A Nostalgic Look at Crayons

Mixing wax with pigment is something artists have been doing since DaVinci. These little implements would later go on to be called crayons and gained popularity among the elementary school set. Learn all about crayons in today's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, There's guest producer Matt Yeah,
and Jerry's not here because Jerry is a storm sufferer. Yeah.

(00:25):
How did you fare? Pretty good? I mean powers out
for a little while, cables out for a little bit, nothing,
nothing bad. Yeah, we um, we're talking about Irma. If
this is this is obviously in the future, there maybe
another hurricane by then for all we know. Yeah, well,
Jose is starting to circle background. I think, yeah, that's
what I see. Uh. But yeah, Irma came through Atlanta,

(00:46):
which is weird for a hurricane and then eventually tropical
storm to reach that far inland. Uh. And I was
kind of like, well, you know, we get bad thunderstorms
in Atlanta, will be fine. Didn't make you. I bought
some extra milk for the kid, and but I didn't
like go nuts with you know, prepper style stuff. But

(01:07):
it was surprisingly scary. I'm here to tell you. Were
you scared? Yeah, I mean that was like in our
our part of Atlanta got hit the hardest. Um, sort
of the Eastlake Decatur, Kirkwood, decap County area. Uh, And
there was one there was one moment where the trees
and we have all these old you know, Atlanta for

(01:28):
those of you who don't know, as a city built
in the middle of a forest. So there are these
old oak and pine trees that apparently have shallow roots
from past droughts and things, because the roots kind of
come towards the surface. Just not good. Yeah, And I
was kind of wondering, you know, us like we like
to just sort of study things in general, and I

(01:50):
was looking at these trees swaying, and I was wondering
about the physics of an uprooted tree. And then it's
probably like you know, and the roots give and every
time it swings, it probably just gets a little more unstable.
And then the big gust and then so we had
before like five huge trees down within a thousand feet

(02:15):
of our house. So we were just sort of waiting.
I was just literally like, all right, which one is
coming to hit us? And there was one huge gust
that came through at one point where it was so
scary sounding that we grabbed the animals and our daughter
and like ran into the hallway and Emily stayed there

(02:36):
with her and the animals. You know, I could not.
I was pacing from window to window the entire time.
What's going on? It was like, if I can see
it coming down, I might give us a half a
second to get out of the way. But I did
see one come down behind my house in real time,
which was scary. I'll bet that must have been kind
of amazing to see though, too. Yeah, and the sound
like obviously we we got nothing like uh Florida, so

(02:58):
I'm not trying to compare, but um, it was a
little scary. And we didn't have power for three days,
which is not fun. So I've never seen a tree
fall down in real time, so subtle a bet? Okay,
does it make a Wilhelm scream? He started to follow
the wine. We can get Jerry to dovin Wheah the

(03:20):
wrong one. Uh So anyway, it was I mean, it
was fun at first not being not having power, uh
And then also wanted to announce because people care so
much about our pets because they're part of the show.
On Monday or Tuesday, it was Tuesday, we took the

(03:41):
Wizard in because he had been like hiding and whenever
animals start doing weird things like that. You know, it's
not good. Uh, and you know, like the rest of
the other three over the past nine months, tumors all
over his body. So we put him down yesterday with
no power, but had one really great night the night

(04:02):
before with like we were forced to just be quiet
and there were candles lit because it ended up being
this like peaceful candlelight vigil because the power outage kind
of forced that upon us. Works out like that sometimes. Yeah,
I was going, you know, if that happened, we might
have just been watching TV with him and you know,
still petting him and caring for him. But he's just

(04:22):
like game quick Game of Thrones. Well, I'm sorry, Chuckers,
did I quick Game of Thrones from everybody? I'm sorry.
I appreciate that. Man, it was Emily. I mean I
was wrecked, but Emily is destroyed. Is this cat like
was attached to her body? Fifteen years? Is that how long?

(04:43):
How old he was? Yeah? And you know, we got
great lives atle lurn buckleyan wizards, so they were good,
longful lives. But when you get together with a human
and you get four animals in the space of a
year or so, it's all good times and you don't
think about the end of that. Yeah you know. Oh,
well like the secession of deaths in quick order that

(05:07):
can happen. Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. You know. Yeah,
now they're all here. Now they're all gone. Yeah, like
I thought maybe like we'd lose one a year or
every couple of years, but it's like, no, November, February, September. Yeah,
that's that is quick secession. It's not fun. Yeah. So anyway,
I just want to get that out of the way.

(05:27):
Hang in there, man, and hats off to you for
coming in. Yeah, than just being like nope, well we don't.
We don't pad the queue like we used to know,
which is good. It keeps it fresh, but there's also
less room to just be like nope, yeah, we can
bring breaking news one crayons, right exactly. I was gonna
say during IRMA, did you guys with your power out

(05:51):
scribble anything with crayons? Uh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
eventually we sent, uh sent my daughter over to my
grandparents just as parents her grandparents. Yeah, and it's just
she was getting a little kg, and quite honestly, I
think we were getting a little kg. But at first. Yeah,
it was that was greyon play yeah, play the big

(06:11):
fat kind. Yeah, she has the big big daddies right now,
because I mean she's got a little hand, so that's
what she uses. That's the only kind she con grita
better to scribble with. Right, her fine motor neurons are
not quite refined enough to hold the normal traditional size crons. Well,
I mean she would hold it, but she would hold
it like she holds a long sword. Right, Yeah, yeah,

(06:37):
I know, I know what you mean, the deathly purpose right.
So um, it turns out, Chuck, I don't know how
much of this, you know, having a young one with crayons.
I don't know if like you read the back of
the box and they're like, okay, that's the history of crayons. Huh,
how was it on the back of the box. Maybe
I don't even know. I haven't seen a cran in years.

(06:57):
But I have a question for you. Is it normal
to weep quietly while you're research and crayons? Didn't you
have a nostalgia vers Yes? Yeah, I mean just like
the idea of that that box with like the logo
and the smell of them. We're talking about Crayola crayons.
I might as well just go ahead and get that
out of the way. And it's really funny because this

(07:19):
this how stuff works article went to great links to
just be about how crayons work. A nice effort. Yeah,
but they you know still, I mean, it's Crayola that
you're talking about in the United States when you're talking
about crayons for the most part. Yeah, and so much
so that, Um, the author didn't even really talk about
Crayola as a company much, right, And I thought that
was wrong. I thought so too, So we're going to

(07:40):
correct that in the podcast. Um. But I've found out
from this research that there is hydros Oreo situation going
on in the cran world. Prang, which is at best
and also ran in the Kran competition. It was actually
around before Crayola or making Crans. Remember Praying I think

(08:01):
they're still around Praying Ones. No, No, I think they
were just an off brand, but they were. It's like
Hi Drocks. Everybody thinks Hi Drocks is a knockoff. No Oreos,
the knockoff but better, but the superior cook exactly same
with Crayola, crayons and pranks, Like, what did we do
why did you pick us? I'm sorry praying this is

(08:22):
just the reality of the situation that I'm pointing out here. Yeah,
I think so. Um. I learned a lot about this,
but more than anything, I was just taken back to
my childhood because childhood in Crayola go hand in hand. Yeah,
Plato Crayola crayons, and we need to want Elmer's glue
at some point. Sure, just knock off the Big three

(08:43):
or paste. I had the purple kind with a pirate
on it. Do you remember that one? It was highly edible, toxic.
It made you know it wasn't toxic, I mean as
far as I know, but the it made you want
to eat it, Like you wake up and be like,
I think I'm gonna eat a little that paste today

(09:03):
at school? Yeah? Why not? It's funny you mentioned nostalgia though,
because I did, you probably did too. Went to the
Crayola Effects and Figures page uh, And there was a
Yale study that found Yale University that is um. They
found that the smell of the crayon, the Crayola crayon Yes, specifically,

(09:25):
is ranked number eighteen on the most recognizable sense for adults,
just ahead of coffee. And peanut butter. Yeah, Like that's
how And I would bet your play outs up there too.
Isn't it crazy though that somebody's like, oh I I
would have never guessed that was coffee, but they got
they got yeah, weirdos, Yeah, peanut butter, what is that?

(09:47):
It was like weird concoction? Yeah? Is that a turd?
That word is just borderline acceptable to me. I think
it's one of the great gross words because the way
it's spelled, more than anything, the way you spit out
the words t U r D is just looks gross,
but you almost you make the sound that that you

(10:11):
make when you're when you encounter the smell of poop
in a bathroom or something like third right, I think
that's one of the reasons why I don't like it.
It's just too visceral. Oh man, all right, so let's
get into this. Okay, So crayons have not been around
very long, Chuck. The crayon as we know it as

(10:32):
in the little round childhood writing implement has only been
around since the latter half of the nineteenth century. But
this article goes through great pains to talk about a
bunch of things that are not crayons. But waxy forms
of art, so we might as well talk about a
little bit of that. Like, did you find out how

(10:55):
to pronounce this bot or batique? Well? I said bautique
because I did this. Believe it or not. Oh, you've
done batique before? Nice? It was weirdly, well, not weirdly,
I guess my My elementary school, of which my father
was principal, as we know, had a a lot of
interesting programs. I can't remember the name of the class,

(11:19):
but it was like it was sort of like an elective,
but for elementary school. It was the eighties, so it
was probably called that, but it was just different kind
of you know. We did photography and all sorts of
cool stuff that usually don't get to do in great school.
But we did a bautique course and my dad got
really into it for a while, So we were boutiquing

(11:40):
in our family for a short time. Was this like
right before he got into bedazzlingk uh, he never got
into that. He was into photography and batiquing. So we
would batique like the only thing that I remember was doing.
You're gonna think this is good. We did herschel Walker
Georgia Bulldog bautique canvases nice that we framed. Yeah, so

(12:04):
let me figure this out. Unpacked that one there was
like a h an image of herschel Walker on a canvas. Yeah, Walker,
it would look nothing like herschel Walker. So how did
you How was it a herschel Walker camp? I think,
if I remember correctly, like we would get an artist
to do it, and then we would batite on like

(12:27):
a cloth canvas and then we would batique that so
you would take wax and trace it over it or
something like that. Yeah, I don't think it may not
have been true in the batique style. For we're dancing
around this a lot and people are like, what the
heck is batique? It is a is a method of
dying cloth where you create these patterns. You spread this
hot wax over a cloth and then and then he

(12:52):
died and then the the pigment doesn't get where the
dot where the waxes, and then later you remove the wax. Right,
But I don't we may have done just some weird,
uh Southern version of that, because I remember like waxing
already inked things and then you would crumple them up

(13:13):
and wrinkle them and then it would give this cool
like you know, like when you would wrinkle waxy fabric,
that might look like shabby chiking. Maybe I don't know, man,
So batique strikes me as kind of like tyde. It
was well, I mean, the end effect could look sort
of like tyed. It didn't have to that, but it

(13:34):
didn't have to. But the point was, and the whole
reason it's making an appearance here is that it's not
like wax in a pigment. Right, So, at least two thousand,
possibly even as far back as four thousand years ago,
there were people who had put together that you could
do cool things with wax and pigments. Yes, right, but
fatique has is really not cry on in any way. No,

(13:57):
it's not. It's a process, right, but it's the it's
the seed, the kernel of the beginning of the idea
of a crayon. Yeah. I think the antacoustic art is
much closer. Okay, well, like a caustic art is um
acoustic acoustic? Yeah, it's basically where you take a deconstructed
crayon and rub it on something that's that's acaustic art. Basically,

(14:22):
it's taking pigment and then some sort of waxy substance.
UM and melting it together and then just yeah, using
it to decorate. Maybe it's like a finger paint or
something like that, and then I guess the wax hardens
and you've got art. Yeah. I mean some of the
stuff looks really cool. Did you look at any any
acoustic art? Really beautiful stuff? Really so, like, what kind

(14:44):
of art would you make with this? Well, I mean
any kind Like if you if you just looked at
it on a picture on your phone, you would just
think it looks like a regular painting. Oh? Really? Is
there like a three dimensional quality to it though? Because
it's why maybe that's what I would guess, Like it's
one of those things where you get up close to
it and you go, oh, I see, because I'm always
doing a museums, right, I know, I've been to a museum.

(15:07):
Oh all those doses that it just man if a
nickel for everyone. Uh. And then of course very famous
artists like Da Vinci and Edward Munch and basically it
sounds like kind of all of them we're making their
own crayons in the truest sense of the word crayon,

(15:28):
which is a French for pencil from cray which means chalk.
Right c r a I E. Right, yes, and that's
from the Latin creta, which meant chalk. Right, So this
was not chalk, No, it wasn't, but chalk is kind
of similar. And in fact, the earliest manufactured cryan, the

(15:49):
conte crane um, basically grew out of chalk. Chalk is
pigment and chalk. Yeah, I guess that's it. Uh And
um artists would use chalks like you can use still today.
Some some people create art using chalks, right, um, right,
past cells, That's what I was looking for. So you've

(16:12):
got past cells. It's not a really difficult hop skip
and jump to say, well, how about instead of chalk
we use wax and see what happens. And that's where
the content cran came from. But the problem is is
UM I believe it was made from beeswax, as most
crans were up to the early nineteenth century. UM, and

(16:34):
you I think had to warm it before you used it.
So you probably had to take a flame to it
for a little while, melted a little bit, at least
get it a little malleable before you could use it.
And the earliest content crans were black, brown, and red.
Get a load of the beauty of those three together.
If you looked up is it contra Conte? I'm saying Conte,

(16:57):
I'm splitting the difference between the two. By the way,
have you seen the response from the psychopathy who says
it like that? Nut jobs say it like that. Apparently
that's your psychopathy? Is just wrong, wrong, wrong? Yeah, it's
apparently a real pet peeve with some people. You really
need to calm down. And it's psychopathy. I don't say

(17:18):
it like that. I never will. Yeah, psychopathy, psychopaths. It's
like that guy's a real psychopath. People would just edge
away from you. Uh, psychopathy. Wait and spoiler alert, where
I'm gonna read an email from a legit psychopath. Yeah,
we got a few emails from psychopaths. Sorry, Kapas. But

(17:41):
if you look up the Conte crayon and a photo
of it, you would see that and go, oh, I've
seen those in art stores. Uh. As soon as I
saw it, I was like, oh, I know what those are.
It's it's kind of like for adults, adult artists who
want to do crayon art. But that's where crayons came from. Yeah,
I was legit art, right, And like you said, a

(18:01):
lot of the earlier artists, pre pre mid nineteenth century
artists made their own and then the first manufacturers of
crans were making them for artists. Correct, So we'll we'll
we'll get back into the history of crans after we
take a break. How about that. Let's do it, okay, Okay.

(18:45):
So when we left off, the manufacturer of krans was
about to begin and it was all for artists. I'm
in the corner batiquing herschel Walker. I don't even know
what you were doing. Well, I don't think it was batiquing,
though it was definitely batiquing. I bet you my dad
still have some of this stuff in this basement. Well,
can you bring one to work for Show and Tell?

(19:06):
Maybe I will. Okay, I'm gonna hold you to that.
I'm gonna bring it up every episode. Uh So, where
do we leave off? The modern crayon is in its infancy.
So the kant cran the content cran um is invented
and I think that was the late eighteenth century and
then by the eighteen twenties. So apparently it's lost to
history who actually created the first cryan that we would

(19:30):
recognize as a krean today. Yeah, which surprises me. But
this article points out um a manufacturer named Joseph Lemercier
who by the eighteen twenties was producing wax crans. Right again,
though these things are um, bees wax is not easy
to work with. It was way easier to go to

(19:50):
the store and buy them, but once you bought them,
it was still kind of a pain to use. Yeah,
and there was I thought this was funny too. There
was another company in Germany about fifteen years later, J S. Statla,
that had the same crayons, but they were all encased
in wood, which just seemed like a very German thing
to do, right, you know. I don't know why, but
I don't know. It just struck me as very German. Yeah,

(20:13):
I can see that, you know, they don't they wanted
to be clean and they don't want to get their
hands dirty or anything. Uh So, like you said, beeswax
no good. Um, I was doing the job, I guess.
But this is before kids were using this stuff at all.
I think. Yeah, again, they're making them for artists, but

(20:35):
even artists are like this is this is not easy
to use. If there's one thing that can be traced
back to the Industrial Revolution, that depends on the Industrial Revolution.
It is the cran tons of other stuff forward, economic progress,
all that wealth capital, all of that depended on the

(20:57):
Industrial Revolution. But so too did the krayon like to
a surprising degree. And it starts with um coal mining, right. What. Yeah,
in Eastern Europe they were mining coal and they found
from the coal mining in um, the process of mining coal,
there was a byproduct called saracen. I'm a big fan

(21:19):
of byproduct. Use pretty neat, you know. Yeah, sarason was
softer than bees wax, which was a big, big plus
cheaper than bees wax, which is always good if you're
in the money making business. And so there was a
check company Offenheim and Ziffa who started making crayons out

(21:40):
of that stuff. And as our article puts it, it
was soon praised for its durability of the marks that
it made. Right. So it was the good stuff, right.
It was easy to use and it left a good
mark behind, which are two things you want in a krayon,
especially if you're an artist, right, You don't want disappearing ink.
So somebody said, oh, what else can we get from coal?
In a few years down the line, h right around

(22:05):
the Civil War. A little after the Civil War a
guy named Charles A. Bowley Boli, let's say Bowli. He
was a manufacturer from Massachusetts who started using something called paraffin.
Everybody's heart of paraffin wax, right. Have you ever seen
a package of paraffin wax that you get at the
at the grocery store? Um? Sure I have. Have you

(22:28):
ever noticed that most of the paraffin wax is Golf brand,
the same Gulf that owns the Gulf seventies six gas stations?
Have not because it's a byproduct, Yes, And I never
knew that until today. I'm like, why would Gulf be
into gas stations and wax that you buy at the
grocery store. It never made any sense to me. Now

(22:49):
I understand because it's a it's a byproduct of fossil
fuel mining. Yeah. Like why does Yamaha make keyboards and motorcycles?
That's a great question. I don't know that there's an
answer to that one, like diversification. Maybe that's I would
like to be in on that meeting. Like, you know,
we're really good at motorcycles. So I'm thinking keyboards, thinking

(23:12):
key tars. Uh? Yeah, So I need to look at
parafitt in the store. Where is it usually like in
the baked goods or yeah, like wherever you'll find like
Mason jars that kind of thing. Oh so like an
old country store. No, they have it at the grocery store.
You just always walk past it unless you're looking for it, gotcha. Yeah,
all right, we'll check it out. And it's golf usually. Yeah,

(23:35):
that's been my experience. It's always golf. I better walk
past it a million times. But all right, we I'm
gonna keep a lookout next time of them in the
the grocery store. No, the the bell Jar aisle. I
think that's probably the baking good aisle. Okay, yeah, bell
Jar is that right? Huh. I'm getting on my I'm

(23:55):
just I'm not on my game today, so I appreciate it,
all right, man. Uh So that was also derived from
Cole But I guess now petroleum is that I don't know.
I just as far as I know, it's a fossil
fuel byproduct, gotcha. If you don't want to get into
the ins and outs of the Gulf Corporation. Uh So

(24:19):
that was that was when Bolli struck gold and everyone. Yeah,
everyone was like this is the stuff. This is even
better than saracen um. And he said, all right, I
take these and make them into pencils. Right. He was
the first one to make round crayons that we we

(24:40):
would recognize now as crayon. He was, he was the guy.
And this is around the Civil War in the United States. Yeah,
so coupled this with uh, post Civil war industrialization like
you were talking about, and then couple this with ah,
this thing that was happening in the country, which is, well, hey,

(25:02):
maybe we should start instead of sending kids out in
the fields when they're six, maybe we should start educating
them a little earlier in life. And kindergarten was born
again though from industrialization because not only out the fields
as much. I guess they didn't um and they like
they needed to be prepared for a life outside of

(25:24):
the fields, which school would prepare them for pre factory work. Right.
I actually saw a really interesting article once that basically said,
like schooling is at the very least initially was meant
to prepare you for long periods of monotonous work, basically
busy work, that you were being prepared for life in

(25:46):
the factory by being in inculcated, having the inculcated in
you like that, that level of patients and every day
and going to a place right and then just like
doing the same thing. Yeah, it's kind of a droney
kind of saying that schooling was preparing you for a
factory working interesting, But they made school too fun. They
did eventually, because I was one of those kids who

(26:08):
kind of like school for the most of all. If
your dad was leading boutique classes exactly, I can see
how you would. Dude, we were repelling off of mountains
in my elementary school. Yeah, that's not how they initially
viewed it. They No, you probably don't do that today either. No. Now,
I think you hit it at just the point where

(26:28):
school had gotten more fun than originally planned, but much
more dangerous than is allowed today. Oh yeah, all those
like that, that parental slip or the permission slip, I
don't think that holds water legally anymore. Probably. I think
that's one step of like fifteen to be able to
go on the field. Yeah, it was, and it was

(26:49):
like like literally, your child will be going down a
mountain via rope, as taught by your principle, And it
was on a piece of paper. It was like cut
into third, wasn't even an eight by ten piece of
paper right in half by eleven And there's an asterisk
that said principle does not know what he's doing. But

(27:11):
what I was saying ultimately was that. So that was industrialization.
So coal mining industrialization led to the paraffin wax right. Um,
industrialization getting kids prepared for factory work led to school,
and in school they wanted crayons, so that led to
the creation of crans, and then industrialization itself. Mass producing

(27:32):
crayons led to the rise of crayons, and specifically Crayola crayons. Yeah.
And why did they love him in school? Um? Because
they didn't make a big mess. Um. It's not like
paint that you know. If you ever been a kids
class of paint, you know what happens there. Man. Remember
wearing like your dad's shirt backwards is like a smock. Yeah. Um,

(27:54):
it's just no must, no fuss. It's a very um,
very tight, handy, little clean product for a kid it
is to use. Um. The problem was, like you said,
a lot of these things were toxic at the time.
So there was a company called Binny and Smith and
Binny and Smith. You would love them, chuck, if you

(28:16):
like reusing stuff. They were cousins, right, I believe were they? Um,
But they were big time into like finding by products
of stuff and finding new uses for it. Right, Benny,
what are you gonna do with that? You're gonna You're
gonna eat that sandwich. You're gonna eat the rest of that. Um.
So they had a patent on an iron oxide red

(28:39):
that most farmers used in their barns. That's how they
really started to make their money. They came up with
a true black, a carbon black that was used again
as a byproduct of some something or other. UM. But
they already had crans in use. They used them to
mark their own shipments in their factories, in their warehouses. Yeah.

(29:01):
But Mr Binny's wife, Alice was a teacher, and she said, hey,
you guys should start manufacturing these. Um. They're already in
the pigment business, so it made sense. So they took
the paraffin wax that Boldy had come up with for using,
they took their pigments that they already had UM and

(29:22):
then they said, we need to figure out how to
make this non toxic. Tinkered around with that a little
bit and the Crayola crane was born I think in
the eighteen eighties. Yeah, and they believe are still mostly
made in the US. Uh and I think are still
But even they were, they were bought out in the
mid eighties by Hallmark um during you know, the big
Hallmark takeover of the mid eighties when they just started

(29:44):
buying everything. Sure, you're like, DuPont, we own you now, ABC. Uh.
Forks Township, Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken, is where Creole
was still is after all these years there I saw
Easton Maybe that's where they started out. I think it's
Forks Township, now, Okay, well we will hear from the
good people of Pennsylvania, you will, I'm sure. But they

(30:06):
eventually Benny and Smith Company became Crayola, right, Yeah, they
finally just said enough of the screwing around. It's not
Benny and Smith presents Crayola. Crayole is the whole thing, yeah,
which obviously came from the word crayon and then only
agenic only agenic really, yeah, what does that mean? Really?

(30:29):
You know? And it was Mrs Binney that came up
with the name too, But the fact that she was
a teacher helped a lot because Binny at least was
predisposed to listening to teachers, and at the time, teachers
were starting to get um a little more cloud their
role in society was developing and strengthening, and that by

(30:53):
the nineteen twenties, every state in the Union had a
requirement that a kid between the ages of eight and
fourteen had to go to school. Um, so there was
like a ready made um uh relationship. No, what's no
demand in schooling? And apparently one of the first customers

(31:15):
of Crayola was the U. S Government, who bought them
for the Native American schools that they forced kids into.
Is that, Hey, we took you from your family and
we're just drawing your culture while you're here. But have
you seen these are awesome? Huh? Shall we take another break? Yes?
All right, well let's do so when we'll come back

(31:36):
and talk a little bit how Crayola crayons are made
and believe it or not, a little bit about controversy
with crayons. Okay, so industrialization gives us Crayola. Crayola takes

(32:14):
the stick and runs with it, right, And who was
the other company praying pranks? Just doesn't exactly roll off
the tongue, doesn't it a corner? Like? Did you ever
noticed you ever see a box of crayons that weren't Crayola,
Like there's something wrong with them, you know what I mean?
It doesn't look right. It's definitely one of those brands

(32:34):
that was so iconic and synonymous with its own product that, ah,
you felt like, you know, you felt bad for the
kids who didn't have the Crayola crayon. Yeah, I hope
I'm not coming off as elitist. Sure, I had a
fancy six dollar Bucks, I had knockoff crans myself, but
I was also quite familiar with Crayola, and I always

(32:56):
just love the Creola ones. The knockoff crants never evoked
any emotional response to me. Somehow, Crayola did. I'm looking
at a praying now and I definitely have never even
seen these. Um, maybe maybe I was the only kid
with the praying crayon. Well, and I know the good
people at praying right now, we're screaming, we're not knockoffs.
We pointed that out earlier. Yeah, we already said that earlier.

(33:18):
You should listen to the whole episode. Um, remember the
the giant box that had the sharpener in the back.
So let me give you a little bit about that.
Are you just bringing it up or what are you
gonna saying? Oh no, I was just it just sort
of occurred to me that how many crayons were This
started off with sixty introduced in nine. It was the

(33:40):
first box, I believe with the flip top box what
they call the stadium seating and the built in sharpener, yeah,
in the back. And it debuted on Captain Kangaroo on
his showy as a commercial. I'm sure he blurred the
lines there anything you're gonna love this? Yeah, and he

(34:02):
had blods of cash coming out of his pocket, out
of his green jeans exactly. Oh no, it was a
different dude, that was Mr Green jan Yeah. I think
he wore his pants once in a while just to
show him whose boss. Uh. Yeah. I used to love
those because one of my big peeves still as an adult,
is a dull crayon. Yeah. So that sharpener that was

(34:24):
I would waste a lot of wax trying to get
the thing sharp. It was a huge innovation for sure. Yeah.
And then of course the saddest crayon is the the
broken in half one that is worn down, so uh,
it's not even a round mound at this point. It's
worn down to the paper and you gotta start peeling
the paper away and then I don't know. I was

(34:46):
always just like I don't want to play with this anymore.
Or what about the communist who would like use the
use it sideways rather than at its point? They would
just rub it lengthwise so that they would flatten out
on one side. They were probably artists, I guess, trying
to you know, create shading patterns or something. Well, it
was lost on me at the time. Yeah, Yeah, I

(35:08):
didn't realized that I yelled at a lot of kids
unnecessarily apparently. Yeah, I used crayons from my very uh
now famous village people portrait. What else you gonna use
for that? I don't know, maybe color pencils, but that's
if you're just trying to impress somebody. Yeah, I never
got into those. They're hard to I mean, like they
just didn't show up quite as well crayons, says I'm here. Yeah,

(35:32):
And it would you press down hard, and when you
pull it off, the page sometimes stick a little bit,
and it would make that little sound when you pulled
it off. Forgot about that. Sound man John Hodgman is
having a very hard time if he's listening to this
nostalgia asan episodes back, not just from this episode either.
You don't think he listens anywhere? Probably not. I know

(35:54):
a bunch of podcasters now, and they none of them
will they stop listening once they get to know somebody.
For the most part, I don't do that. I enjoy
hearing my Friends podcast. I think that makes me an outlier, though,
because I've heard several marks like, yeah, I can't listen
anymore that now that we're friends. Well, I wonder if
it's kind of like, um, you know, if you like

(36:15):
somebody in real life, you very frequently can't be friends
with them on Facebook because it's just like a different,
what hate herbal side of them. I thought that's how
Facebook work in in ideal situations, But you've never had
somebody where just like I can't listen to you rant
about this for another minute friends on Facebook anymore because

(36:40):
I like you in real life and I want to
keep liking you in real life. But I'm gonna hate
your guts if we remain Facebook friends, or if I
keep following you on Twitter, because I can't stand you
on social media in real life. I really like it.
I know what you mean totally. It's probably the same thing.
I gotta dude like that. And it's not even like
political stuff. It's just I don't know, sort a jerky

(37:00):
complaining where I'm like, that's who you are, Like I
thought you were a really nice guy, right, But that's
what I'm saying. It's like it brings out the worst.
Social media brings up the worst in people. Yeah, the
worst worst. All right, So where were we? We were
talking about crayons, right, So we hadn't really started yet

(37:20):
talking about the colors. I feel like we should because
there's one thing, this is what Crayola did better than
anybody else. So early on they've identified a um another company,
arrival company called mons Ol. Mons Al made really high
end crayons for artists, and Kreola said, you're making better

(37:43):
crayons than we are. We're gonna buy you. We're gonna
buy your cran division. So they adopted the techniques and
the pigments that mons Al made but months old. Since
they were gearing themselves towards artists. Their packages would say
like five intermediate huge medium chrome medium, value artists cryans,

(38:07):
and so instead of having the keeping the months old words,
which would be like medium, uh medium reddish blue or
something like that, they would change the name to plump.
And then they would use other great names like periwinkle, dandelion.
Nowadays it's things like macaroni and cheese or razmataz rasberry. Okay,

(38:33):
but there's there's They used names that kids can get in,
true and that not only can get into, like those
words swirling around, swirling around in your in your consciousness,
shape your worldview, like the world was kind of beautiful
and there was beautiful words and things involved in it.
But yeah, that was not one of them, but but

(38:54):
the the and as a matter of fact, some of
their early crayons were called things like venetia and read
or cobalt blue, stuff you would find in an artist
paint box. Um. And they they they figured out very
early on that the name of the color means as
much as the color itself. Yeah, And I think the
first editions in nineteen o three they used some of

(39:17):
them like uh, copper and gold and when they're one
other one silver yeah, silver, of course, uh. And they
didn't use any other metallics to the nineteen eighties. Uh,
I guess, I guess said it covered there. But I
think you're right. The naming, I mean, that's also gotten
them into a little bit of trouble. We talked about

(39:38):
a little controversy. Um, and you know you didn't think
about this when you're a little kid in the seventies
and eighties, Well, not as a little white kid. No,
you're a more we're more uh for thinking society now.
So when say that again, we're more poor thinking society.

(39:58):
So when you see a crayon, um that's called flesh
and it's clearly you know, uh, white white person, peachy
sort of complexion of a crayon, that's not cool because
they are all different colors of people. And Crayola got
it right. I don't know if it was from intense
pressure or internally or what, but in the when was

(40:20):
that nineteen sixty two, they said, yeah, we probably shouldn't
call this color flesh. Apparently they this was teachers again,
this is listening to teachers and teachers saying like, you know,
I don't think this is okay. There's apparently a study
that found that kids typically used that to color and
drawings of people as like a default skin color. So

(40:41):
Crayola very wisely, I think, and and magnanimously said sorry
about that. We're going to change it to peach like
you said. Uh. And then they also said, you know,
on their part, they said, you know, what we were
talking about was the what they called them more or
less universal color found on the palm of hands. But

(41:02):
I don't know if I buy that. Yeah, I that
was apparently the company line, And I'm not sure if
I buy that that's even true from this article. What
about this one just seems so patently racist that I
can't believe it was ever a name until you look
into it a little further. Indian red, yes, which was
apparently derived from a plant pigment in India, And they

(41:26):
didn't mean it like that, but then they thought, hey,
maybe that's an association people are going to make. Probably
not a good idea again, apparently teachers saying like, what
are you guys doing? That's like as bad as having
your team's baseball mascot chief nacka homer or something like that.
Yeah her chief Wahoo. Yeah. Um. They change Indian read

(41:46):
to chestnut, and uh, chestnut, it's very nice. It's a
great name. No Bert Siana apparently. Also they've only dropped
one other name, although they have like something like three
what are called true colors, but then something like eight
hundred names, so they've clearly used different names for the

(42:06):
same color before, like magenta was renamed a red, violet
was renamed magenta. I believe. Um, so they'll they'll do
that old switchero here there. But apparently there are only
three names they just completely got rid of. Or no,
maybe there's a fourth one they retired of the they
were retired the color dandelion, but just this year. Yeah,

(42:27):
but Indian, red, um flesh, and Prussian blue were all
names that were taken out and never brought back. And
Prussian blue not for any reason other than kids couldn't
identify with Prussia because no one knows what Prussia is anymore.
I think you might have said three, there's three? Oh,

(42:48):
is there right? I saw an article, Uh, it was
like a college newspaper on their website. They said that
they've crayoles sold more than a hundred thousand crayons. I
can think you're missing three years three or more zeros
there unless it was like today, you know, that's pretty funny.

(43:09):
Did yeah, it got me. Um they now, you know,
like any company, Um, I can't just leave it with
the good old fashioned crayon. He's gonna diversify. So you
see things these days like Neon colors, and and of
course they make markers and all kinds of good stuff.
I love the Crayola markers. Yeah, me too, the big
fat marker, just the shape, the white with the color

(43:32):
against it and everything. It was well and a lot
of those now for kids are washable, so um, when
the kid draws on the coffee table, it just wipes
right off, very very nice. And the brand new white couch,
which why did you even get that when you have
a kid, what are you thinking? Oh, we would never
have that because of wine consumption. It would be a

(43:54):
purple couch. After a couple of years it would be magenta.
I've got some crayle effects, were you well? First? Okay,
now you go ahead, Now you go ahead. The largest one.
Of course, any iconic brand like this is going to
make a super giant one put on display somewhere. They
did that, huh yeah, big blue, and it's kind of

(44:16):
neat the way they did it though. They took a
hundred and twenty three thousand old blue crayons that they
gathered from kids all over the country and they melted
those down into big blue, giant pound crayon. That's a
great fate for some used up crayons, you know. Yeah,
make three billion a year, not a hundred thousand. I
don't know what that guy was thinking. I don't either.

(44:38):
And maybe they met a minute or they left off.
There was something missing from that sentence. I think. Uh,
and the average kid supposedly, and I'm sure they're talking
about dumb old American kids, by the time they're ten
years old, they have gone through seven DWY crayons brand crayon. Wow,
that's a lot. Yeah, we probably could have gotten someday

(44:58):
out of these guys. Maybe we should retroactively and that
how it works. Yeah, we get money out of Creola,
and we get sued by praying, right, and then it
all just comes out to ze right, we give praying
our Creola money. Yeah. So, um Creole apparently also did
a survey to find out what the top ten colors
are of all time. Blue. That's my favorite color, but

(45:21):
my favorite crayon's probably violet. That's the whole concept of it. Um,
that's number three, Violet is number two is red, green
is four, carnation, pink is five, black is six. Just
try up black. You like the black cryan? Huh? Well
for drawing lines, makes sense? I got it? Turquoise blue, blue, green, yeah, periwinkle,

(45:48):
yeah my name, I think so too. But it's also
a nice lovely type of silvery blue if I remember correctly, right,
I think so silvery purplish. I'm not sure. I'm not
very good with colors. Emily's great with that stuff, and
it will ask her, Yeah, say what's periwinkle? Yeah, and
she'll say it's but I need a thing. She'll say, like, oh,
the whatever in our house is Perrywinkle. I got you know,

(46:11):
I got you? Uh. And then magenta, yes, not big
on magenta. Yeah, I think that's it. Chuck, what's your
favorite of all time? I don't know. I don't think
I have a favorite color of crayon or maybe at all.
I see like black. Okay, we'll go with that, Johnny cash, Um,
I do have one more thing. It's funny that one

(46:33):
thing that we usually do is look at just when
we're searching things online, we'll look at news just to
see if there's anything breaking and believe it or not,
I looked at crayons Crayola, and it was an eight
minute old story, breaking story right before we record, like
CNN breaking news, like actual breaking news. That's right, they

(46:55):
have they're releasing a new blue this year. Uh. There
was some scientists at Oregon State University Go Ducks, Ducks, No,
that's University Oregon, Oregon State, the Loggers, Periwinkle Cowboys. Uh.

(47:16):
The in two thousand nine at Oregon State, they were
um doing some research trying to discover materials for electronics,
and as often happens, and something accidental occurred, they mixed
an oxide with some other chemicals, heated it up, and
they discovered a brand new pigment of blue. In two

(47:36):
thousand nine, why, I in m in yanman. I'm not
sure how it's pronounced. That's not very marketable, but it's
a very sort of cobalt. Yeah, this is very vivid blue.
And uh, we should do something on pigments at some point,
because I didn't. It's just weird to me that they

(47:57):
could say, like, no, this is a brand new color, um,
but let's definitely do that. It would be kind of
interesting the science behind that. So Crayola is making uh
this ynman into a and the outsourced that they let
kids vote many many entrants, uh to this name, and
they are naming it blutiful. Oh I know right, Yeah,

(48:19):
it's like get your get your color naming staff back,
get the team back together. Crayola Blutiful is what happens
when you ask ten thousand six year olds. Uh so
Bluetiful is coming out just in time for the holiday season.
Well there, yeah, that's crayons, specifically Crayola crayons. Sorry for

(48:42):
the buzz marketing, but we couldn't help it. Did we
get organ state they're the cowboys right now. Thank you
guest producer Matt for looking it up. I like periwinkle cowboys.
Uh well, if you want to know more about crayons,
go get some crayons, break them open and smell them.
It'll tell you everything you need to know. And in
the meantime, it's time for a listener mail. And I

(49:08):
also want to say to the good people of praying
once again, people should support praying as well as the
o G at the very least, go out in diversify
your crayon portfolio, you know, alright, like like Yamaha did
with their feyboard and jet skis. That makes a little

(49:28):
more sense. At least they knew how to make engines
from a motorcycle. Um, all right, this is I'm reading
another Satanist reply, but it felt like this one should
be read. Hey guys, I'm a Christian pastor. As such,
I hold strong religious convictions, and yet I've always found
it incredibly important, both personally and professionally, to learn what
I can about other belief systems. So you're doing it right,

(49:51):
We're storing my faith in humanity. I want to thank
you for the episode on the Church of Satan. It's
not an organization that I've taken the opportunity to learn
much about, perhaps out of fear or pride, but I
found what you share to be very informational in any
study of other belief systems. It is not only important
to know what we disagree on, but perhaps just as importantly,
but we do agree on. While there are clearly areas

(50:12):
where Satanist and I would never agree, there are actually
many things that we have in common. In a climate
of increased divisiveness, is important to focus on what we share,
not what divides us. Your episode open my mind and
gave me new insight and for that I am incredibly grateful.
Thank you for your show. Please keep up the good work.
Isn't that great? Yeah? Uh signed peace. Reverend Lee Finish

(50:36):
of Temple, Texas. Thank you, Reverend Lee soon to be
former reverend. And this is uh Lee, Lady Lee, I
saw that, but it could be a man. No, it's
a lady. Oh it is well. Thank you, reverendly Again. Seriously,
we heard from you and from one other reverend who
basically said, you know, thanks for opening my eyes and

(50:57):
and I I find it very interesting too. That's just
opening their eyes but also like restoring their faith, like
it confirmed their faith running out to church and Satan
right it was challenged. They thought about it and they said, nope,
I'm doubling down. And I feel good about this after
being confronted with opposing viewpoints, critical thinking. Yeah, nicely done.

(51:22):
If you want to get in touch with us, you
can tweet to us. I'm at Joshum Clark and at
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Works dot Com and has always joined us at home
on the web. Stuff You Should Know dot com. For

(51:47):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how Stuff Works dot com.