02x13 - Animal Anarchy

[bunniefuu]

[quirky music]

- Did you know that there was
a time when a family vacation

meant your toddler
riding an alligator?

- Families can just mingle,
pose freely with no barriers

between them and one of
nature's most efficient,

ruthless, and deadly predators.

- It's like Jurassic
Park with worse fences.

- Or how about riding
the world's fastest bird?

- 40 miles an hour on the back
of a dinosaur with feathers

is the thrill of a lifetime.

- Or when you could
order a live monkey

from the back of a comic book.

- You'd open the box and
that monkey would jump out

and bite the first
person it sees.

- There's a part
of me that knows

that this was irresponsible,

but then there's a part
of me that would be like,

"Oh yeah, baby, sign me up."

- These are the
things we used to do

for fun, for money, or
maybe out of boredom

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous? Certainly.

Deadly? Occasionally.

But, boy, wasn't it exciting?

[dramatic music]

[dramatic thud]

[quirky music]

What's more adorable
than a cuddly animal?

You see one and you wanna
reach out and touch it.

And for a lot of
American history,

that's exactly what we did.

The problem? Well, sometimes
the animals touched back.

[contemplative music]

- It's the 1970s

and vacations are really
considered a luxury.

And only really a privileged few

can afford trips to Disney World

or some far away theme park.

- So it becomes the
age of the road trip.

Families pile into
station wagons

and look for fun holiday ideas

that are within
driving distance.

- [Henry] In 1972,
plans are announced

for a new amusement park
in West Milford, New Jersey

that promises to be wild,
thrilling, and car-friendly.

- [Jason] It's a new kind of zoo
and radically different.

Here the animals roam free.

But the people aren't
in mobile cages,

they're in little family cars.

- What's more
American than like,

"I don't even wanna
experience nature

unless it's through the
windshield of my car."

- [Henry] This bold
new attraction

is dubbed "Jungle Habitat",

and it opens to great
fanfare in July of 1972.

- [Kavitha] But this is not
a petting zoo.

These are some of the most
dangerous animals in the world.

- Jungle Habitat
brings in 70 lions.

The San Diego Zoo only has nine.
[lion grunts]

- In all over 1,500 animals
up close, unencumbered,

and, very importantly, unfenced.

- [Kavitha] Jungle Habitat
becomes a success almost

off the bat.

It has 250,000 visitors in
just its first three months.

Cars are lining up for up to
seven miles just to get in.

[lion purrs]

- [Jason] But a real African
safari,

you are with trained
professionals in vehicles

especially designed
for the purpose.

In this case,

you're just driving
through in the family car.

- [Kavitha] Animals are walking
around

looking at you
like you're lunch.

- [Henry] In this
drive-through attraction,

a vehicle is not
the safe space

visitors think it will be.

[lion snarls]

- [Jason] From day one, cars are
basically under siege.

Baboons start to tear at cars.

Lions and tigers, they're pawing

and scratching at the
sides of your car.

But most people, one of
the animals on their car,

that's the thrill.

They actually put this
right in their logo.

[suspenseful music]

- [Adam] You have to keep
the windows rolled up.

But this is in the early '70s,

before air conditioning
came standard in most cars,

which means that on like an


it's about 110
degrees in the car.

- [Austin] These cars are
dangerously hot.

So people begin rolling
down their windows.

- [Adam] Just months after
opening, disaster strikes.

A man has rolled the window down

to call and taunt
and tease a lion.

Let me just let that sink in.

A human being is teasing a lion.

- [Kavitha] And the lion reaches
in and mauls him from the front.

He turns around and
gets him from the back

and somehow they
managed to escape.

- [Adam] Believe it or not, the
guy doesn't sue the park.

He blames himself

because, you know,
he taunted a lion.

- [Henry] Most park
visitors are thrilled

by the wild
interactive experience.

But Jungle Habitat's
suburban neighbors

are not so happy
with park security.

- Two wolves sneak out
from under a fence,

baboons escape and send, like,
local schools into lockdown.

You got kangaroos and emus
walking down the street.

- Nobody thinks about
the neighborhoods

around these animal parts.

If those fences aren't
done the right way,

you got yourself a
crocodile in your pool

and a lion in your driveway.

- [Kavitha] In addition to all
of these obvious safety issues,

it's actually turns
out really expensive

to run a park like this.

- [Jason] Just to feed the lions
alone

requires 1,400 pounds
of horse meat per day.

Even though they've got lots
of customers coming through,

they're actually
hemorrhaging money.

- [Kavitha] After just four
years of this death trap of a

zoo, Jungle Habitat
finally closes.

[lion grunts]

- So a lion safari
didn't work out.

But there was a
time not long ago

when you didn't have to drive
anywhere to see wild animals

because they lived
right in your home.

- Throughout the 1900s,

having strange pets
is definitely

an American fascination.

President Calvin Coolidge
has a pet raccoon.

Elvis Presley
has a chimpanzee.

Tippi Hedren, the actress,
Melanie Griffith's mother,

has a pet lion.

I mean, this is
something that's

definitely a status symbol.

- [Henry] But in the 1950s,
an unconventional animal

becomes America's
latest obsession.

- One bizarre animal
that became a pet

for people to own is the skunk.

- Skunks are the smelliest
animals out there.

If you get one of these
in your neighborhood,

you can smell it from
a mile or two away.

But somehow they become pets.

- Skunks have been a
comic trope for decades.

They're in Abbott and Costello,
they're in Disney movies,

they're in The Three Stooges,

and of course, one of my
favorites, Pepe Le Pew.

- [Hakeem] Because cartoon
skunks are so cute,

people are startin'
to soften to them.

So some enterprising
breeders start thinkin',

"Hey, skunks are
having a moment.

Could people buy them as pets?"

- [Henry] Turns out they will.

- So how do you market
a skunk as a pet?

Well, you tell people
they're easily trainable,

they're smart, cuddly, kind.

- [Natalia] People buy them
at fairs and shops

and even through the
mail, Sears and Spiegel,

two big mail order
catalogs, sell them.

And the idea is that
this intelligent,

cute friend of yours
won't spray you

and will be your companion.

- [Jason] And you can see the
appeal.

They're cute.
They're not super big.

Kids would love them because
kids love weird stuff.

The other thing that skunks
give you are something

that maybe no one else
in your neighborhood has.

And so suddenly
you've got something

people are gonna wanna see.

And there was such a
big part of society

about sort of showing off.

If you can get the
newest or the coolest,

maybe you can get the weirdest
and have the strangest pet.

"I don't have a border collie.
I have a skunk."

That's status.

- I would absolutely
own a pet skunk.

How fun would that be?

I would love to
have a pet skunk.

First of all, they eat ticks.

So if you ever get
a tick, you're set

'cause your pet skunk is gonna
eat your ticks off of you.

So that's handy.

They're smart, they're
social, they're cute.

Have you ever seen a
skunk with its babies?

They're so cute.

My favorite thing about
skunks, hands down, literally,

is that they can do a handstand

and point their butt
at you over their back

and spray you in the face.

Like, that's awesome.

- [Rutledge] The idea for a lot
of people

is you could get a
skunk and train it.

You could put it on a leash

and, like, take it for a
walk around the neighborhood.

Everyone's gonna love it.

They're gonna wanna
come up and pet it.

- Oh, baby, baby. What am
I going to do with you?

- [Henry] Soon skunks
are so coveted.

Pet shop owners can't
keep them in stock.

But what about the smell?

- [Jason] Might sound insane,
but these are skunks

that have had their stink
glands surgically removed.

[ominous music]

- [Henry] But while these skunks

might lack their stink glands,

they still have their teeth.

- You would think that a
descented skunk is safe

because it's basically had
its ammunition taken away.

But the thing is that
it can still bite you

and it can still scratch you.

- [Hakeem] Skunks can become
aggressive when threatened.

And they can pack a punch.

I mean, their bite is strong
enough to break your finger.

They have nearly one-inch fangs

that can cause deep
puncture wounds.

And they also have
these long curved claws

for ripping through
soil and roots

that can also slice you
open pretty easily too.

- [Henry] But
scratches and bites

might be the least
of your concerns.

- Skunks are actually the
most common carrier of rabies.

And they're actually also
the most common animal

to transmit rabies to humans,

which includes you, their owner.

- [Natalia] These bites
happen fairly often.

By the time the CDC starts
tracking them in the 1970s,

they find nearly 200 incidents.

- [Dan] If there's a chance, you
have to treat it seriously.

And so for a person
at that time,

that means 20 shots of the
vaccine in the stomach.

Really painful, no fun at all.

- [Henry] As rabies scares
rise, the government steps in.

- [Natalia] Due to this
concern over rabies,

there are ordinances all over

that don't permit them as pets.

And right now, the
vast majority of states

still have those on the books.

- [Hakeem] Today, we got all
these snowflakey pets,

like cats and dogs
that are hypoallergenic

or bred not to bark.

Don't you kinda miss the days

when you could just
pick up a catalog

and order your children
a rabid wild animal

for just 25 bucks?

- Maybe next time
just go with a kitten.

- Lots of people enjoy
riding horses and mules,

and, depending on where you
live, camels and elephants too.

But did you know that
there was once a time

when you could ride birds?

- [Dan] In the 1880s, a Brit
named Edwin Cawston

imports a whole
bunch of ostriches

to his farm in South
Pasadena, California.

He's planning to get rich

selling the feathers
of these birds

because they're really big in
ladies fashion at the time.

- [Kavitha] Most people in South
Pasadena

have never seen an
ostrich up close before.

They're like these
dinosaurs running around.

Pretty soon people are lining
up to gawk at the ostriches,

and he realizes he has this
entirely different business.

People will pay to see
the ostriches on his farm.

- [Henry] Cawston's Ostrich Farm

opens in the city of
South Pasadena in 1896.

Newspapers are soon
raving about it

as one of the nation's most
fascinating attractions.

- [Brian] I would go to an
ostrich farm.

I mean, the whole point of it

is like you're seeing something
that you would never see.

In no world am I running into
an ostrich on Staten Island.

- [Kavitha] People are
fascinated by how fast they can

move, with a top speed of
over 40 miles an hour.

It's not long before
Cawston realizes

that if people are going
to pay to pet these things,

they will pay even
more to ride them.

- [Dan] Cars aren't a thing.

So for the average person,


of a dinosaur with feathers

is the thrill of a lifetime.

- [Henry] Of course, if
you can ride ostriches,

that also means
you can race them.

- [Dan] Ostrich racing becomes
a real thing on the farm,

but it's really hard.

You can't put a saddle on them.

Only do your best to balance

and hang on for dear
life while they take off.

Most ostrich races finish

with nobody actually
on their bird anymore.

- Ostriches, in many ways,
are the worst possible animal

to pick for a
roadside attraction

because they're very aggressive.

They're also very territorial.

That makes them unpredictable.

- [Worker] Hey!

- Ostriches are not
really built to be ridden,

and they don't really
like to be ridden.

So there tend to be
injuries that's gonna happen

when you have people interacting
with large wild animals.

- [Kavitha] There's one incident
where a male ostrich

kicks a farm worker 15 feet,

and then corners him and
starts pecking at him

and attacking him.

And other people have to come
and pull the bird off of him

before he kills this man.

- [Rutledge] In 1913, in the
Tournament of Roses, there was a

race and one rider was actually
thrown off his ostrich

and kicked 20 feet.

Then this ostrich just
takes off into the crowd,

so people are dodging
it left and right,

just having no idea
what's happening.

- [Henry] The Cawston
Ostrich Farm closes in 1935.

- It doesn't go away

because they are
endangering the public.

It goes away because the
Great Depression comes along.

- [Henry] But for a brief time,

Cawston's Ostrich Farm provided
the thrill of a lifetime.

- [Rutledge] You have to
remember, there is no internet,

there's no TV, there's
just experiences.

So when people went to this
ostrich ranch, it was amazing.

It was getting to do this thing

that so few people got to do.

- Ostriches were exotic.

But at the dawn of the 1900s,

the animal causing the
most chaos in America

wasn't exotic at all.

In fact, it's the one animal

Americans couldn't live without.

- [Jason] By 1900, New York City
is home to 170,000 horses.

They're an essential
mode of transportation,

but they have one
major drawback.

- If it were possible
to travel back in time,

the thing that would stun
people is the stink, the smell.

- [Jason] People are flocking
to New York City

thinking the streets
are paved with gold.

Well, as it turns out, most
of the streets aren't paved

and a lot of them are
covered with manure.

- [Edward] The average horse
drops between



on the streets of New
York every single day.

So that's about 25 pounds
times 170,000 horses.

In a year, that's


- [Adam] The Big Apple is not
the only city with a

manure crisis.

A British newspaper
reports that by 1950,

London, England will be
buried in nine feet of dung.

And by that same metric,

New York is gonna be
buried in 30 feet.

- [Jason] City street cleaners
can't keep up.

And besides that, they use
horse-drawn garbage wagons.

So at best, they are two steps
forward and one step back.

- [Martin] Even with modern
technology,

the city of New
York would require

a fleet of 250 garbage trucks

just to clear all of the horse
manure out of the streets

with each passing day.

- [Jason] It's so bad that
those who can afford it

hire these private
crossing sweepers

who can clear a
poop-free path for them.

- [Martin] You think it can't
get worse?

Just wait until it rains.

Rain wouldn't run off
and clean the streets,

instead it would turn the
streets into open sewers.

- All this sitting manure
becomes a hotbed for disease.

Typhoid outbreaks are
running rampant in the city.

- These flies land
on the manure,

and then they go and land
on your arm or your meal.

And that's how the
disease spreads.

- [Jason] Typhoid fever is no
joke.

Severe cases can lead
to internal bleeding

and even kidney failure.

One magazine reports
that horse manure

and the diseases it spreads
contributes to the deaths

of 20,000 people per year.

That's enough people to
fill Madison Square Garden.

- [Henry] And horse owners
often leave more behind

than just their horse's waste.

- [Edward] Many of these
horses are overworked.

And so if they don't
last more than two years

and when they collapse, when
they have a heart attack,

when they drop dead, it's
quite common for the owner

to simply unhook the
harness and roll away,

leaving the carcass
on the street.

- [Martin] So the streets of
Manhattan

were literally littered
by horse corpses.

- [Jason] In 1880 alone, New
York City removes

more than 15,000
dead horse carcasses.

That's more than 40
dead horses per day.

Some cities even leave
the dead horse carcasses

until they start to decompose,

making it easier for them to
be sawn apart and carted away.

Not only do decomposing horses

contribute to health problems,

but they're also
clogging up the streets

and causing traffic jams.

- [Edward] Starting in the early


more and more cars start
hitting the streets in cities.

Cars are cleaner,
they're quieter,

and they're safer than their
four-legged counterparts.

- By 1912, New York City
has more cars than horses,

and eventually they
completely take over.

- Once cars came along,
we left horses behind,

and finally left behind
what they left behind.

- If you visit Yellowstone,

you might get to see a wild
grizzly through your binoculars.

But there was a time

when one of those park's
biggest attractions

involve those same grizzlies
and a front row seat.

[whimsical music]

- [Martin] In 1872,
Yellowstone in Wyoming

becomes our first national park.

After the Civil w*r, we
wanted something beautiful

that we could all take pride in.

- It's a place of
amazing natural beauty,

the hot springs, the
geysers, the falls.

But it turns out to be a place

that's not really
that easy to visit

and it's not getting as much
attendance as was hoped.

- [Henry] Yellowstone
is looking like a flop.

So in 1919, a national
park service bigwig

named Horace Albright
has one big idea

to breathe life
into Yellowstone.

- Horace Albright decides

that the way to get
crowds to Yellowstone

is to give them a show.

And the bears of Yellowstone
are perfect to do just that.

[bear whining]

- [Martin] And so Albright's
idea is to provide opportunities

for people to feed the bears.

So he creates feeding stations.

People drive into the park,
roll down their windows,

and offer food out the
window to the bears.

And the bears love it.

Even President Warren G. Harding

and President Calvin
Coolidge visit Yellowstone

and feed the bears.

- [Natalia] At first this seems
like a win-win situation.

Park attendants is way up,

and of course the
bears are getting fed.

- [Martin] The problem is
more and more garbage

is being produced
within the park,

and the park administration

needs to get rid
of that garbage.

And the bears will basically
eat absolutely anything.

So they decide to dump
all of the park's garbage

on a platform that the
bears can approach.

- [Don] They have this sign that
says

"Lunch Counter. For bears only."

And then they build benches.

So it creates a little stadium

that people can watch
just a few feet away.

- [Henry] But everyone
keeps forgetting

they're quite literally
feeding a beast.

- The safety issue
is quite serious.

Grizzly bears at Yellowstone
reach about 700 pounds.

They're the apex
predator in the park.

[bears whining]

- [Lance] In 1930, a Texas woman
feeds a bear a candy bar,

and the bear says thank
you by mauling her arm.

From the 1930s to the 1960s,

an average of 48 people per year

are injured by the
bears at Yellowstone.

- [Don] Cars are attacked,
tents are ripped open,

campers get bitten and clawed.

- [Henry] In 1967,
the park is forced

to face the increasing danger

when bears k*lled two people
at another national park,

and the last thing
Yellowstone wants is a repeat.

- This is a huge wake-up call.

So the rangers begin a program

to return the bears to their
natural feeding habits.

Now, instead of bear
lunch counter signs,

you see signs that say
"Don't feed the bears."

- [Lance] So today the park is
much safer, the bears are wild

again, but it's also difficult
to see a bear in Yellowstone.

- [Martin] There's a part
of me that knows

that this was
irresponsible stewardship

of a natural resource.

But then there's a part
of me that would be like,

"Oh yeah, baby, sign me up."

I would love to have
seen something like this.

- So feeding bears didn't
work out all that well.

But some Americans looked at
the situation and thought,

"You know what would
be even better?

Fighting one."

- For most of human history,
if a man was wrestling a bear,

it was not by choice, it
was a matter of survival.

And then it became a form of
entertainment in the 1800s.

[contemplative music]

The very first sanctioned

man versus bear wrestling
match in America

took place in 1877.

Maybe you're picturing
some backwoods venue,

maybe in the woods or on some
farms surrounded by hay bales.

[dramatic thud]

- This was on 13th
Street in Manhattan.

You could go into Manhattan
and watch a bear fight a man.

[perplexed music]

- [Don] The place is a 300-seat
auditorium in New York City

with a tavern on
the ground floor,

- [Michele] And the man who ran
the tavern actually had the idea

to set up this event as
a way to sell more beer.

- [Henry] The beer-selling
attraction is a success

and some unlikely
stars are born.

- The funny thing

about the man versus
bear wrestling matches

is that the bears are the
ones who become famous.

Lena and Martin, two of
the bears, go out on tour

fighting whoever
will take them on.

- [Henry] Now, surprisingly,
Lena's fame would dim

when she kills an
opponent in 1878.

Danger be damned, the
matches don't lose steam.

In fact, they gain
mainstream attention.

[unsettling music]

- Gene DuBois, a Canadian
wrestler, decided to buy a bear

and take it on kind of a
sideshow type of experience

where he'd go to venues and
he would wrestle this bear

in front of crowds.

[crowd cheering]

- [Michele] His name was
Terrible Ted.

Gene DuBois took
Terrible Ted around

to wrestle famous wrestlers,
including Rocky Johnson,

who most people today
would know better

as the father of Dwayne
"The Rock" Johnson.

- [Henry] While all this seems
like the wild olden days,

man versus bear matches are
still happening in the 1980s.

- If I can get down low on
him, I'm gonna take him.

I've got it in my blood,
I'm gonna take him.

- They're doing
this at local bars.

[crowd cheering]

Even shopping malls.

Imagine you're going into the
mall just to buy some sneakers

and you see a guy
wrestling a bear.

- [Crowd Member]
Hit 'em in the head.

[crowd cheering]

- I remember when I was a kid

seeing highlights
of Chuck Wepner.

Chuck Wepner was
The Bayone Bleeder

who fought Muhammad Ali.

He inspired the "Rocky" movie.

He ended up later in his career

just wrestling bears,
fighting bears.

- [Brian] In the end, these
wrestling matches

go away for safety reasons.

But not for our safety,
for the bear's safety.

And that's not the
way you thought

that was gonna go at all.

[crowd cheering]

- One hundred years of
man versus bear.

The men got mauled,
the bears got famous,

and the audience, they
got their money's worth.

- Modern medicine
owes a lot to animals.

We use them to develop
medications, test treatments,

and even practice surgeries.

But in the 1920s,
a surgeon in Kansas

took that concept in
a direction nobody,

and I mean nobody saw coming.

[thrilling music]

- In the 1800s, when
people think of impotence,

they think of it as
a depletion of sperm.

Therefore, doctors will
prescribe to not masturbate

as that is a waste of your sperm

and could yield more impotence.

Furthermore, doctors
will prescribe

so-called cures like opium
or bleeding or quinine.

- [Henry] A doctor
named John Brinkley

comes up with a more
permanent solution.

- [Brian] Imagine you have a
problem and you go to the

doctor, and the doctor says,
"I can help you.

And the way I'm gonna do that

is by slicing open your scrotum

and putting like
little nut-sized goat

testicles inside of you."

- [Steve] John Brinkley,
who's supposed to be

this super sophisticated doctor

with this super star degree,

he has this procedure
to sew a goat's testicle

into a man's scrotum.

[pensive music]

- [Austin] Brinkley assures
his willing patient

that the goat's sex gland

will naturally bond with his
organs and his blood vessels

and become a functioning
part of his body.

- And so he gains a
big, big following.

People beat a path through
his door for this procedure.

- [Henry] There is such a demand
for Dr. Brinkley's services

that he branches out.

- He thinks what's
good for the goose

must be good for the gander.

So he comes up with
a brilliant idea

of transplanting goat
ovaries into female patients

to help them deal with
their pregnancy issues.

- [Steve] People were so
desperate to fix these problems.

Brinkley was charging
people $750 a procedure,

which is $12,000
in today's money.

- [Henry] Despite the price,

thousands are flocking
to his clinic for a cure,

and it raises suspicion at the
American Medical Association.

- [Austin] Morris Fishbein, the
editor

of the Journal of the
American Medical Association,

soon wages a personal
and medical crusade

against Dr. Brinkley as a fraud.

- Turns out that, quote,
"Dr. John Brinkley"

isn't even a real doctor.

His degree is from
a sham university.

Goat transplants are bad enough,

but dude isn't even
a trained surgeon.

He's just out here wildin',

slicing through scrotums,
ruining people's lives.

- Any success story reported
by Dr. Brinkley's patients

is likely due to
the placebo effect.

It's basically a mind trick.

They were not really
cured but they

led themselves to believe
that they had been cured.

- [Hakeem] Think about it.

Who's gonna come forward in
the 1920s, or even today,

and say that their
goat testicle implants

designed to treat
impotency didn't work

and so now they want a refund?

No one.

- Goat and implant are two words

you do not wanna hear in the
same sentence from your doctor.

But what do the words
butterfly, chloroform,

and cyanide mean to you?

Believe it or not, to
the kids of the 1950s,

it meant the most wholesome
hobby you can imagine.

- [Natalia] In 1951, Alexander
B. Klots releases this book,

"A Field Guide to
the Butterflies,"

which becomes the bible
for butterfly collectors

around the country.

- [Austin] America is suddenly
crazy for butterflies.

Clubs spring up,
schools send kids out

into fields with nets,

seeing what butterflies
they come up with.

It's a huge craze
and it's everywhere.

- [Natalia] The butterflies are
beautiful.

But if you really
wanna collect them,

[fingers snapping]

you have to k*ll them.

- [Austin] Butterflies are very
delicate.

Their wings are paper thin.

So k*lling a butterfly by
force will wreck your specimen.

- [Adam] k*lling something
without profound overt physical

damage has long met the use of
one thing in particular, poison.

With cyanide being at
the top of that list.

Cyanide is what they famously
put in the flavor aid punch

at Jonestown to k*ll everybody.

- [Lance] Cyanide, for as deadly
as it is, was crazy easy to get.

You can order it, mail order it,

you can get it out
of a science catalog.

- [Henry] And kids
can take it right out

of their own chemistry sets.

- [Natalia] Kitchen tables turn
into these little science labs,

and kids set them up with their
wax paper, with their pins,

and of course with
their k*lling jar.

- [Lance] Everybody that's
collecting butterflies

has their k*lling jar.

And you just take a
standard glass jar,

you dump in a few
cyanide pellets,

you screw the lid on top.

And so you have a perfect
specimen every time.

No big deal.

- [Austin] It's not like people
don't know

that this stuff is dangerous.

It's been proven for decades.

In 1923, a collector Martin
A. Meyer was found dead

next to his k*lling jar.

People know this is toxic stuff,

but they're still
using this chemical.

- Now, this breaks
my brain a little bit

because at some
point hobbyists say,

"Wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait, wait.

We can't give cyanide
poison to children.

We need to find a
safer alternative.

What chemical should
we give children

to use for their hobby?"

- [Negin] Eventually they ended
up substituting chloroform.

[intriguing music]

Just so you know
what chloroform is,

it's that thing you see a
lot in, like, spy movies

where they put it on
someone, they breathe it,

and they immediately,
like, collapse.

That's chloroform.

And in the 1950s,
it's just kind of like

readily available to you.

- [Natalia] The movies make
chloroform look like melatonin,

but it is not that.

- [Adam] In real life,
chloroform creates respiratory

failure, cardiac arrest, kidney
damage, liver damage,

and, oh, what's
that called, death.

- [Natalia] In 1960, the Federal
Hazardous Substances

Labeling Act draws a line.

Anything with a
serious toxin in it

has to carry a label that
says "Danger Poison."

And it's prohibited from
being sold to children.

- By the 1960s, schools
and clubs moved to new ways

of asphyxiating
your butterflies.

Ethyl acetate jars, short
freezing, carbon dioxide.

All of these new methods
are way safer for the kids.

For the butterflies,
though, not so much.

[quirky music]

- Cyanide on the kitchen table

right next to the peanut butter,

the '50s were somethin' else.

- There are a lot of things
kids can do with a goldfish.

Feed it, watch it, name it.

Well, in 1939, a Harvard student

came up with one more, eat it.

- [Adam] It's March of 1939,

and there is a freshman
at Harvard University

in Cambridge, Massachusetts

by the name of
Lothrop Withington.

He tells his friends that
he is going to swallow

a live goldfish.

- [Austin] His friends laugh,
they don't believe him,

and they plunk down a $10 bet,

that's $200 in today's money,

saying, "No way, Lothrop,
you're not gonna do this."

- And so he picks up a goldfish

and kinda wriggles it
around in front of his face.

- [Adam] He holds it over his
mouth.

It rides back and
forth once or twice,

and then he drops it in.

Swallows it.

[speaker gulps]

- [Henry] With that one gulp,

the biggest craze since
dance marathons is born.

- The craze spreads
to other schools.

But now it's not just, "Can
you swallow a goldfish,"

it's, "How many goldfish
can you swallow?"

Just around the corner at MIT,

one student reportedly
swallows 29.

At rival Ivy League
Penn, they swallow 42.

The record allegedly is 89
goldfish in one sitting.

- [Henry] But as anyone
who has rolled the dice

on sketchy sushi can tell you,

raw fish sometimes bites back.

- The safety issues around
goldfish swallowing,

I think, are pretty clear.

- [Kavitha] Trying to quickly
swallow 89 of anything,

is really not a good idea,

let alone a live goldfish
that's flopping around.

It could cause you to choke if
it gets stuck in your throat

or can cut off your airway if
you accidentally inhale it.

So goldfish are really not
meant for mass consumption.

- [Austin] Things get so bad the
US Public Health Service steps

in and warns everyone.

Goldfish have tapeworms.

Tapeworms are going
to give you anemia.

- [Henry] The only people
who don't seem concerned

are the colleges themselves.

- [Adam] What's crazier is that
some

of the goldfish
swallowing events

are actually campus sanctioned.

- [Lance] It's news.
They're in Life magazine.

Why wouldn't you
swallow goldfish

to get into Life magazine?

So no one's putting
the brakes on this.

- [Negin] In one particular case
at MIT,

a hundred kids come to watch
it and three policemen,

not to break it up,
but to actually enjoy

the spectacle of
goldfish eating.

- [Henry] But once a craze
draws big crowds and the cops,

the next thing it draws
is serious scrutiny.

- [Austin] In April 1939, a
member of the Massachusetts

legislature introduces a bill to
protect and preserve fish

from cruel and
wanton consumption.

- [Henry] But what really kills
goldfish swallowing is time.

Like all fans, it
simply runs its course.

- [Lance] Years later, they
track down Lothrop Withington,

and now he's a
successful businessman

who apparently is not
swallowing live animals anymore,

and he said that it was a
case of mind over matter.

He didn't mind, and
that fish didn't matter.

- There was a time when the
scariest thing in your mailbox

wasn't your credit card bill.

It was something
with actual teeth.

- [Edward] The golden age
of the comic book

is the 1930s, '40s and '50s.

This is where America is
introduced to superheroes

like Captain America,
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman.

- One of the most
iconic elements

of classic comic
books of the time

are really these
over-the-top ads.

You know, you can order
things like X-ray specs,

whoopee cushions,
and even live pets.

- [Natalia] For 1895, a company
in Miami Beach, Florida

will send you a real live
squirrel monkey in the mail.

- [Edward] A monkey coming
through the mail

with no real instructions
about its care, its food.

It says actually that they
can eat anything you eat,

and also they love lollipops,

which probably don't
exist in the jungles

from which they come.

- [Natalia] Most customers think
they're getting a cute,

furry little creature.

They are completely unprepared
for what they're getting

and what the challenges will be.

- [Jason] Squirrel monkeys
require an insane level of care.

And two common
squirrel monkey traits,

throwing feces and
frequent masturbation.

[quirky music]

- [Henry] But still
squirrel monkey fever

sweeps over the United
States in the '60s and '70s.

- [Edward] As many as 173,000
squirrel monkeys

are imported from
Peru and Colombia

during this time period.

- [Natalia] This would never
happen today.

There are so many
regulations about sending

live animals
through the mail.

[monkey chittering]

- When they arrive, they're
hungry, they're angry.

- You'd open the box and
that monkey would jump out

and bite the first
person it sees.

- [Negin] And there's just
reports about,

you know, someone's
aunt gettin' bitten,

a kid getting bitten,
just like it's nuts.

- [Jason] It's probably no
surprise that by the late '70s

the ads for live monkeys, they
disappear from comic books.

I can't imagine there were
too many repeat customers.

[monkey chittering]

- 173,000 monkeys made the
trip through the US mail

and lived to throw
feces another day.

- Imagine a petting zoo.

Now, replace every animal
in it with an alligator.

Well, that's exactly
what one man did,

and it went about as
well as you'd expect.

- [Dan] In the early 1900s,

there are these three
forms of public attractions

that are becoming huge: zoos,
circuses, and amusement parks.

People are lining up
like crazy for 'em.

- [Henry] That's when a
man named Hubert Campbell

decides that he can get rich

by combining all three
into one attraction.

- Hubert Campbell is
a man on a mission.

He wants a visitor attraction

that has the feel of
a nature preserve,

sort of an interactive
zoo, and he hits on it.

He's gonna open
an alligator park.

- This guy's an out
there character.

He used to perform in the
Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.

He has a lifelong passion
for large reptiles,

and he's even earned the
nickname Alligator Joe.

- [Jason] So he gets a business
partner named Francis Earnest,

and together they decide
to bring alligators

to Southern California.

They start the Los
Angeles alligator farm.

- [Henry] Admission
is a quarter.

And for that low price,

visitors enter a world
of reptilian wonder.

- [Jason] This is not some
little sideshow attraction

where there's one alligator
or two, or even 20.

This is alligator nation.

- [Austin] They bring in


who just roam freely through
this barely contained park,

in the center of a
residential LA neighborhood.

It's like Jurassic
Park with worse fences.

- [Adam] Now, contrary to what
you might be thinking,

gators are not super trainable.

But somehow Alligator Joe
works his Alligator Joe magic,

and he has them doing
little tricks and stunts,

including going
down water slides.

- [Jason] Which is pretty
remarkable

when you think some
of these alligators

are like 15 feet long.

They even have shows
where you can watch

some of their trainers
wrestling with the alligators.

You put that on a billboard,

yeah, that's gonna
get people to come.

- [Natalia] The farm even lets
you handle baby alligators.

This is where Joe is
really onto something.

He's creating his own
lane and people love it.

- [Adam] Families can just
mingle with the animals,

pose freely with no
barriers between them

and one of nature's most
efficient, ruthless,

and deadly predators.

- [Natalia] Parents are placing
toddlers on alligators for photo

ops and other kids
are riding them.

- [Brian] As a kid, I would love
to see the alligators,

but I really would like a fence.

- [Natalia] The gift shop even
sells baby alligators

to take home.

They tell parents, "Don't worry.

When they get too big or bity,

you can come back and trade
them in for a smaller one."

It's unreal to imagine.

- [Lance] Normally when
you go to the zoo,

you might get a stuffed
animal as a souvenir

to remind you of the animals
that you saw at the zoo.

You don't usually get to
take home a live animal

to keep in your bathtub.

- [Natalia] There's also this
educational angle to the

alligator farm.

You can go see, like,
the eggs in incubators.

You can see them being hatched.

- [Adam] There's even
sort of a gator ER

where they can see gators
recovering from injuries,

which are pretty frequent

because alligators are
wildly territorial.

[alligator growls]

- [Natalia] Some of those
injuries were incredibly brutal.

Because when they fight,

they're taking chunks
out of each other.

- [Adam] Surprisingly enough,
the barriers around the park

are so shoddy that
alligators are escaping.

And alligators are being
found in people's pools

and backyards all the time.

- [Henry] Yet for decades,
no one seems to bat an eye

at this hoard of apex
predators in the middle of LA.

But eventually disaster strikes.

- [Don] In 1925, Francis
Earnest's seven-year-old son

climbs into the enclosure.

One of those gators leaps up

and grabs Francis
Jr. by the hand.

It takes his uncle gouging
out the eyes of that gator

to finally get
the mouth to open.

By some miracle, Francis
Jr. survives this attack.

But no one's calling for the
gator farm to be shut down.

- [Henry] Eventually,
Alligator Joe's attraction

falls victim not to
lawsuits or bad press,

but annoyed neighbors.

- In the 1950s, this part of LA

starts becoming more
densely populated

and people have had
it with the park.

They're sick of alligators
roaming the neighborhood.

- [Dan] Today, alligator
farms do still exist.

And you can still
hold baby alligators,

but toddlers are not
allowed to ride them,

and you definitely can't
take one home with you.

- Looking back on our
relationship with animals,

whether it was riding
ostriches, wrestling bears,

or even cuddling
up to a pet skunk,

sometimes we got a little
too close for comfort.

But without them,

our hazardous history
wouldn't be as wild.

[dramatic music fades]