January 26, 2010 • 33 mins
Ninja, Japanese warriors famous for stealth, deception and sabotage, were inspired by Chinese military philosophy. Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the origins, history, gear and popularity of the ninja in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
Charles W. Bryant. Hi, Josh Chuck. I'm gonna tell you
(00:23):
something that you might not know about me. Oh boy,
as a youth. As a youth youth, a an older
boy in the neighborhood named Tommy Roper trained me as
a ninja, an altar boy or older older Yeah, so
I'm gonna train ninja right? Yeah? This Uh, this encompassed
(00:43):
generally sitting on top of a storage shed in my
backyard quietly for hours on end, waiting for somebody to
walk past, uh, so that we could find out whether
or not they noticed us. Then that's where you started
smoking because you were bored. Now, yet that came like
a year or two later. Yeah, you did not adhere
to the bushito. No, I don't know if smoking is
(01:07):
is outlawed by the bushido. I just meant the way
of the ninja. No, that's the samurai. Well, no, the
ninja though, shun the bushido, right, Okay, I got what
you say on the same page, So, Chuck, I thought,
you know, I kind of carried that with me my
whole life. I'm sure i'd see a throwing star every
once in a while and be like, I know how
(01:27):
to throw that, you know? Did you have any of those,
Tommy did? I've never had any of those? Are big
in the eighties for little nerves to collect totally um.
I found out though, when I read how Ninja's work,
I am nothing more than a dultant. Really, yeah, I
was surprised to find that out. I believe you said ninja,
so that is not correct, right, No, it is. It's ninja.
(01:47):
It's like fish or deer. I know we've been drilling
that into each other's head and I'm still saying Ninja's yeah,
So if we slip up, then give us a break, So, Chuck, Josh.
One of the first things I noticed from this article
was that um Ninja, although Japanese in nature and origin,
actually can trace its roots back to the Chinese. Yes,
(02:09):
very much, because of kind of what I was just
talking about with the Bushido was the Samurai code, where
you very respectfully would face one another, face your enemy
one on one and do battle, and the Ninja subscribe
more to the art of war school of thought right
as espoused by Sun Zu, which was a little sneakier, right,
(02:31):
and smarter if you ask me, it is smarter. And
I mean that's how the American colonists won the War
for Independence. The British were all like, hey, we've got
a bunch of Hessians here and they're ready to fight
you on this field, and our guys were, yeah, jumping
out of trees and bayoneting them. Yeah, very Ninja, asked
very sun sue he wrote the Art of War back
(02:53):
in the fourth or fifth century BC, and uh, yeah,
it kind of went against the grain, as it were, Yeah,
big time where you could uh. I think there's a chapter,
chapter thirteen, where he specifically said that you should use
people to spread confusion in the ranks and paranoia, um,
through sabotage, spying, spying, um yeah, espionage, that kind of stuff.
(03:17):
Pretty cool, Yeah, just basically underhanded stuff. Disguise was okay, yeah, deception,
I love it, right, So that is actually where it's
That's pretty much the basis of ninja, isn't it. Yeah,
from what I gather and and what is it? The
art of ninja, the art that ninja's practice. Yeah, ninjutsu
and it is not a martial art, but it is
(03:38):
an art of war, is what they call it. It
sounds like a martial arts. Yeah, but it's not. Okay,
that's because utsu sounds like jiu jitsu. Right, So, okay,
we've got this first seed of the ninja planet by
sun Su right, um and uh it takes a little
while to catch on. And actually, strangely enough, we can
trace back um to some of the first ninja stories, right, right,
(04:04):
some people who were thought to be among the first
ninja in Japan. We've moved over to Japan now, by
the way, yes, right, tell me about Prince Yamato. Yeah,
Prince Yamato, Uh is in some halls called the first
ninja because he was the first person that we know
of to blatantly use deception and disguise by addressing as
(04:26):
a woman and uh to attract. This is where it
gets sottlehinky to literally physically attract to barbarian chieftains. So
apparently he was a good looker as a woman, or
at the last he actually gained their confidence and uh
lull them into a sense of security. A false sense
of security and killed them. Yeah, then he withered them.
(04:47):
Yeah yeah, uh that's um not a bad one. Frankly,
I like that first Ninja story. I like yours though.
The thirteen year old kid, yeah, Kuma Waka Yeah, he
um was a little I guess, kind of a little shrimpy, right,
but he had some pretty good legs on him. He
traveled a really far distance to visit his father who
(05:07):
was ailing. Um, but his father was being held prisoner
by a monk and his family. Apparently monks did that
back then. I didn't know that what we do now, right, Um.
So a little thirteen year old Kuma Waka um was
turned away after traveling this long distance wanting to see
his father who's dying. And before he gets a chance
to see him, his father dies. So the kids like,
(05:30):
you know what, I swear vengeance right here and now, right,
little thirteen year old vengeance? Right? So I think Um,
possibly not so much that he'd read the Art of war,
but just that being thirteen, you know, he wasn't aware
of pitch battles or really didn't care about him. And
he was like, you know what, I'm going to use
a little bit of deception myself. He was doing't big
(05:51):
enough to just fight them straight upright right he Um.
He started kind of I guess, staking out the monks home,
and this kid was awesome. He he opened a window
to the monk's bedroom and let a bunch of moths in,
and they flocked to a lantern, blotting out all the light,
whereupon he snuck into the room, got the monk's sword,
(06:15):
and butchered him. Yes, have you noticed that most ninja
stories end in butchery. Yeah, that's a good point. Um.
The story is not over though, right, I don't think so. Well.
You should also point out, though he was actually in
their home, he faked an illness. Remember that's how we
got in there. That's right. He faked like he was sick,
so they brought him in and took care of him,
and he gained their trust, and then did the old
(06:36):
moth trick, right, the old moth trick. That's that's like
Ninja one oh one right there. Um. So, after he
butchers the monk, he flees and he's being pursued, so
he climbs up a huge length of bamboo until it
tips over a river and he jumps off the other
side and he's gone into the annals of ninja history.
(06:56):
That is serious ninja stealth right there. Yeah, a little
thirteen year old, right, how many times can I say
a little thirteen year old? I don't know. We could
go back and count. So yes, even though these are
cool stories and they are thought of as maybe practicing
the first ninja practices, they aren't really believed to be
the first ninjas, right, No, I mean they're kind of
legend exactly, and there's a lot of lore surrounding ninja.
(07:18):
It's really tough, as the grabster who wrote this article
pointed out, to kind of separate fact from fiction. And
in some cases, Japanese historians just have admitted ninja altogether
because they're so secretive, right, or uh, you know, exaggerated
and glorified it to the point that it's misinformation, right,
which is part of the whole ninja lore as well, right,
(07:39):
which apparently the ninja were perfectly fine with because it
freaked people out. We'll get to that in a minute, right,
the supernatural stuff. Yeah, okay, so Chuck, what was the
true birth of the ninja? Then? Well, they think that
the regions of IgA and Coca or is it Egaga
and coca. You know what, I think, I have no
(07:59):
idea for those two. But you were getting good at
the Japanese. And let me tell you you have what
is called pura pura pura, which means you're very fluent.
It's Japanese for that describes very fluent. The Japanese is
a little easier to pronounce, I think than some because
it's usually just kind of pronounced like it reads. There's
just a lot of letters sometimes yeah, and there's a
lot of there's a lot of vowels together. It don't
(08:21):
make any sense, but we're doing our best. Yeah, you're
doing a great judge going with Ega and Koga, and
they are considered to be the birthplace of ninja as
a major force in warfare. And here's why. There was
a bunch of clans in these two regions, and the
guys Um who were members of the clans tended to
farm themselves out as mercenaries, which we've talked about before. Um,
(08:44):
and they actually adopted a lot of the Ninja attitude,
the Ninja, the Ninja tude, right nice Um. They they
adopted a lot of it Um serving as spies, saboteurs,
and assassins, right, love that word, by the way, saboteur.
It's a pretty cool word. That's why a firefly was
one of my favorite g I Joe's, which we'll get to.
(09:08):
It's all coming around. Yeah. So in Ega and Coca,
right this basically this region, rather than um turning to
brewing or um grain production, they turned to ninja production,
you know, and they protected They were hired out by
the daimio, which were what was another word for a lord,
(09:28):
a feudal feudal lord, and basically like mercenaries, they would
whoever had the most dough would get hired, so they
were not known as loyal. They would go where the
money was no, which, as you said, is completely contrary
to the Bushito code of the samurai. Who was I
guess you could probably make a case was a rival
faction in Japan at the time. If you wanted somebody
(09:50):
who would be willing to die for you, you had
your samurai. If you wanted somebody who you could pay
to go do horrible things for you, but then may
eventually come back and kill you through he was hired
for somebody else, you went with the ninja. Yeah, right,
good point. So one of the cool things that the
grabster mentioned was that the reason uh Ego and Koga
were I guess these hotbeds of activity for ninja was
(10:15):
that the the the art of ninja two yeah, was
passed on from father to son, generation after generation after generation. Right,
And we're talking sneaking around. Uh. From what I gather
from reading is that uh, the lowly ninja were the
ones that were slinging the swords around and the true
uh skilled ninja did not do a lot of face
(10:36):
to face fighting. They were sneaking around, They were gathering information.
Like you said, they were sabotaging, they were spying and
giving mis information. Right. And apparently since castles were they
figured so largely into feudal japan Um, the ninja became
especially a dept at um infiltrating castles and escaping from
(10:58):
castles that were undersea. There's the story of one ninja
who was hired by a damio um who owned a
castle that was under siege, and one night he slipped out,
went to the enemy encampment, stole their flag, and then
when they woke up the next morning they saw their
flag like on the embattlements of the castle, which you
(11:19):
can imagine you just like wa wa wa. We don't
we have that sound effect? I think so? Or did
they wake up and think, did we already capture this castle?
What were you doing here? That's what I would think
we already captured because their flag was flying, But apparently
it was a mocking thing and right, yeah, take the
wind out of their sales. And there was also another
(11:40):
story legend, Ninja lore of a group of Ninja's actually
a group of Ninja sorry um that captured the uh
I guess the badge of paper lantern badge which identified
like it identified with the castle and a damio Okay,
I'm gonna knock your socks off right here, chuck. So
they stole this lantern and reproduced it, reproduced the badge,
(12:03):
put him on other lanterns, and then just walked right
into the castle, right, butchered everybody like they do, yeah,
and then walked back out. And when everybody woke up
the next morning and found the people who were not butchered,
found uh you know what was going on? Um? They
they had created uh paranoia, right, which, as we said,
(12:26):
is another thing that Ninja liked to do, absolutely disruption. Yes, uh,
they were very skilled. Are your socks knocked off. These
are actually new socks and they are still on. You know, uh,
did you know that George Hamilton's once said that he
wore a new pair of socks every day. He never
wore the same pair of socks. I can see him
doing that. My good friend Andrew told me that once
(12:46):
moving on the ninja, Josh, you know what their their
main deal was you when they were best at assassination, Yes,
sneaking in and the dead of night and killing you
in your sleep sometimes. And my favorite story was, and
this one is not verified, but the the legend of
the ninja who hid beneath the outhouse and you know
(13:07):
what goes on beneath the outhouse? Yeah, he hit in
the pit, hit in the pit, and then the the
daimio came in obviously sat down on the john and
then then just struck from below with the sword. But
which is just that's not a comfort. My favorite part
of the story though it says, uh, it's probably not
true because historical record show that the daimio in question
probably died of a stroke or brain aneurysm. But I
(13:30):
think maybe if you had a sword stuck up your butt,
then maybe you might have a stroke or brain and
I would have a stroke for sure, so maybe that
did happen. Plus also I could see his family trying
to keep that hush hush. Yeah, I would say so,
you know, but it made made the Daimio very paranoid,
right yeah. And actually they took a lot of measures
to protect against these ninja'sassiens that they always figured we're
(13:50):
coming for them. Like, um, there was one clan where
at their castle everyone had to wear long um I guess,
bell bottoms basically that made noise whenever you walked, So
anyone who was in the castle had to wear these
kind of corduroy bell bottoms pretty much. And I can
only imagine that they had an ample supply for visitors
(14:12):
if everybody had to use them, you know, and not
everyone was walking around with bell bottoms. I imagine they
had them for you, right, like drop your keys in
the bowl and put on these bell pots. I'm gonna
stay here right. Uh. The other one, a cool one
was in Kyoto. They had a the Nie Joe Castle
had what they called nightingale floors, and they were purposefully
squeaky the way they made these wooden floors, so the
(14:34):
people counterbalance, right, so anyone walking on them, even in
Ninja could be heard. Yes, And also the Daimio would
spend more and more time away from their home at
what they called Secret Springs, basically a little hidden resorts
at natural Springs. So it sounds like out of Ninja
the vacation resort, bell bottom jeans and squeaky floors were born. Nice,
(14:59):
pretty cool. You wrap that up very nicely, So chuck
um the whole Um. I guess Samurai soared up the
bottom story that that it was probably a legend because
the guy probably died of an aneurism or stroke. Right. Um,
that kind of reveals that lower that has surrounded Ninja
(15:22):
forever and one of the things that um, they've been
attributed with or bestowed with their like supernatural powers. Right
of course that's not true, No, but it's fun and
like you said, earlier than Ninja loved it. They were like, yeah,
we're seven feet tall, and we can fly and become invisible.
Those are three. They could also walk through walls, which
(15:43):
I imagine it would would really come in handy for
a Ninja, you know. But I mean, if you think
about it, if you're penetrating a castle that no one
else can get through. It probably seems a lot like
you can walk through walls. And then of course there's
the real basic go to one that there ghosts, yeah,
shape shifters. Did you ever read Um Commando comics? No?
(16:03):
There there was like they were from the seventies. I
think they were like just black and white comics set
in World War Two? Uh. And in one of them
that was this guy had to fight Ninja's in Burma,
Ninja and Burma and uh, it was pretty cool. Did
you ever say I was a little whiss boy with
the comics. I was like, I was into Archie and
Ritchie Rich what I know what awful and then stuff
(16:28):
like the Star Wars comics and stuff like that. But
I don't try to cool it up now it's awful.
What it was a big Archie guy. I was a
little Baptist boy and Richie Rich. Yeah, Ritchie Rich was great. Yeah,
I like the cartoon. You never read the comic. Oh yeah,
I was a little wiss. Yeah, you were into ninja's
and stuff smoking cigarettes that I was reading Archie in
(16:50):
the Bible. Good for you. But here we are years later,
I know the same. We're both as twisted, alright, I've
been trying to get better, You've been trying to get worse. Yes,
and we met in the middle. Where are we now?
With their gear, I would say we're writting inja gear
and Chuck, I should say, Chuck has a several large
print outs of pictures of ninja gear that are just bitching. Yeah,
(17:13):
let's go ahead and talk about some of these um ninja. Well, first,
let's talk about their clothes, their uniform, the ninja yori,
your roy your roy roy. It is also called ninja armor,
and it's like the black jacket, black trousers, hooted cowl,
and light sandals. Not a lot of protection with that
(17:35):
the right word. Well, they said some of them were
light armor under that, right, but it's not much trust me, No,
it's cloth. Well, because they wanted to be sneaky and
not make a lot of noise, so armor probably wasn't
the best way to get around. And traditionally the your
roy was um black, although apparently there is some historical
evidence that they wore all white your roy which is
(17:56):
pretty cool too in the snow if it were snowy. Yeah, sure,
they're like, oh, it's know, you gotta put on the
white Euroy today and go kill people. However, Josh, most
of this is uh fanciful lore. Although they did have
these costumes, what they mainly wore they wanted to blend in,
so they mainly just dressed like you and I. Yeah,
that's an excellent point too, Like if you're going to
(18:18):
be an assassin um and you're in a public place,
if you're dressed like a ninja, people are going to
be like, look out for that ninja. Right. So yeah,
a lot of times they they they were apparently masters
at um hiding in plain sight. Yeah, disguised as priests
and merchants and farmers, which is you know, makes sense
to me because what was it that Henry Hill said?
(18:39):
He said, when you get killed, it's it's somebody who's
coming at you with a smile. Who's your friend? That's
who kills you? Sure? Yeah, Henry Hill, he comes up
a lot. It's funny. Yeah. I never thought he would
come up in a ninja podcast. Uh. What else did
they use, Josh, the ninja to was the short sword.
Then they were back, which is pretty cool. Yeah, used
(19:01):
to butcher people. And then here's what I have the
pictures of the shook go is this cool little claw
hand it's like claws on your palm you would wear
as a glove. And it says you can use to
fight or to climb trees with. Tell me, tell me
rope her head one of those. Really Huh. He tried
to climb trees once in a while to us ever success.
(19:22):
Really he could when he didn't have those on, like
he could just climb a tree, but just climbing like that,
it didn't work. Uh. And this is the tiger claw.
Those are cool. Yeah, that looks like Freddy Krueger wolverine
or something. That's exactly what it looks like. And it
would butcher you if put to your jugular. And what
are these? And this is my favorite? These are the
cow trops and these were they look sort of like
(19:45):
little metal sharp origami razor things. I was just about
to say orgamy they do. You got to leave it
to the Japanese. They have great design with everything. Yeah,
they're beautiful, including little tags meant to puncture your feet
and soles of your feet. Yeah, that's what you would do.
You would throw these on the floor, uh, for your
enemy to step on. And they apparently wore like the
sandals and the thin shoes, so that worked. And I
(20:05):
wish this were a video podcast because Chuck gave Jerry
and I had demonstration and what that would look like
when people were chasing the ninja. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They
also used smoke bombs and what else. The coolest thing
small one person boats that were collapsible, so they were
highly portable, so ninja would just be running away from people.
(20:27):
He's thrown his tax whatever, the tax call again? Uh?
The cow drops, right, He's thrown his cow drops and
they didn't work. A couple of guys got around and
he's reached a river. There's no bamboo and site. He
just whips out of his little boat and sails across
like so long, chumps. Pretty cool. I'll be back to
kill you when you're sleeping. Uh. The other thing that
has been refuted by the MythBusters I read was the
(20:49):
Mizzou gumo and they were wooden shoes to walk on
water with. They kind of look like snow shoes, actually
big round things and your foot goes in the middle
to disperse the water. Those MythBusters guys said, yeah, this
doesn't work. Did they try it out themselves? Yeah, of
course they did. It doesn't disprove anything that they should
be too fat. We should call that show the fun
(21:10):
Killers instead of the Mythbuss. Yeah, all they do is
destroy fun. But they said they could work on marsh
is what they said, Like, we'll give him something. Yeah,
of course there's the throwing star a k a. The
sugar ken. Yeah, and I didn't know this. I thought
that you know, when you see in the movies they
clearly always fling knees and right into somebody's forehead right
(21:31):
between the eyes. Yeah, that's really not true, was it. No,
Apparently they were just kind of a distracting weapon, like
it was meant to look like it was about to
hit you right between the eyes, but the chances of
it actually hitting its target are pretty low. So they
would turn around when being chased, throw a star at
them to distract them, and then drop some cow trops
on the floor in a smoke bomb maybe, And then
(21:51):
he's a grappling hook and a rope ladder to escape.
That's what they call the Schenectady Shuffle and Ninja lore
that combo right there. Really Yeah, so Chuck, there's the
grappling hook right which you can't leave out. Basically, if
you have all this stuff. You are a little white
kid in suburban America trying to be in ninja, because
(22:13):
if you're a stealthy guy and you're infiltrating a castle,
you're not going to have all this stuff except maybe
your collapse will boat your colchrops and your little sword. Right.
But other than that, it seems like this was more
the arsenal that no ninja at any one time had
all these things on them, right. Yeah, But in the movies,
of course, that's how it's portrayed, because it's more fun
movies like Enter the Ninja, maybe the Ninja American Ninja?
(22:37):
Did you see that one? Did you watch ninja movies
as a kid? And now where were you, Chuck? I
told you I was reading Archie. American Ninja was awesome.
I was watching, Uh, Escape from Which Mountain? And Archie?
That was a creepy movie that wasn't Escape from Which Mountain?
Well it did? It didn't age? Well you should go
watch it now and not the cruddy remake? Uh isn't
(22:58):
isn't like the rock In then? Of course that's Dwayne Johnson,
do you, buddy? What was the first movie? Though Josh
credited as being the first movie with the Ninja. Uh
you only lived twice. The James Bond movie it uh it.
And when the movie came out in nineteen seven, Ninja
just exploded in Western culture. Of course, because people that
go to see go to see the James Bond movies
(23:19):
are looking for any cool new thing anyway, So imagine
when they saw the Ninja, they were like, oh my gosh,
that's the coolest mercenary I've ever seen in my life.
They're like, click, those guys butchering everybody. Teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Of course I never got into them neither. And then chuck,
of course, Um, you probably haven't heard of this, but
there's this thing called g I Joe. I know, the
(23:41):
early g I Joe. We've been over this, the twelve
inch g I Joe with the kung fu grip, not
the tiny ones. They're not dolls, are action figures. What
you played with their dolls like, you can hug them
and cuddle them. You can't cuddle an action figure. And
they had bendable elbows and stuff like that. Did your
twelve Ventures have kung fu grip? Because a little acts
figures it too? Did they really? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's
(24:02):
where it started, buddy. Okay. Well, um. In the two series,
a little ninja was introduced known as Snake Eyes, who
worked on the good side. Oh really, I thought Snake
Eyes was bad. No, you're thinking of storm Shadow. Storm
Shadow is a cobra ninja. And actually I was looking
on Yo Joe dot com today. Have you ever told
(24:22):
that site? Oh my god, it's like nostalgia central, right,
I did see that new movie though, the Joe movie.
Is it out? It's out on video now. Was it
any good? No? Not really? Okay, and I love the
cartoon though I don't think any uh animation had more
of an impact on the development of my personality and
the car. Yeah, every time it came on, I was
(24:44):
just like, thank you God, thank you for letting me
be alive and at an age where I can fully
appreciate the g I Joe cartoon. See, I said the
same thing about Tom and Jerry. So that's where we
were so well again, let me let me go back
to uh Snake Eyes and storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is
clearly a ninja. Snake Eyes is listed on his file
(25:06):
card on the back of the package as a commando,
although he is proficient in bladed weapons and uh martial arts,
several martial arts. Right, so I'm thinking, why why would
he be called the commando? Is he not a ninja?
And I was gonna totally throw the smack down on
the Grabster for calling Snake Eyes a ninja in this article.
I did a little more digging. It turns out that
(25:28):
snow Job and Snake Eyes were once brothers in arms
for the same clan, and actually Snake Eyes is a
trained ninja, although he's also a commando. Yeah, and then
they went their separate ways. Uh, there was a little
bit of a falling out. They went their separate ways. Uh,
Storm Shadow of the Cobra Ninja actually went to work
for Cobra as a disguise to find who who killed
(25:51):
the clan leader. Well yeah, and um, once he did
find out he was actually um brainwashed, he was discovered
as a as a spy. Uh, he was discovered brainwashed
and then actually did start working for Cobra. Snake Eyes
he always was on Joe Sigh. Dude, I did not
know that there was that much real information out there
(26:11):
about g I Joe. So this is all in the history.
Someone's actually written that. Yeah, well there's like there's again
there's a comic series you're probably not aware of. Uh
and and yeah it's pretty storied. See. I was confused
when I watched the movie. I kept waiting for Joe,
kept waiting for Franco Harris to come out, you know
with a beard who Joe always look like Franco Harris
(26:33):
to me, the Pittsburgh Steeler running back. Wait a minute,
I'm trying to think of who you're thinking of. Duke
was the closest to the well there was that was
the collective name of him. Yeah, I see. That just
confuses me because back in the day, back in the day,
Gi Joe was a dude, a single dude, right, But
then they just kind of said that sucks. Let's go
(26:54):
with the better version here, let's go with action figures,
Let's make the collective thing. Right. Did you see that
link to the stop action um Vietnam movie full link
Vietnam movie that I did you see my reply to that? Yeah,
you made a movie I did. My brother and I
when we were six and nine years old, respectively, made
(27:14):
a stop motion Super eight movie with g I Joe
dolls and had a little plot and everything. What was
the plot. Um, we had this little shiny button and
the button represented like uh, micro film disc and they
you know, it got stolen and Joe had to go
retrieve it from the bad guys. We shot it in
the woods near our house and it was pretty cool.
(27:35):
Do you have thereon now? There were no explosions. I
think we might have lit something on fire. I don't
know if it still exists. It's got to be somewhere,
but I don't want to see it. So, Scott, if
you're listening, if you have that, we would love to
see that, agreed Scott, But I don't think he has it.
We should probably get Path to Ninja, right, Is there
anything else there? There are a couple of things. Of course,
(27:56):
Ninja exploded in popular culture recently. It's a kind of
rival Pirates and Chuck Norris, right, well, that's what I hear.
I didn't know about that though. So there's like that
site I just showed you real Ultimate Power about how
ninjas flip out and kill everybody. They're awesome and by awesome, mommy,
and totally sweet. It tells a It tells the story
of one ninja who was eating in a diner and
(28:17):
some guy dropped his spoon and then Ninja flipped out
and killed the whole town. Yeah, just stuff like that.
It's the great pirate versus a Ninja thing because someone
wrote in about that that one. I don't know. I
just I know that Asking Ninja took on. Uh. Asking
Ninja dot com is another site you can ask Ninja
Ninja practical questions like how to work a new iPhone
app and stuff like that. But he does actually take
(28:39):
on the pirates on Pirate talk like a Pirate Day,
which we mentioned as well. So apparently there's some bad
blood between pirates and Ninja. My money is on the Ninja. Well, sure,
because they gets sneaking onto a pirate ship pretty easily.
I would. Pirates are all brash and Ninja just comes up,
puts the blade at the base of your skull, inserts
it into your brain, scrambles it dead. Pirates the pie
(29:00):
it's are all drunk on ram and Ninja. I don't
think they drank. No, they might hit the saki every
once in a while, but that's about it. And then
one last thing. If you're a true Ninja lover, there's
one place you have to be the first week of
April and that is in IgA at the Haku Hojoe
White Phoenix Castle known as the Ninja Museum. Yeah, they've
(29:20):
embraced I I guys really embraced their ninja roots and
they try to capitalize on that obviously. Yeah for money,
Well why not. It's the root of all ninja. Yeah.
I went to that website. Museum website is pretty cool,
is it? But they have they have a festival and
Ninja festival every year, including in Ninja parade. I want
to see that. I can see ninja like driving around
in a little shriner's car. Yeah, so that's ninja. That's it. Yeah. Great,
(29:46):
we covered just about everything. But if you want to
see some boss picks of ninja hiding in trees and
ninja weapons and stuff like that, you can type in
ninja and the handy search bar at how stuff Works
dot com. And uh, I guess now it's time for
listener mail. Huh. Yes, josh I got a short one.
(30:06):
I want to call this our Influence on the World. Nice,
this is pretty cool. You're gonna, I don't know if
you read this one or not, you're gonna love it. It
It just came in today, Chuck and josh I am
a geologist in Columbus, Ohio go buck Eyes, and I
often stumble across geo Is it cache? I always say
cations catch. I think you can say either one, and
(30:27):
I often stumble across geo cashes when I'm out in
the field during research. I always follow all of the
geo cashing rules and signed the log book along with
usually leaving something behind for others to find. This time, however,
I was a little different. It was a little different
because when I opened the sealed plastic container, I found
a key chain, a deck of cards, bottle caps into
Carlos Santana c d's. So so awesome. I thought this
(30:51):
is a little odd until I remembered your podcast on
geo cashing caching from last year when YouTube joked about
putting Santana c d's. So wait, we put a should
we go to should we go back and listen to
one part? Sure? So, like, if your average hiker happens
upon this box full of Santana c d's and they're thinking, wow,
(31:14):
I can just take d c d someone left these,
this is awesome. So there it is. And apparently, uh,
and that wasn't the only time we mentioned Santana c
D several times several times, and j D from Columbus says,
I thought I would let you know that at least
two Geo catching fans in Columbus listen to your podcast
(31:34):
and it was awesome to sort of meet one of them.
That's cool. I don't think that's coincidence to you. I
don't see how it could be a Santanas c D
and a Geo cash Are you joking? Yeah? Yeah, I
think that was our influence directly. I agree. Pretty cool.
You know, we've had another um another influence on somebody
in I believe Slovakia. Not sure, I think so. Uh,
(31:55):
there's a guy who wrote in and he founded a
site called weird Worm and actually started a podcast and
it's pretty good. You should listen to it, and he
attributes it directly to being inspired by us. Very cool. Yeah,
so you should check out weird worm dot com and
their accompanying podcast to watch. They're going to overtake us
in the ratings immediately. Yeah, sorry, thanks a lot. At
(32:19):
least there's people out there trading San Santa ce ds.
That'll be our legacy each other. Right, Well, if you
have any story about how Chuck and I have impacted
your life, influenced you in any way, or got you
to do something really really bad. We want to hear
about it in an email, which you can send. A
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
(32:45):
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand,
twelve k Emory. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
Charles W. Bryant. Hi, Josh Chuck. I'm gonna tell you
(00:23):
something that you might not know about me. Oh boy,
as a youth. As a youth youth, a an older
boy in the neighborhood named Tommy Roper trained me as
a ninja, an altar boy or older older Yeah, so
I'm gonna train ninja right? Yeah? This Uh, this encompassed
(00:43):
generally sitting on top of a storage shed in my
backyard quietly for hours on end, waiting for somebody to
walk past, uh, so that we could find out whether
or not they noticed us. Then that's where you started
smoking because you were bored. Now, yet that came like
a year or two later. Yeah, you did not adhere
to the bushito. No, I don't know if smoking is
(01:07):
is outlawed by the bushido. I just meant the way
of the ninja. No, that's the samurai. Well, no, the
ninja though, shun the bushido, right, Okay, I got what
you say on the same page, So, Chuck, I thought,
you know, I kind of carried that with me my
whole life. I'm sure i'd see a throwing star every
once in a while and be like, I know how
(01:27):
to throw that, you know? Did you have any of those,
Tommy did? I've never had any of those? Are big
in the eighties for little nerves to collect totally um.
I found out though, when I read how Ninja's work,
I am nothing more than a dultant. Really, yeah, I
was surprised to find that out. I believe you said ninja,
so that is not correct, right, No, it is. It's ninja.
(01:47):
It's like fish or deer. I know we've been drilling
that into each other's head and I'm still saying Ninja's yeah,
So if we slip up, then give us a break, So, Chuck, Josh.
One of the first things I noticed from this article
was that um Ninja, although Japanese in nature and origin,
actually can trace its roots back to the Chinese. Yes,
(02:09):
very much, because of kind of what I was just
talking about with the Bushido was the Samurai code, where
you very respectfully would face one another, face your enemy
one on one and do battle, and the Ninja subscribe
more to the art of war school of thought right
as espoused by Sun Zu, which was a little sneakier, right,
(02:31):
and smarter if you ask me, it is smarter. And
I mean that's how the American colonists won the War
for Independence. The British were all like, hey, we've got
a bunch of Hessians here and they're ready to fight
you on this field, and our guys were, yeah, jumping
out of trees and bayoneting them. Yeah, very Ninja, asked
very sun sue he wrote the Art of War back
(02:53):
in the fourth or fifth century BC, and uh, yeah,
it kind of went against the grain, as it were, Yeah,
big time where you could uh. I think there's a chapter,
chapter thirteen, where he specifically said that you should use
people to spread confusion in the ranks and paranoia, um,
through sabotage, spying, spying, um yeah, espionage, that kind of stuff.
(03:17):
Pretty cool, Yeah, just basically underhanded stuff. Disguise was okay, yeah, deception,
I love it, right, So that is actually where it's
That's pretty much the basis of ninja, isn't it. Yeah,
from what I gather and and what is it? The
art of ninja, the art that ninja's practice. Yeah, ninjutsu
and it is not a martial art, but it is
(03:38):
an art of war, is what they call it. It
sounds like a martial arts. Yeah, but it's not. Okay,
that's because utsu sounds like jiu jitsu. Right, So, okay,
we've got this first seed of the ninja planet by
sun Su right, um and uh it takes a little
while to catch on. And actually, strangely enough, we can
trace back um to some of the first ninja stories, right, right,
(04:04):
some people who were thought to be among the first
ninja in Japan. We've moved over to Japan now, by
the way, yes, right, tell me about Prince Yamato. Yeah,
Prince Yamato, Uh is in some halls called the first
ninja because he was the first person that we know
of to blatantly use deception and disguise by addressing as
(04:26):
a woman and uh to attract. This is where it
gets sottlehinky to literally physically attract to barbarian chieftains. So
apparently he was a good looker as a woman, or
at the last he actually gained their confidence and uh
lull them into a sense of security. A false sense
of security and killed them. Yeah, then he withered them.
(04:47):
Yeah yeah, uh that's um not a bad one. Frankly,
I like that first Ninja story. I like yours though.
The thirteen year old kid, yeah, Kuma Waka Yeah, he
um was a little I guess, kind of a little shrimpy, right,
but he had some pretty good legs on him. He
traveled a really far distance to visit his father who
(05:07):
was ailing. Um, but his father was being held prisoner
by a monk and his family. Apparently monks did that
back then. I didn't know that what we do now, right, Um.
So a little thirteen year old Kuma Waka um was
turned away after traveling this long distance wanting to see
his father who's dying. And before he gets a chance
to see him, his father dies. So the kids like,
(05:30):
you know what, I swear vengeance right here and now, right,
little thirteen year old vengeance? Right? So I think Um,
possibly not so much that he'd read the Art of war,
but just that being thirteen, you know, he wasn't aware
of pitch battles or really didn't care about him. And
he was like, you know what, I'm going to use
a little bit of deception myself. He was doing't big
(05:51):
enough to just fight them straight upright right he Um.
He started kind of I guess, staking out the monks home,
and this kid was awesome. He he opened a window
to the monk's bedroom and let a bunch of moths in,
and they flocked to a lantern, blotting out all the light,
whereupon he snuck into the room, got the monk's sword,
(06:15):
and butchered him. Yes, have you noticed that most ninja
stories end in butchery. Yeah, that's a good point. Um.
The story is not over though, right, I don't think so. Well.
You should also point out, though he was actually in
their home, he faked an illness. Remember that's how we
got in there. That's right. He faked like he was sick,
so they brought him in and took care of him,
and he gained their trust, and then did the old
(06:36):
moth trick, right, the old moth trick. That's that's like
Ninja one oh one right there. Um. So, after he
butchers the monk, he flees and he's being pursued, so
he climbs up a huge length of bamboo until it
tips over a river and he jumps off the other
side and he's gone into the annals of ninja history.
(06:56):
That is serious ninja stealth right there. Yeah, a little
thirteen year old, right, how many times can I say
a little thirteen year old? I don't know. We could
go back and count. So yes, even though these are
cool stories and they are thought of as maybe practicing
the first ninja practices, they aren't really believed to be
the first ninjas, right, No, I mean they're kind of
legend exactly, and there's a lot of lore surrounding ninja.
(07:18):
It's really tough, as the grabster who wrote this article
pointed out, to kind of separate fact from fiction. And
in some cases, Japanese historians just have admitted ninja altogether
because they're so secretive, right, or uh, you know, exaggerated
and glorified it to the point that it's misinformation, right,
which is part of the whole ninja lore as well, right,
(07:39):
which apparently the ninja were perfectly fine with because it
freaked people out. We'll get to that in a minute, right,
the supernatural stuff. Yeah, okay, so Chuck, what was the
true birth of the ninja? Then? Well, they think that
the regions of IgA and Coca or is it Egaga
and coca. You know what, I think, I have no
(07:59):
idea for those two. But you were getting good at
the Japanese. And let me tell you you have what
is called pura pura pura, which means you're very fluent.
It's Japanese for that describes very fluent. The Japanese is
a little easier to pronounce, I think than some because
it's usually just kind of pronounced like it reads. There's
just a lot of letters sometimes yeah, and there's a
lot of there's a lot of vowels together. It don't
(08:21):
make any sense, but we're doing our best. Yeah, you're
doing a great judge going with Ega and Koga, and
they are considered to be the birthplace of ninja as
a major force in warfare. And here's why. There was
a bunch of clans in these two regions, and the
guys Um who were members of the clans tended to
farm themselves out as mercenaries, which we've talked about before. Um,
(08:44):
and they actually adopted a lot of the Ninja attitude,
the Ninja, the Ninja tude, right nice Um. They they
adopted a lot of it Um serving as spies, saboteurs,
and assassins, right, love that word, by the way, saboteur.
It's a pretty cool word. That's why a firefly was
one of my favorite g I Joe's, which we'll get to.
(09:08):
It's all coming around. Yeah. So in Ega and Coca,
right this basically this region, rather than um turning to
brewing or um grain production, they turned to ninja production,
you know, and they protected They were hired out by
the daimio, which were what was another word for a lord,
(09:28):
a feudal feudal lord, and basically like mercenaries, they would
whoever had the most dough would get hired, so they
were not known as loyal. They would go where the
money was no, which, as you said, is completely contrary
to the Bushito code of the samurai. Who was I
guess you could probably make a case was a rival
faction in Japan at the time. If you wanted somebody
(09:50):
who would be willing to die for you, you had
your samurai. If you wanted somebody who you could pay
to go do horrible things for you, but then may
eventually come back and kill you through he was hired
for somebody else, you went with the ninja. Yeah, right,
good point. So one of the cool things that the
grabster mentioned was that the reason uh Ego and Koga
were I guess these hotbeds of activity for ninja was
(10:15):
that the the the art of ninja two yeah, was
passed on from father to son, generation after generation after generation. Right,
And we're talking sneaking around. Uh. From what I gather
from reading is that uh, the lowly ninja were the
ones that were slinging the swords around and the true
uh skilled ninja did not do a lot of face
(10:36):
to face fighting. They were sneaking around, They were gathering information.
Like you said, they were sabotaging, they were spying and
giving mis information. Right. And apparently since castles were they
figured so largely into feudal japan Um, the ninja became
especially a dept at um infiltrating castles and escaping from
(10:58):
castles that were undersea. There's the story of one ninja
who was hired by a damio um who owned a
castle that was under siege, and one night he slipped out,
went to the enemy encampment, stole their flag, and then
when they woke up the next morning they saw their
flag like on the embattlements of the castle, which you
(11:19):
can imagine you just like wa wa wa. We don't
we have that sound effect? I think so? Or did
they wake up and think, did we already capture this castle?
What were you doing here? That's what I would think
we already captured because their flag was flying, But apparently
it was a mocking thing and right, yeah, take the
wind out of their sales. And there was also another
(11:40):
story legend, Ninja lore of a group of Ninja's actually
a group of Ninja sorry um that captured the uh
I guess the badge of paper lantern badge which identified
like it identified with the castle and a damio Okay,
I'm gonna knock your socks off right here, chuck. So
they stole this lantern and reproduced it, reproduced the badge,
(12:03):
put him on other lanterns, and then just walked right
into the castle, right, butchered everybody like they do, yeah,
and then walked back out. And when everybody woke up
the next morning and found the people who were not butchered,
found uh you know what was going on? Um? They
they had created uh paranoia, right, which, as we said,
(12:26):
is another thing that Ninja liked to do, absolutely disruption. Yes, uh,
they were very skilled. Are your socks knocked off. These
are actually new socks and they are still on. You know, uh,
did you know that George Hamilton's once said that he
wore a new pair of socks every day. He never
wore the same pair of socks. I can see him
doing that. My good friend Andrew told me that once
(12:46):
moving on the ninja, Josh, you know what their their
main deal was you when they were best at assassination, Yes,
sneaking in and the dead of night and killing you
in your sleep sometimes. And my favorite story was, and
this one is not verified, but the the legend of
the ninja who hid beneath the outhouse and you know
(13:07):
what goes on beneath the outhouse? Yeah, he hit in
the pit, hit in the pit, and then the the
daimio came in obviously sat down on the john and
then then just struck from below with the sword. But
which is just that's not a comfort. My favorite part
of the story though it says, uh, it's probably not
true because historical record show that the daimio in question
probably died of a stroke or brain aneurysm. But I
(13:30):
think maybe if you had a sword stuck up your butt,
then maybe you might have a stroke or brain and
I would have a stroke for sure, so maybe that
did happen. Plus also I could see his family trying
to keep that hush hush. Yeah, I would say so,
you know, but it made made the Daimio very paranoid,
right yeah. And actually they took a lot of measures
to protect against these ninja'sassiens that they always figured we're
(13:50):
coming for them. Like, um, there was one clan where
at their castle everyone had to wear long um I guess,
bell bottoms basically that made noise whenever you walked, So
anyone who was in the castle had to wear these
kind of corduroy bell bottoms pretty much. And I can
only imagine that they had an ample supply for visitors
(14:12):
if everybody had to use them, you know, and not
everyone was walking around with bell bottoms. I imagine they
had them for you, right, like drop your keys in
the bowl and put on these bell pots. I'm gonna
stay here right. Uh. The other one, a cool one
was in Kyoto. They had a the Nie Joe Castle
had what they called nightingale floors, and they were purposefully
squeaky the way they made these wooden floors, so the
(14:34):
people counterbalance, right, so anyone walking on them, even in
Ninja could be heard. Yes, And also the Daimio would
spend more and more time away from their home at
what they called Secret Springs, basically a little hidden resorts
at natural Springs. So it sounds like out of Ninja
the vacation resort, bell bottom jeans and squeaky floors were born. Nice,
(14:59):
pretty cool. You wrap that up very nicely, So chuck
um the whole Um. I guess Samurai soared up the
bottom story that that it was probably a legend because
the guy probably died of an aneurism or stroke. Right. Um,
that kind of reveals that lower that has surrounded Ninja
(15:22):
forever and one of the things that um, they've been
attributed with or bestowed with their like supernatural powers. Right
of course that's not true, No, but it's fun and
like you said, earlier than Ninja loved it. They were like, yeah,
we're seven feet tall, and we can fly and become invisible.
Those are three. They could also walk through walls, which
(15:43):
I imagine it would would really come in handy for
a Ninja, you know. But I mean, if you think
about it, if you're penetrating a castle that no one
else can get through. It probably seems a lot like
you can walk through walls. And then of course there's
the real basic go to one that there ghosts, yeah,
shape shifters. Did you ever read Um Commando comics? No?
(16:03):
There there was like they were from the seventies. I
think they were like just black and white comics set
in World War Two? Uh. And in one of them
that was this guy had to fight Ninja's in Burma,
Ninja and Burma and uh, it was pretty cool. Did
you ever say I was a little whiss boy with
the comics. I was like, I was into Archie and
Ritchie Rich what I know what awful and then stuff
(16:28):
like the Star Wars comics and stuff like that. But
I don't try to cool it up now it's awful.
What it was a big Archie guy. I was a
little Baptist boy and Richie Rich. Yeah, Ritchie Rich was great. Yeah,
I like the cartoon. You never read the comic. Oh yeah,
I was a little wiss. Yeah, you were into ninja's
and stuff smoking cigarettes that I was reading Archie in
(16:50):
the Bible. Good for you. But here we are years later,
I know the same. We're both as twisted, alright, I've
been trying to get better, You've been trying to get worse. Yes,
and we met in the middle. Where are we now?
With their gear, I would say we're writting inja gear
and Chuck, I should say, Chuck has a several large
print outs of pictures of ninja gear that are just bitching. Yeah,
(17:13):
let's go ahead and talk about some of these um ninja. Well, first,
let's talk about their clothes, their uniform, the ninja yori,
your roy your roy roy. It is also called ninja armor,
and it's like the black jacket, black trousers, hooted cowl,
and light sandals. Not a lot of protection with that
(17:35):
the right word. Well, they said some of them were
light armor under that, right, but it's not much trust me, No,
it's cloth. Well, because they wanted to be sneaky and
not make a lot of noise, so armor probably wasn't
the best way to get around. And traditionally the your
roy was um black, although apparently there is some historical
evidence that they wore all white your roy which is
(17:56):
pretty cool too in the snow if it were snowy. Yeah, sure,
they're like, oh, it's know, you gotta put on the
white Euroy today and go kill people. However, Josh, most
of this is uh fanciful lore. Although they did have
these costumes, what they mainly wore they wanted to blend in,
so they mainly just dressed like you and I. Yeah,
that's an excellent point too, Like if you're going to
(18:18):
be an assassin um and you're in a public place,
if you're dressed like a ninja, people are going to
be like, look out for that ninja. Right. So yeah,
a lot of times they they they were apparently masters
at um hiding in plain sight. Yeah, disguised as priests
and merchants and farmers, which is you know, makes sense
to me because what was it that Henry Hill said?
(18:39):
He said, when you get killed, it's it's somebody who's
coming at you with a smile. Who's your friend? That's
who kills you? Sure? Yeah, Henry Hill, he comes up
a lot. It's funny. Yeah. I never thought he would
come up in a ninja podcast. Uh. What else did
they use, Josh, the ninja to was the short sword.
Then they were back, which is pretty cool. Yeah, used
(19:01):
to butcher people. And then here's what I have the
pictures of the shook go is this cool little claw
hand it's like claws on your palm you would wear
as a glove. And it says you can use to
fight or to climb trees with. Tell me, tell me
rope her head one of those. Really Huh. He tried
to climb trees once in a while to us ever success.
(19:22):
Really he could when he didn't have those on, like
he could just climb a tree, but just climbing like that,
it didn't work. Uh. And this is the tiger claw.
Those are cool. Yeah, that looks like Freddy Krueger wolverine
or something. That's exactly what it looks like. And it
would butcher you if put to your jugular. And what
are these? And this is my favorite? These are the
cow trops and these were they look sort of like
(19:45):
little metal sharp origami razor things. I was just about
to say orgamy they do. You got to leave it
to the Japanese. They have great design with everything. Yeah,
they're beautiful, including little tags meant to puncture your feet
and soles of your feet. Yeah, that's what you would do.
You would throw these on the floor, uh, for your
enemy to step on. And they apparently wore like the
sandals and the thin shoes, so that worked. And I
(20:05):
wish this were a video podcast because Chuck gave Jerry
and I had demonstration and what that would look like
when people were chasing the ninja. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They
also used smoke bombs and what else. The coolest thing
small one person boats that were collapsible, so they were
highly portable, so ninja would just be running away from people.
(20:27):
He's thrown his tax whatever, the tax call again? Uh?
The cow drops, right, He's thrown his cow drops and
they didn't work. A couple of guys got around and
he's reached a river. There's no bamboo and site. He
just whips out of his little boat and sails across
like so long, chumps. Pretty cool. I'll be back to
kill you when you're sleeping. Uh. The other thing that
has been refuted by the MythBusters I read was the
(20:49):
Mizzou gumo and they were wooden shoes to walk on
water with. They kind of look like snow shoes, actually
big round things and your foot goes in the middle
to disperse the water. Those MythBusters guys said, yeah, this
doesn't work. Did they try it out themselves? Yeah, of
course they did. It doesn't disprove anything that they should
be too fat. We should call that show the fun
(21:10):
Killers instead of the Mythbuss. Yeah, all they do is
destroy fun. But they said they could work on marsh
is what they said, Like, we'll give him something. Yeah,
of course there's the throwing star a k a. The
sugar ken. Yeah, and I didn't know this. I thought
that you know, when you see in the movies they
clearly always fling knees and right into somebody's forehead right
(21:31):
between the eyes. Yeah, that's really not true, was it. No,
Apparently they were just kind of a distracting weapon, like
it was meant to look like it was about to
hit you right between the eyes, but the chances of
it actually hitting its target are pretty low. So they
would turn around when being chased, throw a star at
them to distract them, and then drop some cow trops
on the floor in a smoke bomb maybe, And then
(21:51):
he's a grappling hook and a rope ladder to escape.
That's what they call the Schenectady Shuffle and Ninja lore
that combo right there. Really Yeah, so Chuck, there's the
grappling hook right which you can't leave out. Basically, if
you have all this stuff. You are a little white
kid in suburban America trying to be in ninja, because
(22:13):
if you're a stealthy guy and you're infiltrating a castle,
you're not going to have all this stuff except maybe
your collapse will boat your colchrops and your little sword. Right.
But other than that, it seems like this was more
the arsenal that no ninja at any one time had
all these things on them, right. Yeah, But in the movies,
of course, that's how it's portrayed, because it's more fun
movies like Enter the Ninja, maybe the Ninja American Ninja?
(22:37):
Did you see that one? Did you watch ninja movies
as a kid? And now where were you, Chuck? I
told you I was reading Archie. American Ninja was awesome.
I was watching, Uh, Escape from Which Mountain? And Archie?
That was a creepy movie that wasn't Escape from Which Mountain?
Well it did? It didn't age? Well you should go
watch it now and not the cruddy remake? Uh isn't
(22:58):
isn't like the rock In then? Of course that's Dwayne Johnson,
do you, buddy? What was the first movie? Though Josh
credited as being the first movie with the Ninja. Uh
you only lived twice. The James Bond movie it uh it.
And when the movie came out in nineteen seven, Ninja
just exploded in Western culture. Of course, because people that
go to see go to see the James Bond movies
(23:19):
are looking for any cool new thing anyway, So imagine
when they saw the Ninja, they were like, oh my gosh,
that's the coolest mercenary I've ever seen in my life.
They're like, click, those guys butchering everybody. Teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Of course I never got into them neither. And then chuck,
of course, Um, you probably haven't heard of this, but
there's this thing called g I Joe. I know, the
(23:41):
early g I Joe. We've been over this, the twelve
inch g I Joe with the kung fu grip, not
the tiny ones. They're not dolls, are action figures. What
you played with their dolls like, you can hug them
and cuddle them. You can't cuddle an action figure. And
they had bendable elbows and stuff like that. Did your
twelve Ventures have kung fu grip? Because a little acts
figures it too? Did they really? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's
(24:02):
where it started, buddy. Okay. Well, um. In the two series,
a little ninja was introduced known as Snake Eyes, who
worked on the good side. Oh really, I thought Snake
Eyes was bad. No, you're thinking of storm Shadow. Storm
Shadow is a cobra ninja. And actually I was looking
on Yo Joe dot com today. Have you ever told
(24:22):
that site? Oh my god, it's like nostalgia central, right,
I did see that new movie though, the Joe movie.
Is it out? It's out on video now. Was it
any good? No? Not really? Okay, and I love the
cartoon though I don't think any uh animation had more
of an impact on the development of my personality and
the car. Yeah, every time it came on, I was
(24:44):
just like, thank you God, thank you for letting me
be alive and at an age where I can fully
appreciate the g I Joe cartoon. See, I said the
same thing about Tom and Jerry. So that's where we
were so well again, let me let me go back
to uh Snake Eyes and storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is
clearly a ninja. Snake Eyes is listed on his file
(25:06):
card on the back of the package as a commando,
although he is proficient in bladed weapons and uh martial arts,
several martial arts. Right, so I'm thinking, why why would
he be called the commando? Is he not a ninja?
And I was gonna totally throw the smack down on
the Grabster for calling Snake Eyes a ninja in this article.
I did a little more digging. It turns out that
(25:28):
snow Job and Snake Eyes were once brothers in arms
for the same clan, and actually Snake Eyes is a
trained ninja, although he's also a commando. Yeah, and then
they went their separate ways. Uh, there was a little
bit of a falling out. They went their separate ways. Uh,
Storm Shadow of the Cobra Ninja actually went to work
for Cobra as a disguise to find who who killed
(25:51):
the clan leader. Well yeah, and um, once he did
find out he was actually um brainwashed, he was discovered
as a as a spy. Uh, he was discovered brainwashed
and then actually did start working for Cobra. Snake Eyes
he always was on Joe Sigh. Dude, I did not
know that there was that much real information out there
(26:11):
about g I Joe. So this is all in the history.
Someone's actually written that. Yeah, well there's like there's again
there's a comic series you're probably not aware of. Uh
and and yeah it's pretty storied. See. I was confused
when I watched the movie. I kept waiting for Joe,
kept waiting for Franco Harris to come out, you know
with a beard who Joe always look like Franco Harris
(26:33):
to me, the Pittsburgh Steeler running back. Wait a minute,
I'm trying to think of who you're thinking of. Duke
was the closest to the well there was that was
the collective name of him. Yeah, I see. That just
confuses me because back in the day, back in the day,
Gi Joe was a dude, a single dude, right, But
then they just kind of said that sucks. Let's go
(26:54):
with the better version here, let's go with action figures,
Let's make the collective thing. Right. Did you see that
link to the stop action um Vietnam movie full link
Vietnam movie that I did you see my reply to that? Yeah,
you made a movie I did. My brother and I
when we were six and nine years old, respectively, made
(27:14):
a stop motion Super eight movie with g I Joe
dolls and had a little plot and everything. What was
the plot. Um, we had this little shiny button and
the button represented like uh, micro film disc and they
you know, it got stolen and Joe had to go
retrieve it from the bad guys. We shot it in
the woods near our house and it was pretty cool.
(27:35):
Do you have thereon now? There were no explosions. I
think we might have lit something on fire. I don't
know if it still exists. It's got to be somewhere,
but I don't want to see it. So, Scott, if
you're listening, if you have that, we would love to
see that, agreed Scott, But I don't think he has it.
We should probably get Path to Ninja, right, Is there
anything else there? There are a couple of things. Of course,
(27:56):
Ninja exploded in popular culture recently. It's a kind of
rival Pirates and Chuck Norris, right, well, that's what I hear.
I didn't know about that though. So there's like that
site I just showed you real Ultimate Power about how
ninjas flip out and kill everybody. They're awesome and by awesome, mommy,
and totally sweet. It tells a It tells the story
of one ninja who was eating in a diner and
(28:17):
some guy dropped his spoon and then Ninja flipped out
and killed the whole town. Yeah, just stuff like that.
It's the great pirate versus a Ninja thing because someone
wrote in about that that one. I don't know. I
just I know that Asking Ninja took on. Uh. Asking
Ninja dot com is another site you can ask Ninja
Ninja practical questions like how to work a new iPhone
app and stuff like that. But he does actually take
(28:39):
on the pirates on Pirate talk like a Pirate Day,
which we mentioned as well. So apparently there's some bad
blood between pirates and Ninja. My money is on the Ninja. Well, sure,
because they gets sneaking onto a pirate ship pretty easily.
I would. Pirates are all brash and Ninja just comes up,
puts the blade at the base of your skull, inserts
it into your brain, scrambles it dead. Pirates the pie
(29:00):
it's are all drunk on ram and Ninja. I don't
think they drank. No, they might hit the saki every
once in a while, but that's about it. And then
one last thing. If you're a true Ninja lover, there's
one place you have to be the first week of
April and that is in IgA at the Haku Hojoe
White Phoenix Castle known as the Ninja Museum. Yeah, they've
(29:20):
embraced I I guys really embraced their ninja roots and
they try to capitalize on that obviously. Yeah for money,
Well why not. It's the root of all ninja. Yeah.
I went to that website. Museum website is pretty cool,
is it? But they have they have a festival and
Ninja festival every year, including in Ninja parade. I want
to see that. I can see ninja like driving around
in a little shriner's car. Yeah, so that's ninja. That's it. Yeah. Great,
(29:46):
we covered just about everything. But if you want to
see some boss picks of ninja hiding in trees and
ninja weapons and stuff like that, you can type in
ninja and the handy search bar at how stuff Works
dot com. And uh, I guess now it's time for
listener mail. Huh. Yes, josh I got a short one.
(30:06):
I want to call this our Influence on the World. Nice,
this is pretty cool. You're gonna, I don't know if
you read this one or not, you're gonna love it. It
It just came in today, Chuck and josh I am
a geologist in Columbus, Ohio go buck Eyes, and I
often stumble across geo Is it cache? I always say
cations catch. I think you can say either one, and
(30:27):
I often stumble across geo cashes when I'm out in
the field during research. I always follow all of the
geo cashing rules and signed the log book along with
usually leaving something behind for others to find. This time, however,
I was a little different. It was a little different
because when I opened the sealed plastic container, I found
a key chain, a deck of cards, bottle caps into
Carlos Santana c d's. So so awesome. I thought this
(30:51):
is a little odd until I remembered your podcast on
geo cashing caching from last year when YouTube joked about
putting Santana c d's. So wait, we put a should
we go to should we go back and listen to
one part? Sure? So, like, if your average hiker happens
upon this box full of Santana c d's and they're thinking, wow,
(31:14):
I can just take d c d someone left these,
this is awesome. So there it is. And apparently, uh,
and that wasn't the only time we mentioned Santana c
D several times several times, and j D from Columbus says,
I thought I would let you know that at least
two Geo catching fans in Columbus listen to your podcast
(31:34):
and it was awesome to sort of meet one of them.
That's cool. I don't think that's coincidence to you. I
don't see how it could be a Santanas c D
and a Geo cash Are you joking? Yeah? Yeah, I
think that was our influence directly. I agree. Pretty cool.
You know, we've had another um another influence on somebody
in I believe Slovakia. Not sure, I think so. Uh,
(31:55):
there's a guy who wrote in and he founded a
site called weird Worm and actually started a podcast and
it's pretty good. You should listen to it, and he
attributes it directly to being inspired by us. Very cool. Yeah,
so you should check out weird worm dot com and
their accompanying podcast to watch. They're going to overtake us
in the ratings immediately. Yeah, sorry, thanks a lot. At
(32:19):
least there's people out there trading San Santa ce ds.
That'll be our legacy each other. Right, Well, if you
have any story about how Chuck and I have impacted
your life, influenced you in any way, or got you
to do something really really bad. We want to hear
about it in an email, which you can send. A
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
(32:45):
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand,
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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