Chapter 1: What are World's Fairs and why were they significant?
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Chapter 2: How did early World's Fairs showcase technological advancements?
France had 1,760 exhibits. In addition to the Colt repeating pistol, did you mention chewing tobacco? I did not.
Okay.
And that's where we debuted as a nation. Hey, look what we've come up with. Chewing tobacco, which I imagine we we stole from indigenous peoples here. Yes. But we really kind of Americanized it. The person running that booth had to dance back and forth, pumping his fists like a prospector the whole time.
And dance on maybe artificial legs because artificial legs were debuted by the United States there. That's right. We really just had one exhibit and they were everything compressed together. A guy dancing on an artificial egg, shooting his pistol in the air, chewing tobacco. Yeah, that's exactly right. I love it. So, yeah, this is obviously a huge hit.
It actually made money for the organizers, which was not the case for all the world's fairs to come. But because of that, a lot of people around the world were like, hey, I want to get in on this. And Paris said, we're first. There was one in Dublin. There was one in Cork. There was one in Munich. There was one in New York.
But really, everything kind of moved over to Paris when they said, we're taking over here. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the other ones were legit World's Fairs. I think the one in New York in 1853 through, I think, November 1854. That was a long one, July to November. Yeah. The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. In that case, they did okay, but they clearly copied the Crystal Palace.
They built their own there in Bryant Park, but they lost money. I think the first U.S. one to make any kind of hay was the one in Philly in 1876, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was the Centennial Exhibition where the typewriter was invented. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone. There was also the largest steam engine ever, which apparently still holds the record.
It was a 700-ton steam engine called the Corliss engine. It took 65 railroad cars to deliver it to the exhibition in Philadelphia. And when they turned it on, all of the machines at the World's Fair came to life because they were all being powered by that steam engine in the center of the whole place. That's a pretty fun little knock your socks off moment. It is pretty cool.
Like everyone's standing around. Well, I guess it was still, it wasn't powering lights at the time, was it? No, not yet. Okay. Because we're, yeah, that happens. It's coming, everybody. It's coming. Yeah. But this whole thing, it really, I mean, it attracted 10 million people and it was a big one. So I guess I got ahead of myself. Paris hadn't come yet.
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Chapter 3: What were the notable exhibits at the Great Exhibition of 1851?
Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women shaping culture right now.
As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are and your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja.
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What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're gonna become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.
Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.
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Chapter 4: How did World's Fairs evolve in the late 19th century?
Oh, yeah. So that was 1893. Like we said, go read that book. You will not regret it. And then jumping forward a little bit, but staying in the United States, there was the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Have you ever seen Meet Me in St. Louis, Chuck? No, I take it that was you that added that that was a terrible musical? Yes.
It was, like I didn't want to be, I didn't want to exist for those couple of hours while I was sitting there watching this play. It's so dumb and the music is so stupid and everything about it is just terrible. Where'd you see this? At the Fox. Wow. So like a Broadway revival? Yeah. And this period of American history, I just find creepy and I don't really like it anyway.
You know, there's a lot of like sousaphone music and stuff like that. OK. So and this is like a whole thing set at that time. And it's just it's not good, dude. Wow. All right. OK. So don't see it. OK. Go see Hell's Kitchen instead or Operation Mincemeat. Okay. But also there's a lot of misconstrued facts, I guess.
Yeah, this sounds like a bit of a, I don't know, I don't like the 1904 exhibit because they said, a lot of people say, like, that's where the hamburger came from and the hot dog and the ice cream cone. And some of that stuff is partly true, right? Yes. Hot dogs were first served in buns at the 1904 fair, but hot dogs already existed. Right.
Ice cream cone wasn't invented there, but this is the first place where a lot of people saw ice cream cones for the first time. It sounds like a bunch of junk food. Yeah, it definitely was. Cotton candy was debuted at the 1904 fair. And I feel like there's a nice little twist to the inventor, don't you? Yeah, he sold it as fairy floss.
His name was William J. Morrison, and he was in fact a dentist. I think that's one of those little fun facts that people like to throw around. Absolutely true. But it was also Dr. Pepper debuted there, Jell-O, puffed rice cereal. It sounds just like a bunch of like American junk. Yeah, this is where a lot of it came from for sure.
And then also just, we might edit this part out, but just between you and me, the first electric plug and socket debuted there too, which is pretty significant. But I want to give a little hat tip to Livia for explaining what an electric plug and socket does, which allowed lights and appliances to be safely attached to and detached from a central power supply. Oh, man. Livia's the best.
That's the dedication that we can expect from Livia.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What role did America's World's Fairs play in cultural exchange?
Well, that's it, everybody. That's World's Fairs. I guess we'll see you in Belgrade in 2027. And until then, Chuck, I say it's time for Listener Mail. That's right. We heard from a lot of people about our short stuff on the MacGuffin. Oh, we're talking about this? Which was pretty fun. I think it was kind of appropriate that we couldn't quite define it because it's quite hard to define.
Okay, fair enough. But we heard from a writer-director, legit. Hey, guys, I'm a writer-director from L.A. I thought I could share how I've always viewed the MacGuffin. When you're trying to develop a film plot, you might have a specific location or scenario that you want your characters to end up in, but sometimes you can't think of a natural way to get them there.
So that's where you throw in a MacGuffin. In fact, if you're really in the zone while you're writing, you can use it as a placeholder even and say like the protagonist stops by the house to grab a MacGuffin only to find a dead body in the yard. No.
One of the reasons it can be difficult to identify a MacGuffin from a specific movie is because the writer might be disguising it to avoid what could be perceived as lazy screenwriting. One of the more obvious examples is a character needing to find the secret map that leads to the treasure or the next clue. That is from Josh Beck, writer-director. And like I said, we heard from a lot of people.
One was kind of funny. We heard from somebody who kind of said, I don't care what George Lucas says. R2-D2 is not a MacGuffin. It's the plans that are MacGuffin because the person is never the MacGuffin. It's the object. And I had the great sorrow to write this person and say, I'm sorry to break it to you, but R2-D2 is an object. Yeah. And not a person. I don't know. I know. It's true, though.
Like, if the whole point to this writer's email was, hey, it's not the person, it's the object, it's like, well... And Android isn't a person. So I feel like then Josh backed you up, that the MacGuffin is totally irrelevant to what you care about in the whole thing, and that it's kind of like this thing that gets you to the thing that's the point, which is basically what you were saying. Yes.
Okay. Both the first time when you brought it up in some other episode and the short stuff, you stuck to your guns. So it sounds like you were right. But then all of those people out there who are like Maltese Falcon is the quintessential example of a MacGuffin. That is just wrong then. That's not true. Yes, it's the point of the whole thing.
Everything everyone's doing is centered around getting their hands on the Maltese Falcon. Nothing else matters. There's no interpersonal stuff that really matters. That is the point of everything. So it can't possibly be a MacGuffin. But is the Maltese falcon itself important? Yes. Well, what? What does it do? It gives you riches beyond measure. Oh, okay. It's like, yes, and it's irreplaceable.
It's its own thing. It is not a MacGuffin. And I don't ever want to talk about MacGuffins again after this. I'm so sorry that I ever brought it up. We also heard from a lot of people who pointed out the Big Bang Theory TV show thing where they say that Indiana Jones was a MacGuffin himself. Because if he was not a part of that movie, like, nothing would have mattered.
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