How Roller Derby Works

Nowadays roller derby is increasingly popular across the US -- but how did it get its start, and how does it work? As Josh and Chuck delve into the world of roller derby, they touch on skateboarding, women's rights and more. Tune in and learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Josh Clark. Charles W. Bryant is

(00:21):
clearing his nose out across from me. I was laughing
up boogers because you were singing Dolly Parton before we
went on air. Yeah, I was. I Love Dolly. I'm
hoping that was never recorded by Jerry secretly surreptitiously. We
had a little out takes in a while. It's been
a while, Jared get on that we haven't said anything

(00:42):
funny in a really long time. I think that's the problem. Hey, Chuck,
Hey dude, did you know that we are smack dab
in the middle of roller derby playoff season? Yeah? Oh
you did? Did you know that prior to nine? In
this more now? But I would say we're smack dab
in the middle of a roller derby revolution. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:06):
We're smack dab in the in the middle of a
roller derby playoffs season that is situated within a larger
roller derby revolution. Can we agree to that one? Okay? Yeah?
You're absolutely right. Um, roller derby it's kind of everywhere.
If you are not into it, I'm sure you've at
least seen some cool posters or stickers on cars supporting

(01:28):
roller derby leagues all of a sudden. Um, and if
you notice that there really weren't any prior to two
thousand one, you're a pretty sharp person, I would say. So. Um,
we have our own roller derby league here in Atlanta.
The Atlanta roller Girls have been I have not. I've
seen him on cable access though, is that your Tuesday
night just watching? I know, I actually don't remember where

(01:52):
I would have seen him because I don't even have
cable access or cable or anything. Right now, we need
to go. We need to make a point to go.
It's like right down from my house. It's on Ponds right, Yeah,
the europe shriner Um Temple. Yeah, oddly, all right, we'll
go Kauds, you know, Saturday, September twenty, which is probably
before this will come out. Um, that's the that's the

(02:14):
next playoff. I bet if we took Jerry, she'd know
like a third of the people there, you know, the Yeah,
so Chuck. The Atlanta roller Girls are one of UM
sanctioned leagues. Yeah, because when did Tracy write this article,
Like maybe two thousand six. Yeah, I think that the

(02:35):
the w f t d A, the Woman's Flat Track
Derby Association, has been around since two thousand four. She
did not acknowledge that in this so it was probably
two thousand three. Okay, So since two thousand three h
Tracy cited there's about thirty leagues. Now there's ninety eight
sanctioned and another forty three that are apprentice leagues. They're

(02:58):
up and coming. Yeah, right, so there's a boatload of
roller derby going on around this country. I was looking
on the UM Flat Track Derby Association site and they
have like the you know, links to all the different
teams pages, so they have the logos of each one,
and I found the best one, which one my favorite

(03:18):
was the Dutch land Rollers out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They
have like an Irish woman with the head kerchief on
with a black eye Amish or Irish amishka. Did I
say Irish? Yeah? She might have been Irish too. Did
I say Irish? He did? Stinks because I really meant Amish.
That's right? So is that their whole get up they
all wear amish gear. I don't know, I just saw

(03:39):
the logo. They probably do because they go with the
themes generally. Yeah, but that's that's for later, right, So Chuck,
let's talk about this. Let's talk about roller derby and
by let's talk about it. Let's talk about its history. Yeah,
from what I can tell, Josh, Um, in the mid
nineteen thirties, there was a sports promoter named Leo Seltzo.
Sounds very like sports promoter from the thirties, dedn'ty. Yeah,

(04:02):
we need a roller derby c and that's basically what
he said. But initially it was um, you know, they
used to have all these endurance competitions back in the day,
like the dance fons and all those silly things you
did before television. His was initially a roller skating endurance competition.
It was called the Transcontinental Roller Derby. Yeah it was.

(04:23):
And the idea was to do fifty seven thousand laps,
which is about the distance across the US. It's about
three thousand miles. It's a long way to scape. But
they all kind of realized this kind of stinks and
it's not very fun. It does. Plus, skaters were skating
about eleven and a half hours a day. Yeah, it's
not fun, right, And I'm sure there's a pretty sizeable
cash processes during the depression, so you could make people

(04:46):
like wrestle bears and tutus and all sorts of crazy
stuff to you know, feed their family. Um, so I'm
sure that's why people skated eleven and a half hours
a day for these things. Um. The problem wasn't that
it was is too much for human constitution. It was
that it was boring. It's just people going around the

(05:08):
track again and again and again, and then ultimately it's like, Wow,
they just skated across the US. But in the meantime
it's boring. And there was a sports writer, a very
famous sportswriter named Damon Runyon, who in nineteen thirty seven
came to sell term. Was like, look, dude, this is
a good idea. But the coolest part is when people
run into each other. Why don't you make something like

(05:30):
that really emphasizes that. And apparently Selter was like, I
don't know, it seems kind of rough, and we'll give
it a shot. And all of a sudden, the next
thing you know, you have like nineteen thirties ladies just
beating the tar out of each other. And have you
seen footage of it? It's pretty awesome, it is. I
mean back in the thirties too, I think of everyone
is so genteel and everything. No, it was just as

(05:52):
rough and tumble as it is. And he only had
the endurance version for a couple of years. I think
before he was like, you know, you may be onto something,
right and and from that point on that's roller Derby, yes, Josh.
And it grew, uh, you know, it was very popular
during the forties and fifties and uh, clearly if you remember,
like Happy Days, I think there was a roller Derby
Unhappy Days. At what point didn't Pinky Tesscadera participate. I

(06:14):
don't know. I was wondering that earlier. See it seems
like she'd be too cool for that, but she would
like beat up the girls after the match. Maybe that's
pretty bad. I don't know. Well, we'll have to look
that up. Leather tuscan Arra wouldn't or was that her sister? There?
Two of them was Leather nickname I don't know that off,

(06:35):
but they they It did grow in popularity up until
about the seventies. I think a lot of things declined
in the seventies because of this stinking economy in the
gas crisis, and so people weren't going out and spending
money on things like roller Derby anymore or skateboards. Skateboarding.
It went. It had an opposite effect, that didn't it. Yeah,

(06:56):
it boomed, I think because that awesome documentary, The dog
Lords of Dogtown. Is that a doc Well, there was
a documentary and then a feature film based on the documentary.
But the documentary is better. But yeah, swims, they couldn't have.
People couldn't afford to like fill up their pools to
the polls right out. They skated skateboards in the pools,
and that Stacy Perelta was one of those who would

(07:16):
go on to phone how Pelta Skateboards a skateboard company
of all time? Who would sponsor the greatest group of
skaters of all time? The Bones Brigade. Yeah, yeah, but
that has nothing to do with roller Derby except for
the wheels. Well, it does actually have something to do
with roller Derby in this case. That the dock is
always better than the feature film. You just hang onto

(07:37):
that one. Sure, put that on your back pocket. Well,
it's interesting though, and that roller Derby did decline in
the seventies, but that's when it was actually probably most
visible because they had those televised I remember when I
was a kid. Oh yeah, they televised it on like
a year old kids with five and nights seventy five
And um, I sent you the link earlier and we
watched a little bit of his clips. If you YouTube

(07:59):
like nineteen seventies roller Derby, you can see some of
this stuff, you can, and you can hear the commentators. Um.
When when they tried to revive it in the seventies
after its decline, Uh, there was kind of an artificial
revival where roller Derbut toured the country in civic centers
and small towns like an exhibition, right, But there was
like different there are different teams, but like the the

(08:20):
announcers were the same, and the announcers used a lot
of colorful language, Like there was one womansoyn. There was
a woman who was like I think they cited or
waited about two hundred pounds. She's like a big blocker, um,
and she the announcer said that she was roughly the
size of the state of Rhode Island. And it was

(08:41):
just kind of like even on the YouTube club, the
person who posted it said, I apologize for the announcer
saying that one of the skaters is the size of
Rhode Island. It was anything went back there in the
seventies pretty much. But um, even that didn't didn't keep
er Derby into the eighties. Like that kind of um

(09:02):
fantastic misogyny and the kind of um world wrestling look
and feel that it had to it. Yeah, they took
it sort of over the edge to where they would
like fake hit each other and stuff like that. Right, Um,
but that that that didn't that didn't keep it alive. Right,
And we should say also that that revival is significant

(09:23):
and that it foreshadows the century revival because it was
all women prior to that in their forties, the fifties
and the sixties win Like during the heyday of roller Derby,
it was co ed. Yeah, well not co ed on
the same team they would have like them. The teams
were co ed. I think periods were not co ed.
Oh see, I thought it was women competed in the

(09:44):
same night as men, but only against each other. I
think teams were originally co ed, which is which uh
has grown from the the first roller Derby where they
were twenty five teams of one man and one woman,
and then that carried on. So I think the teams
are coed, but different periods it would be the male
team or the women's gotcha, I think, but the men

(10:07):
kind of went away for the most part, and now
the modern revival is all ladies. Right in Austin, Texas
in two thousand and one, a group of women got
together and basically single handedly revived roller Derby into this
really huge incarnation that we're seeing now right. Well, yeah,
and like we said in two thousand and four, just
a few years later, the Women's Flat Track Derby Association

(10:30):
was formed and they pretty much run the show. And
we should mention that, you know, flat track means that well,
it's clearly not a roller rank at the Shriner's Auditorium
in Atlanta, but a lot of them use roller ranks.
And uh, instead of the curved bowls, the banked, Yeah,
the bank bowls that they used to use, but they
still have those in some places. And I get the

(10:51):
impression that flat track and banked kind of go head
to head. Well, yeah, the one lady they interviewed some
women trace she did for this article, and she said
that they'll they'll debate that, of course, but it's really
all in the spirit of the sport. They're still like sisters.
And there's a I should say, there's a documentary about

(11:12):
that UM formation in two thousand one in Austin called
Hell on Wheels. Huh, And that's that's where I saw
footage of UM, the old timey nineteen thirties roller derby
people just beating the cramp out of each other. Yeah,
it's pretty awesome. But then there's a feature film based
on that. Yeah, that Chuck. I don't know if you remember,

(11:33):
but on the way back from Guatemala, you were watching it,
and I was watching you watch it and like every
once and I will just be like, yeah, Ellen, Paige
Andrew Barrymore in the same movie It's that's a rough one.
Drew Barrymore directed that, I believe, and produced it and
basically paid for it. Yeah. It was called Whippet and
it was said in Austin and um oh, I hesitate

(11:53):
to say I didn't like it very much because you
never know Drew Barrymore as a listener. But I thought
about that too. It was good, true. I think it
put it on the map Fox Show. Definitely, it brought
it into the mainstream. How about that? Yes? Okay, and
Jimmy Fallon was just terrific as the announcer, and isn't
he always Future Man was the coach Class Act. So

(12:14):
that was whip it. Let's talk about the spirit of
roller Derby, Chuck. Okay, Um it is fishnet stockings and
two twos and knee socks and black eyes, big elbows. Um,
all kinds of costumes, awesome names. Oh yeah, right, so
just in this article alone, Atlanta roller girls. Um, Susan

(12:36):
b Agony, that's my favorite. It's pretty good. Um, let's
see who else is there, Chuck, While I saw Jackie Daniels,
which is kind of good. Some of them play off
the tough like liquor bottle thing like our friend. Well,
we should also say to our friend Debbie freak Girl.
Freak Girl dot com is her blog and she's a
freelance writer. She did not write this, but she is

(12:56):
new to Roller Derby and I post some questions for
her and we'll get to those throughout. But her name Tobe.
We can't have her doing voice whatever it would be cool.
Her name is Molotov cupcake and she makes she's really
good cupcake baker. So she's incorporating her love of liquor
and explosives and cupcakes into one. And I should also

(13:19):
mention too, my favorite name of all time. This is
from a listener about a year ago, wrote in and
her name was sudden Beth. I thought, just sometimes the
simplicity of a name like that, Sudden Beth. There was
in the um Helen Wheels doc one of the original
roller girls was um Betty Ragette. I like that one too. Yeah, yeah,

(13:44):
apparently beyond According to Molotov, cop Cupcake is uh the
worst biggest blocker you've ever heard of. Yes, history of
big girl, and she is uh like size. That's one
of the cool things about roller Derby that Debbie points
out and that the league points out, is that physique
does not matter you you have a skill set you

(14:06):
can bring whether you are a two and fifty pound
blocker or you're like Juno and you can just zip
through people real fast. Page I know, Okay, sorry, you
look stupefied. No, I know, but it's you know, that's
part of the fun of it all. It's picking out
your name and and designing your uniform and your look
as a team. The one from New York is they

(14:27):
have one that's really cool. They're all have like a
checker cab theme, so they have like checkered hose on
and like a yellow cab skirts and shirts like bowling shirts.
It's cool. I think that the one the common theme. Uh.
If not, it's not physique like you said, It's basically
just cheer, guts and and an ability to stand up

(14:50):
to torture, including self torture, right, which is um, pretty
much the basis of training. Yeah. Like Debbie was telling
you in in that little mini interview you conduct did
with her that, Um, she had to do plank positions, squats,
push ups, what else? Um, well all of this is

(15:11):
in skates, by the way. Well I was going to
add that at the end that's like the sucker. Okay,
you can't put the kicker in the middle. She did.
They cover basic she said, it was boot camp on
wheels and squats and all sorts of like physical training,
all on skates. There you go. Which, Um, she's in
the new in the on the New Jersey Hell Razors

(15:32):
with a Z team and they practiced two hours twice
a week, and she's been training for four and a
half months and just finished her basic skills tests, right,
And so when you're when you're training, like she was
just talking about basically um calisthenics, but there's like training
as well, like you throw yourself on the ground to
learn how to roll and get up really quick. Because

(15:52):
it's not just getting up, like you're getting up with
four wheels on each foot and people zipping by you.
That you have to learn how to jump over people.
That's a tough one. I have ever tried to jump
in skates? And have you ever done any disco boogie
in or anything? Like I was an ice skater? Okay,
role bouncing? No, all right, did you see that movie?

(16:14):
I saw parts of it. Yeah, it looked pretty cool.
They still do that in New York. Some in the
seventies like Disgust skating and do everything in New York.
Now that's off New York. Um. You also have to
skate at high speeds, Chuck, I understand. Yes, there's a
actually bullet in this Tracy Wilson article it says skate
at high speeds. There's also one that says you need
to stretch out beforehand. Yeah, that's a big one too, um.

(16:37):
And you have to start and stop in skates, it's
what Yeah, but I think to be fair, I think
that means like you need to start and stop on
a dime precision, high speed skating, dodging, jumping, balance control,
all on four wheels, eight wheels, just alright to check.

(17:00):
That's the training part and apparently it's not. Um. There's
a a very um delineated process to it, and you
keep the newer people away from the more experienced people
according to Debbie fresh Meat. And then you actually have
to pass a test to be calm, like in a
sanctioned UM flat track derby association UM participant you know, yeah,

(17:21):
like you, I guess you can't actually participating about until
you're cleared by them, right, yeah, because it's dangerous. You know,
they don't want you out there getting hurt. Um, although
people do get hurt all the time, clearly, Uh should
we talk about that and now we'll talk about that later. Well,
let's talk about how to play. Yeah, Like, because even
after reading this and understanding the rules, unless you really

(17:43):
I think it's probably one of those ones where unless
you're there or you're very familiar with the two teams,
so you know who's who. It's tough to it just
looks like a muddle of like elbows and fists and stuff.
And in the More movie they handle that kind of
clumsily just by having a segment where they explain the rules.
Do that? That's like, did Ellen Page to explain the rules?
Because that's what she did an Inception two. Remember like

(18:05):
every every like thirty minute, she'd stop and look at
the camera and be like, okay, everybody, it's refresher. She
didn't explain the rules. I think Jimmy Fallon did. But
it's necessary in a movie like that because when you
look at a roller derby match, if you don't know
what's going on, you might just think it's mayhem out
there because it looks like mayhem. But there's actually, uh,
not just rules, but there's also strategy to this as well,

(18:25):
which makes it even more awesome. Right, let's hear it, Josh, Okay, Well, Chuck.
First of all, let's talk about the different kinds of
players on the team. You have two teams, and to
these teams are going to play about five players each. Right,
um about is a series of shorter races two minutes tops,
but they can be shorter than that. They're called jams. Jams. Right.

(18:47):
So you have a jammer and this person is delineated
by a star on her helmet, right, the jammer. Uh,
there's a jammer on each team, and the jammer is
the only person on these teams who can actually score
a point, right, right, So here's the deal. You've got
a jammer on each team. You have three blockers on
each team, and the blockers don't have anything on their helmets.

(19:09):
And then you have pivots on each team. So if
you're looking at the starting line going back, you have
the two pivots have stripes on their helmets. Yes, thank you, Chuck.
And the pivots act is kind of like the you know,
like a catcher in Major League Baseball is kind of
managing what's going on on the field, same thing. Uh.
Tracy also compared the pivots to like NASCAR NASCAR pace cars. Yeah,

(19:31):
they set the pace of the of the game base
but they're also like calling moves out to the rest
of the team. There they actually plays. Okay, thank you right, um, So, Chuck,
going from the front back is the pivots, the blockers,
and then the jammers and the pivots and the blockers
all take off when the ref um blows his whistle
the first time, and then after about twenty ft actually

(19:53):
after exactly the ref blows his whistle again, and then
the jammers take off, right, So their whole point is
to sneak through the crowd and get ahead of them
and come all the way back around, lap them and
go through again. Yeah. I get the idea that the
jammer is clearly the speediest and and probably most skilled
skater and probably the most velt slinkiest person who can

(20:13):
just kind of like get through. I would think so, yeah,
but I would think you'd have to be extremely um
skilled because you're you're probably having to jump the most. Like,
your whole job is to go forward as fast as possible.
There's many trying to keep you from going forward, right,
So you get a point for every player as long
as everything is above the boards an inbound and we'll
get to some of the the um the rules and

(20:38):
penalties in a second. But um, for every player the
jammer passes after the first lap. Yeah, the first lap,
there's no points, right, No, but that establishes the lead
jammer and we'll get to why that's important in a second,
but for every every opposing player the jammer passes that
their team gets a point. Right, So the lead jammer

(20:59):
is the one who comes out of the pack first
through the first lap, no points are scored, but the
lead jammer has the ability to actually stop the jam
when you act that out right by and by putting
her hands on her hips or touching her helmet and
touching her hips a couple of times I've seen as well,
and that means the jam is over and there's a

(21:21):
break in between, and then you start another jam, which
is a part of the overall about Is that right?
That's right? And we were wondering, I wonder if Debi
emailed me back, why you would call a jam before
the period is over, the two minute period, And we
both surmise that it's probably a strategy thing if you
feel like like they're calling out the points. I believe
if you're up on points, you can just go ahead
and call the jam and you've won that jam. Right,

(21:43):
You're you're locking the other team out of a comeback
from that jam, right. I think that's probably why they
would do it. Why else would they do it? So
that's pretty much like a standard jam. Yeah, that's how
it's scored. And there's actually there's a cool um flash
animation on our site. Did you check it out? Now?
I watched a YouTube thing in the article. It's um.

(22:05):
You can just click and you make all these little
people that you're seeing from overhead go around and yeah,
it's pretty nat. It's fun. It gets the point across
very well. So Josh, there are some other rules, uh,
specific rules, um, because it's not just a free for all,
like you can't trip and stuff like that. So we'll
read a few of these. Off. You have to be
in bound. You can't go out of bounds to pass

(22:25):
an opponent in order to score your point. UM, like
you set, I believe you can pass the jam or
responsibility over to your pivot. Is that right? You can
match Apparently there's something on the helmet that you can
I guess the star comes off, um, and you can
pass it during the match, but the lead jammer status

(22:45):
doesn't transfer. Oh, so you can't call the match or
the jam. Sorry, it's more complex. In college football, UM,
you do not receive additional points if you fall all
to the back of the pack and then pass the
same player. So you can't ZiT by everybody, then hang
back and do it all over again. Once you pass

(23:07):
that player, that's your point for that player, right, you
have to come all the way around again and lap them, right,
And if you actually lap the other jammer, that's more points.
That's called the grand slam. That's called money in the bank,
my friend. That's the big daddy move of all time. Okay,
and I imagine that's pretty hard. I would say a
jammer probably has to go down for that to happen. Yeah,
or your jammer just has to stink. Yeah, it could

(23:29):
be a poor, poor jammer. So what what's the deal
with the blocking, because obviously you're not just skating through
each other. Your purpose as a blocker is to keep
them from going by you. Okay, So I think the
rules are the rules slightly very a little bit here
there league the League. I get the impression, but some
of the very common ones are you can't block with

(23:50):
your armfully extended. Definitely, no clothes line. Yeah, that's stuff
you've seen in the movies when they hook up together
and clothesline. That's just that's not that's not right. Or
they might do that to timid hand. You can I
think you can hold hands, but neither person's arm can
be um fully extended. Okay, um, you can't throw. You
can throw elbows, but you can't throw elbows above the shoulder.

(24:13):
Generally you can't throw block um actually blow mid thigh
was at mid thy Now you can't fall on purpose
in front of somebody, as awesome as that move is,
especially to fall and the person jumps over you, because
it's like burn. Uh And what happens if you break

(24:35):
these rules? As you go to a penalty box just
called the sinbin the sinbin, so like an ice hockey,
you can spend like thirty seconds to a minute in there,
which is you know, that's like half a jam. Or
you can if you commit a major you can be
completely uh like removed from the scene, like fighting, removed
from the scene. The police come like you the you know,

(24:59):
any kind of ding or I think deliberate falling is
a major infraction unless the person jumps over and goes
not true, or if you foul a skater while they're down,
or if you give the referee too much guff, I
think they can throw you out. Dramatic and subordination Yeah, um,
I know the roller girl's um sin been is a

(25:19):
waiting pool and at least Circuit two thousand four, I
just say, right, there's a there's a picture of m
one of the roller girls in a in a waiting pool,
and there's like a wheel of fortune that you spend
to find out what your penalty is. I got a
few more things here from Debbie. Okay, Chuck. She said
that she had not been on roller skates since she

(25:40):
was fifteen. Yeah, because that's a big deal. I don't
think roller skating is like riding a bike necessarily. Uh No,
it's like riding roller skates. And she is she's about
my age now, which I'm not gonna say how old
Debbie is because I just want to be nice. So um.
She said that there are there are women that have

(26:00):
never been on skates before though in her training. And
I asked her about the bonding aspect of it, because
I think Debbie did it because she was looking for
something fun to do and an activity, a physical activity
to you know, help her keep in shape and stuff
like that and stuff. Well, she said it's the hardest
thing she's ever had to do physically, but she said

(26:21):
the bonding has been the most surprising and best part
about it, she said that after feeling sort of awkward
initially as being the new girl, she's all of a
sudden has eighteen new girlfriends and they're real supportive of
each other. I think, she said, one of the girls
is in a band and they'll go and see her play.
And I'm sure some of these uh ladies probably eat
her cupcakes. You know, I'm sure too, So it's a

(26:43):
it's a good you know, uh, it's a good supportive
scene there. And I think part of it has to
do with the fact that men aren't allowed and so
it's uh women feel empowered to have a sport to
call their own that's rough and tumble. And her niece
even remarked she thought it was cool that there's a
sport that boys aren't allowed to play. Yeah, it's very cute.

(27:04):
And and another factor that Debbie likes, and I know
that most of the women probably like, is that, you know,
you it's fun. You get to dress up. She says,
she gets to wear cute skirts and knee high socks
and then go beat the crap onto somebody and then
have a beer with her later on. So the sex
and violence, I'll rolled into one. You gotta chuck. But

(27:26):
I mean that's as American as it get. I think
you just came up with the new slogan we should
pitch that. Yeah. Uh, And there is tons of violence.
There's a lot of injury, although from what I've seen
of century roller derby compared to nineteen seventies roller derby,
there's far far less violence, but I think it's um
more frequently real. Um. Yeah, there's a lot of injury,

(27:49):
a lot of soft tissue injury, contusions. One of the
roller girls interviewed in this article broker tailbone twice. Have
you ever fallen on your tailbone? You're just yeah, you've
come nowhere near breaking it, but it's just like it's
really jarring pain. It's awful breaking it twice. I can't
so it happens. You couldn't catch me out there. Man,

(28:10):
they're way tougher than I am. Yeah. What's the fish
net injury? What's that called? Uh? It's called fish net burn.
It's where you fall and slide while you're wearing fishnets
and at least like the stippled burn on your on
your leg. I got hit and I gotta tell you
it's not nice. It's not nice. I got hit in
the face with a baseball when I was a kid,
and I had like the baseball stitches embedded in my face.

(28:35):
I don't know why I felt they need to tell
you that, but it's swoll shut dude. I got hit
in the face and dropped to the ground and pick
my head up and my eye was already swollen. Shut.
It looked like an Amish woman. I did, chuck, Josh.
I guess that's about it, right, Well, we we should
say if you want to support UM, we are coming
into playoff season. Oh wait, hold on, let's talk about that.

(28:57):
These leagues are. There's like pretty much no paid professional
rollers roller girls. They're all They pay for their own equipment,
They pay dues for the league, right, um. And a
lot of times these leagues are pretty much de facto
charitable organizations. Yeah, it's awesome, like they donate to um
local charities in the community. UM. And even better, there's

(29:20):
some corporate sponsors like PBR is a big corporate sponsor,
which means that they just funnel money right to charities
for these groups. So if you go pay to see
a roller derby, you're going to um be helping people.
Probably they have raffles and stuff and they sell swag,
and I think there's comic books. Yeah, they sell swag,

(29:40):
they have the it's just um. So, like I said,
we were approaching tournament season. The w f t d
A has a championship tournament in November seven in Chicago,
and uh first and second and third place teams from
each region if four regions East, North Central, South Central,

(30:03):
and West earn a spot at the championship, and there
are Big five tournaments in September and November to determine
who goes to the ultimate Championship. Yeah. So the roller Girls,
the Atlanta roller Girls playoffs are going to be in Lincoln,
Nebraska from October. I was about to say, is that
the closest one, but looking at these, that may be

(30:23):
the closest one. Yeah. And if you're in Sacramento from
October one third, check out the West Region playoffs. Yes,
the East Region is in White Plains, New York September.
And for all use Skannis out there, I know we
have a lot of scanty fans. September through twelfth in
Green Bay, you can go to the North Central playoffs
and you should probably build a time machine to do that. Ah. Yeah, so, Chuck,

(30:49):
I hope you went. You want to talk about Roller
Derby in cinema? Yeah, I mean, whipp it. What else
is there? Is that Roquell Welch movie, Yeah, Kansas City Bomb,
and that's a very famous one. There is also The Jammer,
which is a stage play by Roland Jones. It's about
a love story between two members of a classic co
ed team. Okay uh. And then there's an Any documentary

(31:12):
called roller Girls. Yeah, that was in That was a
one one year deal in two thousand and six, I think.
And then there's also again there's Hell on Wheels, which
if you don't like paying for your documentaries, you can
go on to snag films dot com and watch it
in its entirety for free. I bet Netflix has got
that stuff too. I predict that, no matter what happens

(31:32):
to his Chuck, we have at least careers as washed
up sports commentators for Roller Derby in our future. Awesome. Okay,
do you have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live
skit with the seventies uh commentators? Sports commentators? And that's
really good, A Saidakis? And what's his name? Will Will Arnett?

(31:54):
Now Will Ferrell now the Wheaton. Well, what's the guy's name? Mcgrouber.
Is that his name? He? Oh, he plays mcgrouber. I
know who you're talking about. Nice, you pulled that out
of nowhere. Yeah. He and Todekas do this sports commentary.
But it's really off color and inappropriate, but it's very,

(32:14):
very funny. It's awesome. All right. Well, if you want
to learn more about roller Derby and play with the
cool flash animation, we have um in this article typing
roller Derby in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com and that'll bring that article up and you
will thank us a lot, I think so. So do

(32:34):
we have any listener, ma'il Josh, We're gonna do what
I like to call fan gift thank yous and what
you'd like to call administrative. Yes, we have a list
here of things that people send us that we're very

(32:55):
thankful for. So Nicole, what Nicole from Ontario sent us
Lego candies? What you didn't see those? Joe Garden, our
buddy from The Onion. He's a writer at The Onion,
Joe who has a terrific Facebook experiment going on his

(33:16):
T shirt project. It's really cool. He wears a T
shirt every day and says whether he should keep it
or toss it. And he's on like his approaching his
ninetieth T shirt and he you know, depending on what
people vote, he will throw it away. That's really cool,
it's funny, but that that's neither here nor there. But
he did send us He and some other Onion writers,
including his wife, I believe, wrote the New Vampire's Handbook,

(33:37):
a guide for the recently turned creature of the Night,
and he sent us that, and it's very funny. Kristen
F's and his handmade candies from Dish Bistro and Bar
in Pasadena. And I remember the homemade nougat. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that was good. I didn't know I love nugat until
I had this new gat. Oh yeah, it was amazing. Chuck,

(33:58):
where you've been you ever had him? No? But this
is unlike that kind of newgat. This is supreme nugat.
And she got out, she got onto us because this
was a while ago and she didn't make the last
cut and she was like, thanks a lot, So she's
getting more nugat. Yeah, well, what do you think she'll
send us more newgat? Now? I hope. So Mark from
the band Red Pete Senta s a CD with a

(34:20):
song inspired by our Pontsi scheme show you wrote a
song about it, Corey T of Massachusetts and it's a
tick remover, which I didn't know they made a tick key.
Elizabeth made a flower pen for Jerry, which is very sweet,
and Jerry has it in her office. If I'm not mistaken.
Dr Diane Hamilton's we supplied her with a cover quote.

(34:44):
And she wrote a book, Josh, about being an online student.
And I read it and I gave her quote and yeah,
it's actually on the book first cover quote. So if
you want to read Dr Diane Hamilton's, it's called the
Online Student Users Manual. If you're into online education, it's
like really the whole deal there, Jim Sue and Peter

(35:06):
Stephen and Lawrence Wait, I have a question for you. Yeah,
did you in your book? Did you read the inscription
our cover quote? No, but did you read the inscription
oh that she wrote to us? Yeah, well did you say,
don't tell Josh, but you're my favorite? Yeah? Mind said
that to Mindset, don't tell Chuck that your mind really
just feels so be trade because she didn't say that

(35:28):
in mine. Oh no, actually she said, I wasn't going
to tell you this, but Josh is my favorite, um Jim, Sue, Peter,
Stephen and Lawrence and is a postcard from Guatemala. They're
doing volunteer work down there are those Jerry's friends, uh
and custom inc dot Com sent as a real man
way two bills T shirts. And you know what's funny

(35:50):
is that he said in the email, like, you don't
feel like you have to mention this. This isn't like
a marketing point. We just wanted to do it. And
then on the little packing slip it said marketing rush,
send this quickly. Yeah that's hilarious. So custom inc dot
com we do want to plug you for that. And finally,
Pauline does custom photographic prints on homemade avoca paper. Yeah

(36:13):
it's so cool. It is. I have a nice view
of um A Lake in New York. I got the
guy surfing at the Golden Gate Bridge and Jerry has
one as well. And if you want to see this,
she actually prints the stuff on how many paper I'm
not sure if that's getting through. She makes paper. It
got through to me, pal and they're very awesome and
You can support her at www dot ps photo dot

(36:37):
c A and as usual. Um, if you have sent
us a nice gift and we thanked you for it,
you should feel free to post it on our Facebook page, right, yes,
please do? Okay, Um, we do have a Facebook page,
which we should mention. Yes, www dot Facebook dot com

(36:58):
slash stuff you should not. I can't wait for that movie.
I know. I'm looking forward to it too. Looks awesome.
I love the kid who's playing Zuckerberg in a zombie Land.
Yeah he uh, he's been another stuff. He's good. Uh.
And then we tweet yes you do s Y s
K podcast uh. And then we also have a blog

(37:20):
stuff you should know. It's at the blogs at how
stuff works dot com. Yes, and we have our Atlanta
trivia event coming up. Yes October that's a Wednesday from
just block out six to eleven. And then there's gonna
be trivia in there sometime. It's free. John Hodgeman and
Joe Randazzo are gonna be playing with us, and Dave Willis,
creator of Aquitine, Hunger Force and squid Billies. That's right

(37:41):
on our team. We're going to be a team and
we're gonna take all you Sucker is on and we're
going to beat the tar out of you that If
you want to come and play for free, yes, that
is at the Five Seasons Brewery West Side in Atlanta
on October and come one, come on, It's gonna be fun.
So that's it, man, that's plug Fest. If you have
an email you want to send us, I would love

(38:02):
to hear about your first brush with MH. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.

(38:25):
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