because they replaced him
with a lady fartist um named it was just Le
fem pet Man, Yeah, yeah, who turned out to be
(24:23):
a fraud fatale. It's right. Yeah. Apparently under her her
enormous petticoats, she was hiding a bellows that was being
worked I'm guessing by her foot or maybe like thigh
master rules, But couldn't you see that? And adding insults injury?
(24:43):
Her act was a wonder one rip off of of
his act um and it it you know, it was
quite a kerfuffle. Yeah, it was. It was quite a
to do for sure. No, Joseph Pruole not to be defeated, said,
you know what, I'm gonna open my own theater. God
knows I have the money in the capital to do so.
(25:05):
So he opens his own theater and begins working for himself,
and for years and years and years he is doing
quite well. He builds up a name people go to see,
the world famous Le Peto mant and things are rolling
smoothly along until World War One occurs in nine Yeah,
I don't know, I guess, I guess things just got
(25:27):
kind of dark, and uh, people just weren't in the
same mirthful spirits they used to be where where farts
would would make them, you know, have heart attacks in
the aisle they were, 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.
And additionally, his two sons were disabled in World War One.
(25:52):
So he packs up his career as a professional flash
list and he reopens a bait which he was doing
at the beginning of the story. And guess what he's
known for, nol Is it the brand Muffins. It is
the brand Muffins. He lives to the ripe old age
(26:12):
of eighty eight years old and expires in nineteen Yeah,
and leaves behind him a legacy of of of fartestry
that has has actually been carried on today by a
pretty admittedly small group. Um. But uh, there is one
(26:33):
guy who is carrying this mantle um and and I
mean in appearance on the BBC in nine he goes
by the name of Mr Methane and uh 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
(26:55):
the way he sticks the microphone right in his butt
um and then speaks into it afterwards that he too
has a odorless expulsion. 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 Mr Methane if we've got got one handy. Oh,
(27:16):
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 party of
my heartstits still somebody, it's always His name was Pail. Oh,
(27:44):
his name was Bill just just set the tone. This
guy is wearing green spandex with a with a purple
cape and a green little face mask. And that is
Mr Methane and Frank Skinner and performing did do Run Run,
(28:05):
which is backed by the band The skinnerets Um for
BBC Television unit enty seven um, but apparently it did
not make it to air. I want to confirm that,
but I that is what I'm reading here. He is
not for the record singing. He is just providing the uh,
the wind for this Praised as a true genius, a
(28:26):
huge star by Howard Stern. He's appeared on numerous different programs,
not just the BBC, but he's on Frances Got Talent,
Brittain's Got Talent. Uh. Simon Cowell called him a disgusting
creature did in fact call him that. That's true, but
he also Mr Methane not Simon got to the German
(28:47):
version of the show Dos Super Talent. He made it
to the semifinals. Uh. The winner was actually a dog.
You know. The Germans are into that stuff. You can
read the entire story from his perspective at his website,
which is still up Mr methane dot com. He also
has a Facebook page where he has six thousand five likes. So,
(29:09):
you know, an admittedly niche talent, but very much you know,
carrying on the torch of of of you know, past
heroes like rolland the Farter and La Peto Main. And
since we promised it in the beginning, we can go
ahead while while we're on the subject of farts, tell
(29:30):
you the world's oldest joke. It has been traced back
to nineteen hundred b c E. And it is Samarian.
Uh these the Marians lived and was now southern Iraq.
And here it goes. Tell us if you think it
still translates something which has never occurred since time immemorial,
(29:52):
semi colon Here a young woman did not fart in
her husband's lap. That's it. That's the joke. Stand. I
don't get it either. It feels like maybe there's some
social commentary that applied more to that time than it doesen.
But it's it's neat that the world's oldest joke is
a fart joke. Yeah, you said you like fart humor.
(30:14):
I just don't think. I just I like, I don't know.
I would rather hear up here of fart than than
that joke and uh, someone who did not like poop humor.
This might surprise some of us, learned, was La petel
Man himself. He did not want to denigrate or diminish
the quality of his artistry and impressions. He was a fartiste.
(30:35):
He had been working on this craft for many years.
I don't even think we we said that that from
the time he found out about his talent. At 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, you know, work shopping him. Yeah,
picture him staying up late night at the bakery just
humming songs to himself and trying to figure out where
(30:57):
he could slip the right fart in. And you know, well,
I think this was a pretty good one. This is
this is some fascinating stuff. I gotta speak up in
defensive farts though. I wonder how many times we said
the word fart in this episode. Well, we've certainly said
the word more often than hopefully either of us have
actually farted during this recording. Well, I don't know, man,
(31:17):
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. Then
it's just like that that kind of regulation of your gas. Yeah,
like I said in the top of the show, it's
it's about a leader to one point five leaders of
gas per day, and most people will tend to fart
(31:39):
on average about thirteen to twenty one times. So we're
all on this together. We're all in this together. And
as I was, 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 of
(32:02):
your farts are created in 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 Peto Mant and
other professional flash lists don't have that smell because they're
taking an air from outside and then expelling it. But
you're saying that the legit way, it's not even your
(32:23):
fault because you're really just farting your farts farts, right,
which leads us to a bigger question, who are what
are we farting inside of? Let us know what you think.
You can write to us at Ridiculous at how stuff
works dot com. You can check us out on Facebook
and Instagram. Or we are Ridiculous History and we should
thank everybody. Yeah, we'd also like to before we go
(32:43):
to our thank you issue, a clarification. Uh. Previously we
had attributed to episodes to our research associate, Christopher Haciotis. Christopher,
being the stand up, great guy that he is, wrote
to us off air to point out that those previous
two episodes were actually the work of our research associate,
(33:05):
Eve's Jeff Code. 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 Pegrum,
Thanks Alex Williams who wrote this track, and thanks to
you Noel, always a pleasure. You're welcome, Ben, goodbye,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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