Chris

Something True 2: Class Clowns

Recommended Posts

Something True 2:

Something True 2


Class Clowns
What is history's greatest prank? There's the intimate—perching a bucket of water over the door. And the grandly ambitious—say, humiliating an entire navy. These are some good pranks indeed. But history's greatest prank was something much stranger... and much darker.

Read a full transcript of this episode on the Something True website.

Follow Something true on Twitter @atruepodcast. (Or just follow Duncan and Alex.)

Music on this week’s episode:
Jahzzar – Roads that Burned our Boots*
Jahzzar – Railroad’s Whiskey Co*
Josh Woodward – Water in the Creek*
Alialujah Choir – After All*
Abunai! – Dreaming of Light*
Josh Woodward – Crazy Glue*

*modified for the podcast.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm very very confused by this series. I love it: the writing, reading, and general production is brilliant, but I don't know how much of it is ever true. Finding out Laddie Boy actually existed was a surprise!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, pabosher said:

I'm very very confused by this series. I love it: the writing, reading, and general production is brilliant, but I don't know how much of it is ever true. Finding out Laddie Boy actually existed was a surprise!

 

It's cheeky but they are true stories:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_hoax:

Quote

The Dreadnought hoax was a practical joke pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the battleship HMS Dreadnought, to a fake delegation of Abyssinian royals. The hoax drew attention in Britain to the emergence of the Bloomsbury Group, among whom some of Cole's collaborators numbered. The hoax was a repeat of a similar impersonation which Cole and Adrian Stephen had organised while they were students at Cambridge in 1905.

 

http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/03/the-rhodes-roster.html:

Quote

 

Another Lampoon president, John Updike, found himself challenged by both the law and Soviet diplomats after a prank. The crime: kidnapping. On April 26, 1953, in the midst of a long-running stand-off between the Lampoon and the Harvard Crimson, Updike and his fellow Lampoon editors were dismayed to find Threskiornis aethiopica, the Lampoon's copper ibis, missing from its perch atop the Lampoon castle. The usual suspects, of course, were Crimsoneditors.

 

The 'Poonsters wasted no time striking back. Later the same day, the Crimson reported the disappearance of its president and managing editor, Michael Maccoby '54 and George S. Abrams '54. Maccoby and Abrams would be returned only in exchange for the ibis, an anonymous caller told the Crimson. Updike then made the threat public: "[N]o Crimson editor can rest safe in his bed," he informed the paper. "We promise, within a week, to depopulate Cambridge totally of this unfortunate element."

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_Islands#History:

Quote

In October 1820, the whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket, stopped at the Galápagos for these purposes on its way to the Offshore Grounds. On what was then known as Charles Island, while most of the crew were hunting tortoises one crewmember, English boatsteerer Thomas Chappel, for reasons still unclear, lit a fire which quickly burned out of control. Some of the tortoise hunters had a narrow escape and had to run a gauntlet of fire to get back to the ship. Soon almost the entire island was in flames. Crewmembers reported that after a day of sailing away they could still see the flames against the horizon. One crewmember who returned to the Galápagos several years afterward described the entire island as still a blackened wasteland.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I figured that the events were true, but I'm suspicious of 'artistic flourishes' for the sake of humour and good storytelling. Like the wikipedia article says that 'for reasons still unclear' when it comes to Thomas Chappel burning down the island. Something true claims that it was because Chappel was a merry prankster. My suspicion is that it's not true that these were all treated as lighthearted pranks. I mean, Harvard students kidnapped people. That's unbelievable as is, but add in a 'oh boys will be boys' response and it seems like an outlandish exaggeration.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, aquason said:

I figured that the events were true, but I'm suspicious of 'artistic flourishes' for the sake of humour and good storytelling. Like the wikipedia article says that 'for reasons still unclear' when it comes to Thomas Chappel burning down the island. Something true claims that it was because Chappel was a merry prankster. My suspicion is that it's not true that these were all treated as lighthearted pranks. I mean, Harvard students kidnapped people. That's unbelievable as is, but add in a 'oh boys will be boys' response and it seems like an outlandish exaggeration.

 

As someone who can neither confirm nor deny that one of the items in our high school senior year scavenger hunt (a tradition at the school) may have been an eight grader...well it doesn't sound like much exaggeration to me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 4/4/2017 at 7:36 PM, aquason said:

I figured that the events were true, but I'm suspicious of 'artistic flourishes' for the sake of humour and good storytelling. Like the wikipedia article says that 'for reasons still unclear' when it comes to Thomas Chappel burning down the island. Something true claims that it was because Chappel was a merry prankster. My suspicion is that it's not true that these were all treated as lighthearted pranks. I mean, Harvard students kidnapped people. That's unbelievable as is, but add in a 'oh boys will be boys' response and it seems like an outlandish exaggeration.

 

We're going to add authors notes and further reading to go along with episode transcriptions, to help reduce mystery and ambiguity on this front.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't see Chappell burning up an island as anybody's idea of a joke. My guess was that he was simple minded and really not responsible for his behavior. Pollard did not see any point of more severe punishment because it would be wasted on Chappell. 

 

Not funny to anyone 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I simply loved this episode, especially the story of Chappell, which is sort of a mixture of different famous stories, from Darwin and the Galapagos trip to Herman Melville and the Moby Dick, In the middle of these amazing stories is this complete nitwit, who actually survived the whole ordeal despite being really obtuse. Fantastic story!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay, so how did Chappell get rescued? What about the men who stayed on the boat? Someone must have identified Chappell as the arsonist, otherwise you wouldn't be telling us. So, who identified him? They couldn't have all died in the middle of the ocean! How is this story an arson story instead of a lost-at-sea story? These men almost died... and we're focusing on an arson? Arson happens a lot to this day. It's not nearly so interesting as getting lost a sea because a whale busted open your ship! I want details, and I am having a hard time googling this stuff. What were your sources?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now