E266: MACABRE - This Is the Greatest Show (part II)

Fresh Hell Podcast

freshhellpodcast

True Crime

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we pick up where we left off with P.T. Barnum. We’ll talk about how he turned Scudder’s American Museum into a New York sensation, why General Tom Thumb became a global star, and the controversy around Joice Heth. There’s also the devastating fire that destroyed the museum(s), Barnum’s first steps into the circus world, and the personal losses he endured, including the death of his wife, Charity. It’s all about setbacks, scandals, and spectacle as Barnum’s story keeps surprising us.

P.T. Barnum, Scudder’s American Museum, Barnum’s American Museum, General Tom Thumb, Joice Heth, Feejee Mermaid, museum fire, Charity Hallett, Nancy Fish, traveling circus, Greatest Show on Earth, 19th-century entertainment, spectacle, scandal, personal loss, innovation, resilience

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the Fresh Hell podcast.
0:14.6	Fresh Hell contains stories of a disturbing and often graphic nature and is intended for a mature audience.
0:20.6	Please don't let your kids listen to this,
0:22.4	or they might turn out like us. Hi, I'm Annie in the U.S. And I'm Johanna from Austria, and you're listening
0:35.7	to your favorite international podcasts.
0:39.8	We're the podcast where arsenics in the wallpaper, the corsets are all just a little bit too
0:44.0	tight and the macab is always in fashion. It's a whole vibe. Yeah. Now what would be more
0:51.8	fitting to that whole aesthetic than the life of the man who
0:55.2	practically wrote the playbook for it? P.T. Barnum, the King of Curiosities, the Maestro of the Macab
1:01.2	and the Ultimate Showman who turned Humbug into an art form and the Freak Show into a global
1:08.0	phenomena. So last week we talked a bit about the general basic history of the
1:13.0	so-called freakshows or human audities, cabinet of curiosities, or simply sidesthoes. So you know
1:21.6	Side Show Bob from The Simpsons. You mean Krustis' murderous former assistant? Yeah, sure.
1:28.3	So is he called sideshow Bob in German?
1:31.3	I know sometimes you use English names and sometimes you like change them into German versions.
1:38.5	Yeah.
1:39.5	Actually he's called tingletangle Bob in German.
1:43.5	Tingletangle Bob. Tingletangle is a side. Tingletangle. He's a tingle tangleb in German. Tingle Tangle.
1:45.1	Tingle tangle is a side.
1:46.2	Tingle tangle.
1:46.9	He's a tingle tangle.
1:48.2	Is that a side show?
	...

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