Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
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Welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. Dave's here in spirit. So this is a short stuff that we can begin now.
That's right, Josh. Let me set the stage. It's 1799. Founding Father George Washington is on his deathbed. He calls over his secretary, Tobias Lear, and says, I am just going.
Have me decently buried. But do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I'm dead, because you never know.
That is the last part. But that's basically what he was saying.
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Chapter 2: What historical fears led to the invention of safety coffins?
And so he would know about patents, even ones in Central Europe from the 18th century.
Right.
And at this time, the argument that's made for the kind of sudden appearance for them is that this coincides with the popularity of romanticism, which kind of came as a backlash to the rationalism of enlightenment, the Enlightenment. And romanticism is like, no, there's stuff beyond this life that we can't see. There's beauty in nature.
There's like all of the stuff that you can't just think your way out of or think you're like things that you can't see that actually do exist. And there's probably some sort of afterlife. And who knows whether the people are fully gone. This eventually led to the rise of mediums and spiritualism.
And there was just this kind of zeitgeist that the dead could conceivably still be in some sort of contact or communication, which doesn't directly go to taphophobia. But if you're already thinking like, I don't want to be buried alive, this would probably goose you into potentially buying a safety coffin.
Yeah, for sure.
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Chapter 3: What was George Washington's concern about being buried alive?
I mean, the sort of a popular idea at the time was that the veil is very thin between life and death. Ah, yes. And, like, how thin could it be? Like, maybe so thin where you bury me by accident.
Yeah, like poor Bill Pullman in Serpent and the Rainbow.
Oh, yeah. Or... Kiefer Sutherland's wife in that movie, which was a remake of a foreign film.
So good. Both of them were. It was one of those rare films where the American adaptation was just as good as the European original. Both of them are worth seeing. What were those called?
The Vanishing? Yeah, Vanishing.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And then also that poor guy who almost got buried in the twilight zone, but he he started crying because he was so sad and scared. And some nurse, one of the nurses noticed his tear was like, doctor, he's still alive right before I think they did an autopsy on him.
Yeah. Or like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
That's a great one, too. Sure. I think also Barnabas Collins you can make a case for in Dark Shadows. The TV show, not the terrible, terrible, terrible movie. I didn't see that. I saw 20 minutes of it. I was like, oh, boy, like these people should be individually shamed for this.
It was Tim Burton, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we're going to take a break and call Tim Burton, tell him to think about what he's done, and we'll be right back with Safety Coffins.
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Chapter 4: What is taphophobia and why was it significant in the 1800s?
And then the next day he shouted, I got a poop through the tube. Nine days, Chuck. Let's think about that.
Yeah, that's a long time. And that seems verified.
Yeah. There's one other thing, too, that we can't not mention. We've definitely mentioned him before, but I find it so fascinating. Timothy Clark Smith, whose grave in New Haven, Vermont, not Connecticut, back in, I think, 1893, was fitted out with a window that looked down the six feet to his face. Oh, that's right.
That was exposed so that passersby could check on him to make sure that he wasn't alive. Right. Oh, man. And it's still there today, except you just can't see very far because the window's kind of, well, it's more than 100 years old.
Yeah, that's too bad. You got anything else, man? I got nothing else. Then say it. Then I guess short stuff is out.
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