← Radiolab
Radiolab
Happy Birthday Bobby K
00:29:33
It’s Robert’s birthday! (Or it was, anyway, a couple days back.) So today we celebrate with some classic Krulwich radio and a backwards peek into the spirit and sensibility that, in many ways, drives our show. For his birthday surprise we all listened to some old NPR pieces that Robert did in the 70s, 80s and early 90s — a news piece on the dawn of the ATM, a fake opera on interest rates, and the story of a family business splintered into relatives fighting to be first in the phone book. Along the way, we hear some incredible stories from Robert’s life … And, just to celebrate the man whose infectious curiosity draws so many people (including us) to his side … we share with you the kind of gonzo, full-throated Krulwich story we usually can’t include in the show … an epic of secret zoos, sewing machines, an alligator farm, a marching band, and a bus full of French tourists that save the day.
Loading summary
Transcript121 lines
- [00:00]
Robert Krulwich
Your new home is now ready. Dr. Horton, America's builder, has new homes that are ready today with new construction communities in Ellensburg and throughout the Greater Seattle area. Dr. Horton has the right home for you. At Dr. Horton, we're still building with flexible living spaces, smart home technology, and two and three car garages. More communities and more homes available every day. Find your new home in Ellensburg now ready@dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal Housing Opportunity Builder.
- [00:31]
Jad Abumrad
Hey, Fidelity.
- [00:33]
Ellen Horn
How can I remember to invest every month?
- [00:36]
Robert Krulwich
With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs. Oh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this?
- [00:46]
Jad Abumrad
Yeah, I do.
- [00:47]
Ellen Horn
Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them.
- [00:54]
Robert Krulwich
Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, llc. Member nyse, sipc.
- [01:03]
Ellen Horn
One day only Thanksgiving Day deals are coming to Lowes.com/members get early access to online Black Friday doorbuster deals on gifting favorites like the still trending cobalt mini toolbox for just $14.98. Don't miss. Up to 50% off for one day only at Lowes.com we help you save. Battled 1127 only on Lowes.com, member only doorbusters and Midnight Eastern loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. See lowe's.com terms for details. Subject to change while supplies last.
- [01:34]
Robert Krulwich
Oh, wait, you're listening. Okay.
- [01:36]
Ellen Horn
All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab, Radio Lab shorts from wny. See?
- [01:50]
Robert Krulwich
And npr.
- [01:57]
Jad Abumrad
Yes, exactly.
- [02:01]
Ellen Horn
So a couple days ago, we did this thing. We got Robert into the studio when.
- [02:04]
Robert Krulwich
I noticed that he's not wearing his.
- [02:05]
Ellen Horn
Headphones on, and we ambushed him.
- [02:08]
Robert Krulwich
Happy birthday.
- [02:11]
Ellen Horn
The whole staff rushed in singing, cake, the whole deal. Now, Robert famously hates his birthday.
- [02:19]
Robert Krulwich
I have spent such a long time trying to hide my birthday from everybody.
- [02:23]
Ellen Horn
But you can't really hide your birthday these days. And I have had the extremely good fortune to work with this man for over 10 years. So if you'll excuse us just this once, we want to take this podcast to celebrate Mr. Robert Krulwich.
- [02:35]
Robert Krulwich
So, Robert, we didn't just bring you.
- [02:37]
Jad Abumrad
In here for cake and to listen.
- [02:39]
Robert Krulwich
To things, to walk down memory lane. We were sort of thinking. But we would love to share some of your earlier work as the next podcast. No talk about it.
- [02:50]
Ellen Horn
That's our executive producer, Ellen Horn. She dug up a bunch of his old work from the archives, and he eventually agreed to let us play some. And it's really interesting to hear this stuff because I'm not sure a lot of people who listen to Radiolab really get how much Robert's sensibility drives this show. Like his combination of theater and play and his desire to sound different than other stuff on the radio and to ignore the rules, but always, always in service of a genuine attempt to understand or explain something. And also, it's just amazing how many creative lives he lived before he came to Radiolab. Like, here's one. Here's a piece from 1979, which is just a few years after NPR began.
- [03:28]
Robert Krulwich
Banks. These days, you've noticed they're trying out new systems. More and more we're being asked to deal with machines instead of tellers. And that's the way the banks want it. According to our business correspondent Robert Krulwich.
- [03:40]
Jad Abumrad
Right here in Washington, a few doors away from National Public Radio, there's a company that offers you a chance at a colored television set. And they have a treasure chest with 10 Susan B. Anthony dollars inside, which could be yours if you are willing to stand through a three minute demonstration of their new automatic teller system.
- [03:57]
Robert Krulwich
I don't know. That's sort of a period I went through. Strongly nasal, because I thought nasal was sort of powerful. I think if you have a nose, you should use it.
- [04:05]
Ellen Horn
And the piece is actually about how banks are starting these crazy things called ATMs, and people are a little freaked out.
- [04:11]
Robert Krulwich
I've had some interesting problems with these machines. They have eaten my card from time to time. You mean they mutilated?
- [04:18]
Ellen Horn
No, they go and at one point, Robert, in order to explain why the banks were lobbying so hard for these ATMs, he almost bursts into song.
- [04:28]
Jad Abumrad
Okay, we're ready. You send the check to Sears. Sears deposits the check in its bank. The bank sends a check to a regional bank. From there it goes to your regional bank, which is in your very own area. They mail it back to your hometown bank, which mails it back to you in a statement you get at the end of the month, the check shows up in the packet, hopefully. Now remember, if you listen the whole thing through, that is four different mailings for just one check with all that postage. Now, wouldn't it be cheaper. The banks argue to stop mailing the check from place to place. Place and try another. That system is called electronic fund transfer. And already to cut down on postage and on handling.
- [05:04]
Robert Krulwich
This is painful for me.
- [05:08]
Ellen Horn
Here's another one we listened to. It's also from 1979. This one is a report about. Well, a report in quotes about interest rates.
- [05:16]
Robert Krulwich
There is intense pressure from two different.
- [05:18]
Jad Abumrad
Groups for changes in interest rates. One group wants them down, the other group wants them up even higher.
- [05:24]
Robert Krulwich
Both sides are powerful and important to our economy, and the ins and outs of their struggles are worse worthy of an opera.
- [05:30]
Jad Abumrad
In fact, they are an opera.
- [05:35]
Robert Krulwich
And now, from the Palazzo Verdi, we present this live performance of Alfredo Tucci's immortal opera Ratto Interesso. And here is our host, Seward Chapman.
- [05:47]
Jad Abumrad
Thank you very much. There aren't very many operas that deal exclusively with the subject of interest rates, but this one, I think, is the most magnificent of all. Tucci wrote it, we're told, in a single afternoon after a traumatic event that, according to his biographer, Stanislau Brigt, scarred him for life. Bricht says that Tucci was walking along a road in the city when passing by in a tram, he saw the exquisitely beautiful Sylvia Fine. And as she rode by, he knew that he wanted desperately to meet her. Although he was a poor composer, he decided that he would send her a gift that would impress her, and he chose wall to wall carpeting. In order to get the money for the carpet, though, he had to get a household finance loan. To his horror, he found out what the interest rates were on the loan. And as he writes in his aria, ecce, Ecce, they were prohibitive. Our first act today closely follows these real life events. And as the act opens, we're in the Italian section of Louisville, Kentucky, where Angelina, who also wants a wall to wall carpet, learns that the interest rate is 18 and a half percent. The scene begins as she gasps in astonishment and resolves not to buy the carpet. Non carpacio blah. She and her friend Nina tell this to the carpet seller, Perugino. Perugino is greatly disturbed and says, yo valho per se. The businessman's lament is what he sings. I see we're now ready for the act to begin. As Angelina learns that she cannot afford her carpet. Now they go to Pericino.
- [07:34]
Robert Krulwich
He is not happy. So here's the thing about this. Paul Volker, at the time was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And what I do in Act 3 is I take Paul and I from a press conference that he was in which I was at, and I cut him into the opera. Ladies and gentlemen, we're face to face with economic difficulties, really unique in our experience. The question of whether we should be putting another screw to interest rates is. It's just one of those walking on a razor edge right now.
- [08:45]
Jad Abumrad
Beautifully performed of Alfredo Tucci's interesterazo particularly by Mr. Khan, who's getting a standing ovation. Mr. Khan, followed by Mr. Voca.
- [08:53]
Ellen Horn
I can't believe that that was on National Public Radio.
- [08:56]
Robert Krulwich
That was the crazy days. We could we did things then like I I interviewed an anchovy. They aired all that kind of stuff.
- [09:03]
Ellen Horn
So there was no there was no gatekeepers. We're like, no, no. After the opera, we listened to something from 1992, which would be just after I graduated high school. And here Robert teams up with a couple of actors and comedians to do a sort of a yearly recap thing.
- [09:19]
Jad Abumrad
I'm Robert Krulwich, and welcome to the second annual edition of Backfire. This program has been a tradition on NPR since 1991, and this is the occasion when we gather to review the events of the year, in this case, the year 1992. And once again, we were able to round up our regular observers. Buck Henry is a screenwriter and a pundit.
- [09:38]
Ellen Horn
He wrote the movie the Graduate, by the way.
- [09:39]
Jad Abumrad
Jane Curtin is an actress and a.
- [09:41]
Ellen Horn
Pundit, original cast, Saturday Night Live Tony.
- [09:43]
Jad Abumrad
Hendra, a pundit, famous satirist and a pundit. And all three of you now a double pundit. A double pundit in Tony's case. Let's have the first question, and it's.
- [09:51]
Robert Krulwich
From me, ROBERT krulwich, pundit, what was.
- [09:55]
Jad Abumrad
The real explanation for President Bush's collapse? This is now all the way back a year ago at the state dinner at Tokyo.
- [10:02]
Robert Krulwich
You recall the event? BUCK I do indeed. He collapsed and more importantly, he vomited on the he was at the prime minister or the foreign minister on the prime minister's lap. But Bush, as you know, is an anomal name anyway. Bush is the sound that you make when you throw up. So he could have simply been responding to someone saying, by the way, what is your name? And the sushi came with is also, as I have read my history, a custom of world leaders from time to time to throw up on the lap of the minister of a friendly government. It demonstrates confidence in your host, a sense of the excellence of the dinner being served, and a tradition of giving back something you've been given, Bush being the consummate politician of giving his all.
- [10:54]
Jad Abumrad
How then do you account for the surprised expression and the lack of delight, really, on the face of the prime minister when receiving this gift from President Bush?
- [11:05]
Robert Krulwich
I think it was because it was done after the first course as opposed to after the complete meal. In India, you simply throw your dinner in the face of your host before ingesting it. I'd like to point out, by the way, that there is some misconception here, which is that this was a single event. It's actually. Apparently this habit of throwing up in the nearest stranger's lap was not just a question of courtesy. It's something that Bush has done ever since he was a little boy. And in fact, it's the origin of his nickname, Poppy, because his mother, Momsey, used to refer to his inveterate habit of upchucking as popping. In fact, his original family nickname was Projectile Poppy. This would go on. We would do this for two hours. And Manoli, who was our. She would not even smile. There were sections where we would, like, this was the least listened to program in all of NPR. They reduced us from 12 a year to two a year to one. Only on New Year's Eve at 10pm do you know what it's like to be scheduled for 10pm on New Year's Eve. That means you have failed. But then this is how life works. I'm sitting in my house and the phone rings and it's the White House. And some guy says, do you. Is your group available like, next March 3rd? I mean, we want him in the East Room. I said, of the White House? She goes, yeah. I said, well, I don't think you do. I said, maybe you should just ask whoever's idea this was to like, vet it or something. So about two weeks pass and then the phoneme said, well, it's good news and bad news. I listened to it and yes, it isn't funny, but the people who think it's funny is a person and is the President of the United States. So that's the deal. And.
- [12:57]
Ellen Horn
And what happened?
- [12:58]
Robert Krulwich
So we went. We went to the East Room and it was incredible, really. My wife was there. You look across at your wife and you're at the White House, the President laughing at these dumb jokes. There are certain moments where you feel strangely blessed, you know, like either you were a really great giraffe in some previous life and this is your reward, or every so often, God just leans down through the crowds and kisses you and says, like, this will be just a chance for you to be in joy. And so that night I just. That, you know, gosh, they were. It was a big deal.
- [13:43]
Ellen Horn
There's a couple pieces that you've done pre Radiolab where, like, as a young radio reporter, you know how you were in your nose phase. You heard your nose phase. I think we all sort of start in some idea of what we should sound like, what we should do what's. What's permissible. And then you hear this thing come out of the radio and you're like, I didn't know you could do that. I just didn't know you that was allowed. Yeah, I want to play one piece of yours that had that effect on me. I think you did this in 1981 or something. I heard it, you know, years later when it was featured on this website. But. And this is pre Radiolab. So I heard this. We hadn't met yet. This is. Well, let's just play it.
- [14:25]
Jad Abumrad
The story of the Krasolovskys, one of the great commercial rivalries in New York history, began when Sam Krasolowski opened a moving company years and years and years ago.
- [14:35]
Robert Krulwich
Way back, Way back, I can understand. Even before my time, and I've been with the firm 22 years.
- [14:41]
Jad Abumrad
Peter Percosio runs the office of the Krasolowski Trucking Company in Brooklyn.
- [14:45]
Robert Krulwich
I imagine there was a big family of brothers, uncles, cousins, and they were all very competitive.
- [14:51]
Jad Abumrad
You know, competitive is putting it mildly. The firm started in 1904 when Sam Kraslofski and his brother Dave Krasolowski formed a hauling company called Sam Krasolowski and Bro. The bro is for brother. And they would move heavy things like church bells and statues. And to help them, they hired their nephew, Mike Krasolowski. For 20 years, everything was fine with Sam, Dave and Mike until Uncle Dave decided to bring his sons into the business.
- [15:17]
Robert Krulwich
Under the circumstances, Mike had to disassociate himself from the uncles and start on his own.
- [15:24]
Jad Abumrad
That is Mike's brother, who will serve as our narrator in this story. Now it is the late 1930s. There are now two Krasolovsky moving companies, Mike's and his uncle's. To remind customers that he was now in business for himself, Mike took out a series of display ads in the New York telephone book on the very page where the Krasolovskies are listed. And the ad said, remember Mike, there is only one Krasolowski. In addition, his brother says he put.
- [15:50]
Robert Krulwich
Remember Mike on all the trucks.
- [15:52]
Jad Abumrad
But it didn't work. Too many customers could not remember which Krasolowski was which. They just opened the phone book and call any Krasolowski. And that is when Mike got this incredible idea. He figured that if he could move ahead of his uncles in the telephone book, people would see his name first and then they'd call him first instead of the other Kraslovsky. So he decided to add a new listing in the Telephone book. He took out the V in Krasolowski and put in a U. That made it Kraslowski K, R, A.
- [16:23]
Robert Krulwich
S, I, L, O, U.
- [16:25]
Jad Abumrad
Now, that moved him one entry ahead of his uncle, since by the Alphabet, U's always precede V's. But Mike Kraslowski, as he was now called, was not prepared for the perfidy of his cousin, Milton Krasolowski.
- [16:37]
Robert Krulwich
Milton. Milton Krasolowski was another young son, son of David Krasolowski.
- [16:42]
Jad Abumrad
In the early 1940s, Milton started a new trucking company called Krasalowski, with a U, as was the case with Mike. But to move ahead of Mike, he changed his first name from Milton to.
- [16:55]
Robert Krulwich
Mick M, I C Kraslovsky, with a U, hoping that he would be ahead of Mike in the listings, which of course, he was.
- [17:06]
Jad Abumrad
The uncles, meanwhile, anxious to catch up, joined forces with Milton or Mickey and created the Krasolowski Safe Company. They dropped the V and Kraslowski put in an O. So the uncle's Kraslowski moved ahead of Mike's Kraslowski.
- [17:20]
Robert Krulwich
Mike was quite upset, as well he.
- [17:23]
Jad Abumrad
Might have been for revenge. He countered with a great leap, taking over the Atlas Safety Company, which moved him to the front of the telephone book, leaving the case behind to the finer air of the A section. But one year later, the uncles were on the same page.
- [17:38]
Robert Krulwich
The Acme Safe Company was a division of S. Kraslovsky and Brothers.
- [17:45]
Jad Abumrad
According to Mike's brother, by the mid-1950s, even though Mike still had only one moving business in Brooklyn on Metropolitan Avenue, Mike Krasolowski by this time had 18 listings under 18 different names in the telephone book, while the uncles had 13 listings.
- [18:00]
Robert Krulwich
Yes, we had listings throughout the yellow pages and white pages for one company so that we could get all the listings ahead of the other relatives. Did you do it for fun or no? This was not for fun. This was very serious. There was no reason. We felt that another member of the family that has just walked in should capitalize on the name of Krasolovski.
- [18:24]
Jad Abumrad
The final salvo was fired by the uncles. Actually, it was a cousin on the uncle's side named Marvin. He created the AAA Acme Krasolowski Safe Company. After that, the public was so completely confused that according to Richard Kraslofsky, all the Krasolowski businesses began losing customers.
- [18:43]
Robert Krulwich
It does affect the business when people say, who? Who are you? And who do you belong to?
- [18:48]
Jad Abumrad
Mike died in the 1960s. His wife sold the business and changed her name from Krasolowski to Krass and then moved to Florida. Mike's brother Monroe stayed in the business. He now calls his firm, however, the Empire Safe Company. He and his son Richard would like to use the name Kraslovsky. It is, after all, their name. But they don't dare because there is now a whole new generation of Krasolowskis moving into the phone book.
- [19:10]
Robert Krulwich
The original Acme company has now been split, so they are all over the lot.
- [19:17]
Jad Abumrad
There are now more sons and there are more names. Here with my colleague Margot Adler, we're going to read to you the latest set of listings from the current New York Telephone Book and the New York Yellow Pages. Margo AAA Acme Krasolowski Kraslowski Division of Acme Safe Krasolowski Mike Trucking & Millwright Company Kraslovsky Brothers Mike & Monroe Empire Kraslovsky Safe Company Krasolowski Brothers Safe Company Division of SafeSmiths, Inc. Kraslowski Division of Acme Safe Mike Kraslofski Safe Monroe Krasolowski Safe Krasolowski Safe Co. Inc. Kraslowski Safe Collection Acme Safe Co. Kraslovski Division not connected with any other Kraslofsky.
- [20:06]
Ellen Horn
We'll be back in a moment.
- [20:09]
Robert Krulwich
Hi, this is Shawen Alaria and I'm calling from Piscataway, New Jersey. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred.
- [20:17]
Jad Abumrad
P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of.
- [20:20]
Robert Krulwich
Science and technology in the modern world.
- [20:23]
Ellen Horn
More information about Sloan@www.sloan.org.
- [20:27]
Robert Krulwich
Thanks. Radiolab is supported by Planet Visionaries, the.
- [20:33]
Jad Abumrad
Podcast created in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Stay tuned for a trailer and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:45]
Robert Krulwich
I'm Alex Hongle, professional rock climber and founder of the Honl Foundation. I wanted to let you know about a brand new season of the Plan Visionaries Podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This is the podcast exploring bold ideas and big solutions from the people leading the way in conservation. Join me in conversation with the likes of climate champion Mark Ruffalo, biologist and photographer Christina Mittermeier, and one of the most successful conservationists of our time, Chris Tompkins. Join us on Planet Visionaries. Wherever you get your podcasts, your new home is now ready. Dr. Horton, America's Builder has new homes that are ready today with new construction communities in Ellensburg and throughout the Greater Seattle area. Dr. Horton has the right home for you at Dr. Horton, we're still building with flexible living spaces, smart home technology and two and three car garages. More communities and more homes available every day. Find your new home in Ellensburg now. Ready@drhorton.com Dr. Horton, America's Builder and Equal Housing Opportunity Builder.
- [21:46]
Ellen Horn
One day only Thanksgiving Day deals are coming to Lowe's.com/members get early access to online Black Friday doorbuster deals on gifted favorites like the still trending cobalt mini toolbox for just $14.98. Don't miss up to 50% off for one day only at lowe's.com we help you save valid 1127 only on lowe's.com, member only Doorbusters and Midnight Eastern loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. See lowe's.com terms for details. Subject to change while supplies last.
- [22:14]
Robert Krulwich
You should tell the people who we are and what our new show is. I'm Robert Smith and this is Jacob Goldstein and we used to host a show called Planet Money and now we're back making this new podcast about the best ideas and people and businesses in history and some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. We struggled to come up with a name, decided to call it business History. You know why? Why? Because it's a show about the history of business. Available everywhere. You get your podcast.
- [22:48]
Ellen Horn
Jad here. So after Ellen Horne and I and the whole staff ambushed Robert in the studio and played up stories towards the end of the whole thing, Robert went off on this insane digression. And this happens all the time in the studio. Like he'll go off on something and we'll unfortunately cut it out because it's not part of the story we're telling. But in this case, we're gonna put it in in honor of his birthday. And also because it just, it just illustrates what an insanely curious dude he is. Like, he has this incredible curiosity that makes him like a heat seeking missile for weirdo adventures. And that is what has attracted me to him and the entire staff to him and probably a lot of the people who listen to him. So here's just a random digression of his. It's him telling the story of his first television piece for ABC News.
- [23:31]
Robert Krulwich
This is one of the great. I'm sitting on an airplane and the man next to me, you know, you just ask, like, what do you do? He says, oh, I'm in golf ball retrieval. I said, what? I mean, golf ball retreat.
- [23:43]
Ellen Horn
Like in golf courses.
- [23:44]
Robert Krulwich
Yeah, you know, we gather golf balls.
- [23:47]
Ellen Horn
That's the thing people make lots of money doing That.
- [23:49]
Robert Krulwich
I mean, how much money do you make? Well, we make, you know, a dime for every ball that we recover. And then we pay that, and we can sell it in Japan for a quarter. I said, what's your problem? He said, well, the problem we have, really, the only really one is gators. I said, what do you mean, gators? Well, they live in the water holes, and the kids who do this work are teenagers. I said, well, you mean, you hire teenagers and then there's, like, wild animals that could eat them. Well, obviously, we have to remove the gators. I was thinking golf ball retrieval. What an interesting story. That'll be a great story. Then he's suddenly talking about gator removal. Gator removal. That'll be great story. He said, well, we use a guy named Mr. Campbell. He's out in Florida. I said, I mean, there's a guy who specializes. Yeah, he works Florida, Texas, Southern California. I said, well, I gotta go meet Mr. Campbell. So I call Mr. Campbell. The phone is answered by some person who's not Mr. Campbell. It's his very angry wife. He, at age 80, has skipped out with some floozy. And she is, like, pissed at him. So she says, well, if you're calling, he's not here. He's out with her. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know, because I was thinking maybe he'd be the subject of an interview. I would talk about alligator retrieval. Well, did he ever mention the Grosse Pointe Zoo? So, being no fool, I said, occasionally. And it turned out that when they had lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a very fancy suburb they had created, he had collected the largest collection of gators in North America in his basement in a series of tubs that he had built and irrigated. And every kid in the neighborhood, whose parents were all at General Motors or something, all knew about this secret thing. The police didn't. The adults didn't, but the kids did. And she said in the course of this conversation, until the sewing incident.
- [25:44]
Ellen Horn
What?
- [25:44]
Robert Krulwich
I said, what? Now you can imagine the fever. I have gone from golf ball retrieval to alligator removal to now secret zoo in basement, a fancy suburb. And suddenly there's now the sewing machine incident. It turns out there was a sewing circle at this house that Mrs. Campbell, the aggrieved gamble, ran. And in this sewing circle, they would bring Singer sewing machines. And one lady turned on her Singer sewing machine, and its vibration caused the alligator in the basement, all of the alligators in the basement to go. It sounded like a jungle riot from the basement.
- [26:23]
Ellen Horn
But you're saying they were upstairs sewing and below them, These alligators were 50 alligators.
- [26:27]
Robert Krulwich
Half of them may all go when this lady turns on her. So George Campbell figures out that it was a B flat. So it was his theory that it was a B flat that caused the bell.
- [26:42]
Ellen Horn
Was that like the sound they make when they mate or when they fight? Or would we?
- [26:45]
Robert Krulwich
Nobody knew A if it were true, and no one knew why it would be true if it were true. So I tell this poor girl, Barbara Fedita from ABC, she was your producer. Yes, she's like 23 or something. I said, you know what? We're going to hire a marching band, a high school marching band in full plumage. And we are going to go to Florida to a place that is packed with alligators, a wildlife reserve. And I'm going to have these plumed high school people play B flat 2. And there's going to be everywhere. So I get the high school band, they get on a bus. I get the ABC crew. And I get the very nervous Barbara Feditta, who doesn't know what I'm doing. We all go out to the. The Audubon place. We arrive and there's this mass of grass and you could see alligators everywhere. The band gets up.
- [27:37]
Ellen Horn
This is from the TV piece.
- [27:39]
Robert Krulwich
Phil Porter from the Cypress Lake High School Marching Band will now play a B flat on the French horn. We have no response. Mr. Porter will now play a B.
- [28:01]
Jad Abumrad
Flat on the tuba.
- [28:12]
Robert Krulwich
And there's not a sound, not a rustle, not interest. I'm looking at all these alligators. They don't wink, they don't blink, they don't move, they don't care. And Barbara Fujita's looking at me like, what am I gonna do? At that moment, a bus pulls in filled with French tourists who get out to go look at alligators. They come down the thing and they see all these gaily dressed Americans in olive green and large plumes coming out of their head. Which is not apparently a French film.
- [28:40]
Ellen Horn
This is already a Fellini film that you're describing.
- [28:42]
Robert Krulwich
And so they say, what's wrong? And now at this point, I'm a little bit sad. And the sun, at this point, it's about 3:30 going on 4:00'. Clock. And it's the wintertime, so we only have till about six before they have sunshine. And I say to them, this is the situation. So this guy from France says, oh, you see, this is the problem. In Michigan. They had. They was in tubs. In tubs, right? It was in tubs. In porcelain. In porcelain. So the sound came from the sewing machine down through into the porcelain. This here is grass and water and mud is a different thing. You need to go to one of those parks up the road where they put old alligators in concrete. So it's like the tubs. So I said, okay, that's the thing to do. So now the people from France, they get in their bus. The bus. The musicians, they get in the bus. Their bus. George, his wife, their hangers are on. And the ABC crew. And Barbara Felitting gets in the bus and we all drive to.
- [29:48]
Jad Abumrad
It's in the P. Lester Piper's Everglades Wonder Gardens on Old Route 41.
- [29:52]
Robert Krulwich
Now we arrive, and there are 50 alligators in poured concrete sitting in islands. My camera crew is so certain that nothing is going to happen, that they get into the pit standing on these concrete islands, not inches from these alligators. And the sun is now kissing the tops of the trees. So Fedida says, robert, we have one shot. I mean, do something. I can't go back to New York with nothing. I have nothing. And the French said, you just need to put it in the concrete. It will be fine.
- [30:26]
Ellen Horn
So you have all the French?
- [30:27]
Robert Krulwich
The French, yeah. Everybody's there. So then we're standing there. And one more time. First, the French horn, Okay, the tuba. There's a kind of quiet, and then there's a kind of a bubbling noise. The first thing that an alligator does when it's about to bellow is it shakes its rib cage. So all of a sudden, it's like the whole pool of water turned to ginger ale. There's this fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy pop. And then all the males, which is half of the male animals in this thing, all of them all at once, make that.
- [31:26]
Jad Abumrad
This is the sound that Mrs. Campbell's sewing circle heard coming up through the basement.
- [31:41]
Robert Krulwich
Starts praying. She's from North Africa. I don't know what she's doing. The French people are like. And George. And when that piece aired, it was my first piece. It got. Because it was so people. You know, like, you get a basic. You get an audience, like, say, four and a half million or something in a primetime show. And then you get all the people who are clicking through, right? So those are called the butterflies. So I was given. I still have the chart of what happened that night on television. Like, people were looking and clicking. And then they see this man with the poa with the tuba and the alligators and the poa and the French guys and everything. And the audience goes, I'm adding like 3 million people every minute. Time I had such a high, whatever that score is, like, it was unbelievable. If you joining a. You know, the next week I did something on the Internet and porn and it went actually the actually opposite direction, which was a whole another story. But for that week, I was like, you were king. I was king.
- [32:43]
Ellen Horn
And he still is. Happy birthday.
- [32:48]
Robert Krulwich
Talk about yourself.
- [32:50]
Ellen Horn
Two hours. It was an unpleasant experience for you, was it?
- [32:54]
Robert Krulwich
No. Talking about myself is something I don't mind doing ever.
- [32:59]
Ellen Horn
You just fell into it. Thanks for.
- [33:01]
Jad Abumrad
Listen.