Elastics: Where God and Science Smooch

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: "Elastics: Where God and Science Smooch"

Hosts: Josh Clark & Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant
Date: June 19, 2026
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dig deep into the world of elastics—those stretchy materials found in everything from your underwear waistband to bungee cords. What initially sounds mundane becomes truly fascinating as they trace elastic’s history, chemistry, cultural significance, and even its unexpected connection to pirates and rock stars. Packed with “dinner party factoids” and their signature humor, the episode reveals how elastic is woven through both history and daily life.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Elastic? (02:46–06:11)

• Definition: Any natural or synthetic rubber thread woven with other fabrics (like cotton or nylon) to produce stretch.
• It's everywhere: waistbands, socks, shoes, even bungee cords.
• “If you look at your underwear waistband … you’d see these little elastic threads. That’s all it is. Little rubber bands.” (Chuck, 05:49)

2. The History of Underwear & Waistbands (06:11–13:44)

• Earliest underwear: Identifiable examples are 7,000 years old, made as loincloths and breech cloths.
• Middle Ages: Introduction of braies (longer, laced garments pre-dating modern underwear).
• Factoid: The "union suit" (the classic long-johns) was originally a women's garment—invented as a response to the corset craze. (Josh, 12:13)

“Union suits were originally invented for women, from what I understand. And they were invented in response to the corset craze … engaging in what was amounted to foot binding, but with their waists.” (Josh, 12:13)

3. ACE Bandage Origin (13:21–13:51)

• Factoid: “ACE” stands for "All Cotton Elastic."
• First introduced by 3M in 1918.

“All Cotton Elastic Bandage. I never knew that until today.” (Chuck, 13:48)

4. How Elastic is Made (15:07–16:31)

• Looms interlace elastic threads with other fibers.
• The “warp and the weft” allow for stretchy fabrics.
• The process is similar for waistbands and other elasticized textiles.

5. The Age of Rubber: Discovery & Uses (20:45–29:05)

• Indigenous people of the Amazon first used rubber (caoutchouc, or “weeping wood”).
• Europeans went crazy for rubber, but struggled with its temperature sensitivity.
• Factoid: The word "rubber" comes from Joseph Priestley noting its ability to rub out pencil marks. (25:02–25:49)

“He’s like, you know what? This is amazing. I’m writing in pencil, and then I’m rubbing this latex … and it’s rubbing out the pencil marks. And that gave rise to the term rubber.” (Josh, 25:24)

6. The Vulcanization Revolution (29:05–34:44)

• Charles Goodyear (U.S.) and Thomas Hancock (England) were key figures.
• Goodyear discovered vulcanization: heating rubber with sulfur creates elasticity across a wider range of temperatures.
• Patent controversy: Hancock reverse-engineered Goodyear’s method; Goodyear died broke but his family thrived on royalties.

“Apparently it was one of those ones like the phone, where Goodyear went to go file a patent and found out Hancock had just a few weeks earlier.” (Josh, 29:50)

7. The Global Rubber Industry (34:44–36:39)

• Rubber became central as car tires and WWII demands soared.
• British industrial espionage led to rubber plantations in Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka), dethroning Brazil as the world’s rubber supplier.

8. The Rubber Band (36:06–37:14)

• Invented by Stephen Perry and Thomas Barnabas Daft (mid-1800s); made by slicing rings from vulcanized rubber tubes.
• Still made essentially the same way today.

9. Synthetic Rubber & The Rise of Spandex (40:09–43:41)

• WWII shortages spurred U.S. development of synthetic rubbers.
• Dupont’s invention of spandex (trade name Lycra) in 1959 revolutionized stretch fabrics.
• Spandex’s properties: accepts dyes, resists moisture, durable through washing, and—most critically—“snaps back” after stretching.
• Now found in ~80% of all clothing sold in the U.S.

“Spandex might be considered the modern elastic. It’s basically the base of anything stretchy that you use today.” (Josh, 42:54)

10. The Chemistry of Elastics (44:01–50:00)

• Rubber is a polymer—chains of repeating molecules (monomers), a specific “elastomer” for elasticity.
• Elastomers are flexible due to their structure: tangled “snakes” that straighten when stretched, and coil back when released.
• Glass transition temperature: determines whether the polymer is flexible at “normal” temperatures.
• Vulcanization introduces sulfur cross-links, stabilizing the structure.
• Elasticity degrades over time due to oxidation and UV exposure (“Eventually, your socks are going to be around your ankles.” —Chuck, 49:10).

11. Elastics in Pop Culture: Spandex & Pat Benatar (50:34–52:43)

• Pat Benatar credited as the originator of the 1980s spandex rockstar trend, starting with a 1977 Halloween show.
• Spandex became iconic for musicians and fashion.

“1977, Pat Benatar starts the 80s spandex rocker trend.” (Josh, 52:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On thrift store underwear:
  “If you’re buying thrift store underwear, then I don’t know. I wouldn’t recommend that.” (Chuck, 06:11)

• On dinner party factoids:
  “That’s got to be one of the coolest facts in here that people can just keep in their hip pocket.” (Chuck, 04:19)

• On the warp and the weft as a band name:
  “Which is not a bad band name, by the way.” (Chuck, 15:47)

• On pirates and what we get wrong:
  “Our conception of pirates took place basically in one decade between 1726 and ’36. Everything we think of as pirates is crammed into that ten years.” (Josh, 21:22)

• On Goodyear’s patent loss:
  “He lost the case, and he died broke. But he was able to generate enough royalties so that his kids were able to live the good life thanks to him.” (Josh, 29:50)

• On Spandex ubiquity:
  “It’s in about 80% of all clothing bought by Americans.” (Chuck, 43:06)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:46 — Introduction to elastics and context
• 06:11 — History of undergarments and elastic in textiles
• 12:13 — Dinner party factoid: Union suits created for women
• 13:21 — Dinner party factoid: ACE = All Cotton Elastic
• 20:45 — Early use/discovery of rubber by Amazonian natives
• 25:02 — Joseph Priestley’s “rubber” Etymology
• 29:05 — Vulcanization & Goodyear v. Hancock story
• 34:44 — Rubber’s global market & British industrial espionage
• 36:06 — Invention and modern production of rubber bands
• 40:09 — Synthetics: WWII and Spandex/Lycra breakthrough
• 44:01 — The chemistry of elasticity: polymers and elastomers
• 50:34 — Spandex in pop culture: Pat Benatar & 80s rock fashion

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Tone and Style

Josh and Chuck maintain their trademark witty, conversational style; plenty of tangents enliven the material, but all roads lead back to elastics (if sometimes by way of pirates or 20th-century musicians). Their enthusiasm for quirky history and practical science keeps even the chemistry enjoyable and accessible.

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Dinner Party Factoids (Quick Reference)

1. Union suits were originally a women’s garment, born to replace corsets. (12:13)
2. ACE bandage stands for "All Cotton Elastic." (13:44)
3. Rubber’s name comes from its use as an eraser—Joseph Priestley. (25:46)
4. Pat Benatar (not David Lee Roth!) started the ‘80s rock spandex trend. (52:41)

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Final Takeaway

Elastic—as material, invention, and pop phenomenon—transformed daily life in quietly profound ways. What began as “weeping wood” in the Amazon now snaps, supports, and stretches in everything from your socks to your favorite ’80s music videos. And thanks to chemistry, fashion, pirates, and a little thievery, it’s only getting stronger (at least until the ozone or UV light gets it).

---

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human Mom. Can I have Lingokids?

[Parent]

Dad?

[Chuck Bryant]

Lingokids, please.

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No idea. Last week it was dinosaurs.

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[Parent]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh (intro segment)]

hey there, it's Josh. And it's my turn. Finally. And I hope you're enjoying our Doing Science playlist so far. Up next, we have our 2017 episode on Elasticsearch. It's one of those episodes like ballpoint pens or zippers where the topic sounds super boring, but it actually turns out to be super interesting. And this episode, as a bonus, has a surprising amount of discussion on pirates. For a show on things that snap back when you pull them, enjoy feeling your brain enlarge.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff you should know from howstuffworks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. This is Stuff youf Should Know. The Sick Edition. The annual Sick Edition.

[Chuck Bryant]

You aren't well, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

No, and it really stinks too, Chuck. Because, like, I like to think that I take pretty good care of myself. So to be able to be felled not once but twice in just a few months by some strange, stupid Bug. It's irritating to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. You get mad every time you get sick, though, just so you know.

[Josh Clark]

I do. I hadn't noticed that. Actually,

[Chuck Bryant]

my wife is the same way.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's not fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know, but she gets, like, kind of. Yeah, you both get a little angry. Like, why did this happen to me? I get more pitiful, like, oh, somebody help me.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I've got that going on, too. Listen to this.

[Chuck Bryant]

So does that mean people have the next, like, eight episodes to look forward to this, or.

[Josh Clark]

No. No, man. No way. This is it. This is it right here. I think actually yesterday might have been the worst day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, well, good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, today was a close second, but we'll find out. Yeah, it is bad. I gotta be a pro, man. I gotta. I gotta get.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, the show must go on.

[Josh Clark]

So today, Chuck Charles, we're talking elastic. Yeah. Did you know much about this?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I thought. This is actually super interesting. And it also contained two what we like to call dinner party factoids that people can bust out.

[Josh Clark]

We need a jingle that says that so we can play it when it comes up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of cool stuff in here. And please don't correct us on factoid because.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's so 2009, 10, 11, maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

But, yeah, two really cool facts in here that I think people can just keep in their hip pocket.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Are you good? So until we get a jingle made, I'll bet Noel will make one for us. But until we do, maybe you should. You want to practice one?

[Chuck Bryant]

Geez. What's a good dinner party jingle? It should be, like, wine glasses and plates and forks and things clinking.

[Josh Clark]

Right? And then maybe, like, this Orwellian voice going, dinner party factoid.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Here we are eight years in, still evolving.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's a work in progress. Okay, so we're talking elastic, Chuck. I didn't know that much about it either. And this article written by one William Harris.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it is. It makes a pretty good point that it's just one of those things specifically, say, like, a rubber band. You just kind of think it's always been around. And, you know, you've always. You just think, like, you know, elastic waistbands have been around for eons. It was basically the second thing discovered after fire is what I've always thought,

[Chuck Bryant]

up until today, since Adam first popped Eve's bra strap.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's been around.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you'd think that's actually not the case at all. It's elastic itself. And elastic we should say is basically any rubber, natural or synthetic thread, woven with another kind of fabric, usually like say cotton or nylon or whatever that produces a stretchy fabric that's elastic, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, I think a lot of people don't even realize if they took their underwear waistband. Don't do this, because then you ruined it. But maybe if you have an old pair, if you just kind of cut it, you would see these. These little elastic threads. That's all it is.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Little rubber bands.

[Josh Clark]

Or you could go to like a thrift store or something, buy a pair and then cut those.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you're buying a thrift store underwear, then I don't know. I wouldn't recommend that. Yeah, I don't think they even sell it, actually.

[Josh Clark]

They do.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

Used underwear.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Kel Penn]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

So 10% skid free.

[Josh Clark]

That's probably. That's got to be one of the more difficult tasks. It's like getting those things just prepared for resale, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I don't want to be unprepared for resale duty today anyway. When you do, if you cut it open, if you look very closely, have you ever done this? Have you ever seen like an elastic waistband come. Come loose? Sure as you get. If you look really closely, you can be like to like the little threads that are sticking out because some just hang limp and loose. That's cotton. Nobody cares about that. But the ones that are just kind of still sticking out a little bit and you can thrum. That's the rubber or natural or synthetic rubber that gives that elastic its stretchiness. And again, this is a fairly recent invention, Especially if you're talking about waistbands for underpants.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And especially if you're talking about elastic that really kind of worked. There were two sort of dives into making elastic, and one quite a long time ago and then one more recently that obviously worked much better. And basically the reason it worked much more better more recently is better techniques to making rubber and then better techniques changing that rubber into something that you could actually use. Like in a waistband.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Exactly. But we've known about rubber for a very long time since. Well, I should say those of us in the west have known about it for a very long time. Those indigenous peoples of the Amazon have known about it even longer.

[Chuck Bryant]

But I interrupted. You were talking about waistbands.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. So, yeah. So with. With underwear waistbands in particular, Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently humans have felt shame for thousands of years because the oldest pair of underwear, identifiable underwear are 7,000 years old.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he bought them at Goodwill last week.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. So these, this underwear originally. Well, even before that, I should say, there was something called breech cloth and that was just basically strips of leather that just kind of hung down and covered your junk. Maybe kept the gnats out, that kind of thing. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or kept them in.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If that was your thing, probably catch them. And those are even older than the first underwear, which would be considered a loincloth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, of course.

[Josh Clark]

Which is basically that. And there are loincloths that are at least 5,000 years or 7,000 years old. And they are basically a linen diaper that is folded in a certain way worn by grownups, including very famously, most recently, Gandhi used to wear loincloth everywhere. It was called the dhati. But it's a loincloth no matter what you call it. That's right. So those stuck around for quite a while in the west. And it wasn't until basically the Middle Ages that someone said, we can do better than this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they brought around these things that were much longer than a loincloth. Most of them kind of, from my research, these brays B R A I E S went below the knee even.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They were like a cross between a loincloth and jambs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sorta. It says here that they were laced to the waist and legs, but there may be lace under the waist, but they're also generally kind of rolled over many times at the waist, I think, to probably tighten it up a bit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And everyone said, great, this will work.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

For a while I'm happy with this. And you know, then it went a different way. We should do an entire episode just on corsets. I know there's a good article on the site on it, but after braze, what's called the union suit was invented.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dinner party fact.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, there you go. That was good.

[Chuck Bryant]

I never knew. I thought it was called a union suit because it had something somewhere along the line to do with unions. But no, in fact, the word union suit, now we know them as long johns, even though long johns are generally two piece. The one piece union suit is called that because it is one piece. It is the union of a top and a bottom undergarment.

[Josh Clark]

Yep, that's right. It's a one piece long john with a flap in the bottom. They usually button all the way up front from the groin up to the neck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do you have any of these?

[Josh Clark]

I'm wearing a couple pair right now. Obviously you just can't see them because they're under my clothes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do you really have some?

[Josh Clark]

No, I have long Johns. I've got these one called Silkies that work really well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But I don't have a union suit. No, do you?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I don't anymore. My brother still Scott, squares by the union suit. I think he has the classic red. And then, of course, they famously have, like you said, it's either called an access hatch. I've also seen them called a drop seat or a fireman's flap.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I saw that too. I can see that.

[Nissan Advertiser 1]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Where you can unbutton your. You know, because generally you're wearing this out in the cold. So you don't want to strip down to the naked if you want to go pee pee or poopoo.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you just open the old access hatch and there you have it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Now that. See, that, to me makes sense in the 19th century when the union suit was invented. Today, though, it's like. I guess Scott just likes to add a little panic to when he has to tinkle, like having to get that flap open.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think he's just a classicist. Not classicist. Who's someone who's into the classic things.

[Josh Clark]

Classicist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. That sounds like he doesn't like poor people.

[Josh Clark]

That's a classist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

That extra s makes a big difference.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, he's a classicist then.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you should tell him this. Here's another little sub dinner party factoid. Union suits were originally invented for women, from what I understand. All right. And they were invented in response to the corset craze because apparently corsets were so out of hand. It was basically like, remember our foot binding episode?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So that's basically what women in Europe and the United States in the Western countries were doing with corsets. They were engaging in what was amounted to foot binding, but with their waists.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

They were. They were literally deforming themselves.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Using corsets. And there was a reformation movement against the corset and against that look. And what it spawned ultimately was the union suit, which were so great that men were like, these are ours now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? Yeah, we should do one corset. I assume that they did this because men were like. No, more of an hourglass.

[CarMax Advertiser]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I think that's where the reformation came out of. Like, just shut up, men. Right.

[CarMax Advertiser]

Do you have any?

[Josh Clark]

Like, we're disfigured now thanks to you, you idiots.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I hate to pack another dinner party fact right next to the other one, but that's kind of where we are. So my second factoid that you should bring up next time you're among friends or next time you see an injured friend perhaps, is if they're using an ACE bandage, ask them what it stands for, and they'll say, what do you mean? But it, in fact, is an. An acronym, correct?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

And what does it stand for?

[Josh Clark]

All Cotton Elastic ace.

[Chuck Bryant]

All Cotton Elastic Bandage. I never knew that until today.

[Josh Clark]

And it's been around since 1918, apparently.

[Nissan Advertiser 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That the 3M Company introduced it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

And so, okay, you've got an Ace bandage, which is essentially an elastic waistband used to keep Shaq's elbow in place. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Shaquille o'.

[Kel Penn]

Neal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. What year do you think this is?

[Josh Clark]

What's crazy is this is 1918 that 3M introduced the Ace. And it took until the 40s before somebody thought, why don't we just, like, attach, like, underpants, a loincloth to that? And it's weird. Pull it up, snap it in place and be like, oh, baby, modal.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess, because, I mean, the only thing I can think of is because they were tying them and they just figured, well, that works pretty well for now.

[Josh Clark]

But, yeah, I guess, you know, I mean, that's what. That's what William Harris says. He says it was basically a sort of fashion inertia, that everything was fine. Like, you could use buttons or ties or something like that and keep it in place. So who cares?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but.

[Josh Clark]

But it's just so much easier to pull up your underpants, snap them in place, and go, oh, baby.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. But regardless of what you're talking about here, these fabrics, including elastic, are made with a loom. And if you've ever seen a loom at work or a.

[Josh Clark]

At work.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's amazing to watch come into work.

[Josh Clark]

You're like, what the hell is this loom doing here?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, not at your job, but, you know.

[Josh Clark]

I know what you mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

I was just being a wiseacre.

[Chuck Bryant]

Have you ever seen a loom doing its thing? Pretty impressive. And what I mean, it's really not that complicated either. Basically, all it's doing is allowing these lengthwise threads to be interlaced with width

[Josh Clark]

wise threads, the warp and the weft.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which is not a bad band name, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's not. Especially like proto folk.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, that's exactly what it would be. There would be at least three guys wearing vests in that band for sure. That may have been woven with a loom.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, right. You know, and maybe pocket watches with the chains.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, totally.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that's all a loom does. It goes, you know, it allows this interlacing to take place. And that's what's happening with elastic. It just takes the place of the yarn and it's, it's, well, part of the yarn.

[Josh Clark]

Half of the yarn or a portion of the yarn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, because in the, in the case of a waistband, you're obviously introducing other fabrics as well, like cotton probably, or something else.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and that's the case with any elastic. Elastic is again, it's a type of fiber woven together with some sort of rubber and to create this new stretchy, resilient fabric. Elastic.

[Chuck Bryant]

You want to take a nose blow break?

[Josh Clark]

I'm dying here. Thank you, Charles. Sure.

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[Josh Clark]

All right, we're back.

[Chuck Bryant]

You good?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I should say also, like, I keep hammering home what the definition of elastic is. Now we're talking about elastic waistbands. That's what you think of typically. But again, any fabric with fiber of one type and rubber woven together is elastic and that has tons and tons of uses.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Like bungee cords are elastic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You know, everything else that's like, that is like elastic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you know, in your socks, a lot of times they'll be. I mean, there's elastic and, you know, we'll get to spandex later. But that stuff is in many, many, many garments that you wear today. You may not even realize that you have this stuff in your clothing.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Everything from the neck of your shirt, perhaps to maybe the tongue of your shoes. Sometimes these fancy shoes will have elastic in them.

[Josh Clark]

Those jeans that you wear to Thanksgiving dinner, they have an elastic waist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I know which jeans you're talking about. I don't wear those.

[Josh Clark]

They're pleated jeans, which is just weird looking.

[Chuck Bryant]

I just wear button flies.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. So you just go pop.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep. Pop a couple out and you're all set.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. You can stuff a lot of extra bits in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so let's. Should we get in the wayback machine a bit and go back to the 18th and I guess the 19th and 18th centuries, huh?

[Kel Penn]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We're pirates.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man, I'm glad you brought that up. I read this really interesting article. I found it, I think, on long form, but it's from the National Endowment for the Humanities, like, magazine website. And this guy wrote an article about how just thoroughly we misunderstand pirates.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

How our conception of pirates took place basically in one decade between 17, I think, 26 and 36. And everything we think of as pirates is crammed into that 10 years. Everything before and after is totally different from our conception of pirates. And that they were actually very frequently, they were just sailors who would go attack, like a vessel in the Indian Ocean for one big haul and then flee to the colonies and buy a bunch of pigs and set up a farm and live as, like, upstanding citizens from that point on. And some of them were like lieutenant governors. It was a really interesting article that I recommend tremendously. Obviously.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did we not cover that in our Pirates episode 18 years ago?

[Josh Clark]

No, we wouldn't have known that. This is a brand new article. I'm sure. We just totally fell for everything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently that's. It's not. We, like, that's not our fault that this guy's article and idea is pretty new.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's just one of these things that historically, everyone kind of bought in on. Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

To me, that.

[Josh Clark]

William, you got it.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we're talking pirates here. Not just pirates, but sailors, explorers, basically anyone who got on a ship in the 17 and 1800s, early 1800s, and went exploring.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they, you know what they did was they would go off and find things that they didn't have in their home country. Say, oh, my God, what is this? Let me bring it back.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like cinnamon. Remember our cinnamon episode?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great example. But one of the things they found in Central and South America was what the French called caoutchouc.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it's an Indian term meaning weeping wood. And it's basically what they're talking about are now, is it an actual rubber tree?

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Javier. Brazilian.

[Chuck Bryant]

The rubber tree, which literally oozes milky latex. Yeah, naturally.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the earliest sailors that encountered the indigenous natives of the Amazon were like, what's that stuff you're like putting out on your outerwear and it's keeping the rain out? Or what's that weird flexible bottle you're using? And they explained it to them and those guys said, awesome. You know who will love this? My fellow Europeans. So they took it back with them

[Chuck Bryant]

and then they said, and what are those awesome drugs that you give us in liquid form every night after dinner?

[Josh Clark]

They said, oh, yeah, Huska. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they went, we'll take some of that home too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Can we get a to go bag of that stuff?

[Chuck Bryant]

So, yeah, they. They were already using the stuff because they found out when. When it was dried out, basically you could use it for a lot of things. Like you said, bottles, shoes, just like this flexible, rubbery material.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Right. So everything's hunky dory. This is a brand new thing. Europe's starting to go crazy for it. But what they figured out pretty quickly was that you couldn't do a lot with it. Right. As we'll find out later, rubber has an unusual natural chemistry. And it just so happens that in the normal range of temperatures outside of the tropics, it can tend to fall apart pretty easily. It has A narrow range of temperatures that allow its usefulness. Right. So once you take it up to above the equator to say, like, Europe or the United States or whatever. And they did. They thought it was great. They thought it was terrific. People went crazy for it. Joseph Priestley actually came up with a dinner party factoid that I'm sure you'd love to share.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ooh, which one?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, you didn't. This wasn't one of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I blew mine on the two.

[Josh Clark]

Joseph Priestley, who was very famous chemist. Jason Priestley's triple great uncle.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll say we made that same joke in the anesthesia episode.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet we did, because. Yeah, that's where he popped up. That's right. Thanks for that. Oh, and the nitrous oxide one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So he got his hands on some of this because everybody's like, he's the only chemist alive right now. Give it to him. And he's like, you know what? This is amazing. I'm writing in pencil, and then I'm rubbing this latex kahach, and it's rubbing out the pencil marks. And that gave rise to the term rubber.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's how the name came around.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

From rubbing.

[Josh Clark]

From rubbing out pencil marks. Erasing rubber. Interesting, because remember, the British love to change everything with an ER on the end. Like, soccer is actually shortened association football. Like, soccer became soccer. Right. There you go. Rubber.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's pretty interesting. I don't know how I skirted past that one.

[Josh Clark]

I love that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it became a big deal, and everyone that had a little money to invest thought, hey, we can make a lot of dough with this stuff. We can transform that into something useful, like, let's say, in a garment. But like you said, they had this problem that it was a very narrow range of temperatures where they could find it useful. So a couple of dudes started working on it. We've talked about Mr. Charles Goodyear before.

[Josh Clark]

What did we talk about him in?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. But, I mean, definitely the Goodyear blimps episode. But it seems like. Do we not do one in vulcanization?

[Josh Clark]

I don't remember. I was looking up rubber or something because some of the stuff in the extra source that I sent you was kind of like, it rang a bell. I think we've talked about this before. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

We haven't done this entire episode, have we?

[Josh Clark]

No, definitely not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

If so, then I really am just totally out of my mind.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Goodyear was one. He was working in the US and then another guy named Thomas Hancock, an English inventor partnered with a dude named Charles McIntosh and they started making raincoats, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The Macintosh.

[Chuck Bryant]

The classic Macintosh.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so Charles, or Thomas Hancock was already pretty well situated to. He was already working on it. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But Charles Goodyear had that breakthrough first. And it was actually a really big deal that he had this breakthrough because in the early 1830s, Charles Goodyear basically became obsessed with cracking the rubber coat. He just knew it could be used to be made into something useful. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he became so personally committed to it. All of his investors went away, he went into debtors prison. So regularly he referred to it as his hotel. Six of his 12 children didn't make it to adulthood. They were just that poor. They had to sell their dinnerware. So we made plates for them out of rubber. It was really, really rough. So the idea that he had this breakthrough was just enormously rewarding for him. Right. Unfortunately, as he was shopping this stuff around, this vulcanization process or the vulcanized rubber, some of it fell into the hands of Thomas Hancock and he reverse engineered it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And what he basically discovered was if you slow cooked latex with sulfur, it could, it could basically transform rubber into a very durable material, that it was hardy under all kinds of temperature ranges. It would always snap back.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, not always and forever, which we'll get to later too. As you know, that waistband will sometimes leave you disappointed. Eventually that's why you end up buying new underwear. Well, one of a couple of reasons you buy new underwear or take it

[Josh Clark]

to the thrift store.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, he. That is what vulcanization is. And Hancock and McIntosh, what they were doing, they didn't crack that code first, but they developed something called the masticator. Basically they had been making elastic threads by slicing it from rubber bottles and raw rubber, but there was just so much waste. They developed this machine called a masticator. And it would basically chew up this rubber and make it into. Meld it together and make it into a big single sheet of material, which was really helpful. But they still had that temperature problem until Goodyear hit it.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And again they reverse engineered Goodyear's process, went and filed a patent on vulcanization.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Did they rip him off like fully?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, wow. Fully. And apparently it was one of those ones like the phone where Goodyear went to go file a patent and found out that someone else had that Hancock had just a few weeks earlier. So he took him to court in order to settle. Hancock offered Goodyear 50% of the patent to drop the lawsuit. And Goodyear Said no, no. And he lost the case and he died broke. But he was able to. He was able to generate enough royalties so that his kids were able to live the good life thanks to him. But he. Yeah, he got ripped off for sure. And one other thing about Charles Goodyear, the Goodyear Rubber or tire and rubber company, he had nothing to do with it. They named it after him in honor of him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't watch the TV show Shark Tank, do you?

[Josh Clark]

I do not.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think I've asked you that before. You know the whole concept, right, is these people pitch their businesses to them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, surrounded by sharks, swimming.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's it. No, they pitch them to the sharks, and they either invest or they don't. Everyone kind of knows the show but you, I guess. But I'm always at home just yelling at these people when, you know, they'll offer up, like, 20% of their company and then they'll get offered an investment from a shark for, you know, and say, but they want, like, 40%. And some of these people, like, turn around and walk away. Which, on one hand, I kind of respect that they don't want to give away that much of their company. But, like, I'm always just thinking, wouldn't you rather own 60% of a $20 million company than 80% of a $3 million company? Yeah, like, sometimes I think pride gets in the way with these people.

[Kel Penn]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they don't think about just how big these people can make their company.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I don't know who's that company, though, that. That turned down a billion dollars from either Google or Facebook and just kept at it. And now it's MySpace. No, I can't. It's one of, like, the big social media brands that, you know, of that. That now is just worth gobs, more money than.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, you know, there's no recipe. Like, sometimes it is better to hold on to more of your own company because if it gets big, then you own that much more of it. But I'm always kind of like, man, take the money now and run as Steve Miller suggested.

[Josh Clark]

Did you know Steve Miller's a Scientologist?

[Chuck Bryant]

Is he really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, he went off on the Rock and Roll hall of Fame this year.

[Josh Clark]

Why? Did they not vote for nominate him?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. He got inducted and, like, basically trashed them on his way in and out the door.

[Josh Clark]

Why?

[Chuck Bryant]

You'll just have to read it. It's kind of too long to get into. But they. They were none too happy. I think he came across as just a really crabby old guy.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, he didn't have like a point or anything?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he had points, but.

[Nissan Advertiser 1]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You'll just have to check it out.

[Josh Clark]

I will.

[Chuck Bryant]

We're already getting sidetracked here.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, we've been sidetracked, baby. So when, regardless of who came up with it, even though it was Charles Goodyear, once vulcanization was introduced to the world, all of a sudden all these dreams of what you could do with a flexible, durable material that could withstand tremendous pressure and force and heat and cold too, which was a big one. All of a sudden, the whole world just opened up. And what was interesting, Chuck, was because it also dovetailed with the Industrial Revolution, Brazil, which was the rubber tree capital at the time, went from just being like this kind of Old World colony to basically being one of the most important countries on the planet virtually within a year or so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that was true. Geez. For a long time, until about the middle to late, about 1876, when these British businessmen said, I'm going to sneak these rubber tree seeds out, take them back to England, and we're going to see if these things grow in Southeast Asia, where we have a lot of British colonies. And it turns out it did. And just about 35 years later, the center of the global rubber market shifted to Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

[Josh Clark]

The British are thieves in this one.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they kind of totally ripped that off.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And Southeast Asia was the dominating rubber capital of the world, which was way

[Josh Clark]

better for the Brits and the Americans, because we're friends with the Brits, because that meant that these were British colonies, which meant that the access to this rubber was basically unfettered.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There were no trade deals. You didn't have to wine and dine a prince or a king or anything like that. You could just be like, we need more rubber, please. Yeah. Which is, I think, how they would order it, probably.

[Chuck Bryant]

So.

[Josh Clark]

So everything's going hunky dory, at least as far as the British and Americans are concerned. The rubber supply is being fulfilled thanks to Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka. And it came at. No, too soon a time too, because the automobile was introduced around this time, the mass produced automobile, we should say. And those needed four good tires made of rubber.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And then World War II really, really increased the need for rubber. I think here it says that in total, the Pentagon said that they needed 32 pounds of rubber for every single ground troop in one way or another.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that's why it was such a big deal that the Japanese invaded the Pacific, because the Pacific theater featured those countries that were the rubber producing capital of the world that had been under British control. And now all of a sudden, our rubber supply was either cut off or in danger. So the United States, led by fdr, said, hey, four biggest rubber companies we're going to get together and we need to come up with a synthetic rubber toot suite. So let's get on it. We're all going to split the patent evenly and let's get to work. And in 18 months, they had come up with a synthetic rubber.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we'll get to synthetics a bit more in a minute. But jumping Back to the mid-1800s, the story of the rubber band is pretty interesting. These two chaps, Stephen Perry and Thomas Barnabas Daft, great name, tbd, actually invented the rubber band. The modern. What we know is the rubber band because they started slicing these. They had a rubber tube and started slicing these narrow rings from a vulcanized rubber tube. And they were like, here you go. It's called a rubber band. You can put it around your asparagus.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And everyone was super psyched.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Except people who ate asparagus. That was a good one, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

And today they still kind of do it in the same way, rubber band wise. They create this. They mix this latex together with all these chemicals. It depends on what kind of rubber band you're making. And they get this raw rubber compound into a long hollow tube, slip it over a round pipe called the mandrel, expose that to high heat and pressure to vulcanize it, it cures it. And then they slice that up into rubber bands.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty neat.

[Josh Clark]

It is pretty neat. You want to take a break and then talk some more about how it's made? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right after.

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[Josh Clark]

No.

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[Nissan Advertiser 1]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Why is it never chill?

[Nissan Advertiser 1]

Because this is our live backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real.

[Nissan Advertiser 2]

And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos.

[Nissan Advertiser 1]

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[Nissan Advertiser 2]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you can tell.

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we've been talking about rubber in its most natural form and how they transform that into usable rubber is pretty remarkable. But immediately after World War II, like we were talking about, this creation of synthetic rubber was probably the second biggest invention of all time. Well, maybe not of all time.

[Josh Clark]

It was up there, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But when it comes to stretchy things, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And apparently The World War II research and development produced not just one, but three different types of easily manufactured synthetic rubbers. Yeah, One was a butadiene rubber, another was a styrene butadiene rubber. That was the one that the government went with for World War II and it was actually ripped off from the Germans, which they had come up with something similar previously. And then there's an ethylene propylene monomer. And all three of those make up most of today's synthetic rubbers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they found that this stuff worked really, really well. Just as good as natural rubber. Had all that flex resistance. It didn't deteriorate, but eventually it would. Again, I keep teasing, like we're going to get to that, which we will, but they found it was really well suited to replace rubber.

[Josh Clark]

Well in most applications, like an industrial application, like a tire or a fan belt or something like that. But it didn't have that resilience that natural rubber has. So there was an issue still There was a kink that needed to be worked out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, as far as using it in textiles, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. And they actually overcame it in 1959. And by they, I mean Dupont Corporation, who employed two chemists that got to work trying to crack this code, the final code of synthetic rubber, how to make it flexible and resilient. Right, that's right. And they started by using a polymer, a polyurethane. Right. So. Well, we'll talk about polymers in a little bit. But basically, they took a polymer, a urethane based polymer, and watered it down and forced it through a plate with tiny little holes in it. And what came on the outside were these tiny little threads. And those tiny little threads were a magical creation known as spandex, the trade name of which originally is Lycra.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's amazing. And Spandex, they found, had a lot of great applications, namely, it could accept dyes. So it wasn't just this sort of dull white color. You could make it any color you wanted to, and you could wash it. It didn't absorb a lot of moisture, and it remained really stable when it was washed and dried at, you know, kind of normal, moderate temperatures. So, hey, you can make this. Weave it into clothing, throw it in the washer, dye it whatever color you want, and you're good to go.

[Josh Clark]

And. And most importantly, Chuck, it would snap back. It would retain its original shape.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

After being stretched. So, yeah, Spandex changed everything. I didn't realize it was from the 50s.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't either. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And William Harris makes a pretty good point. He says that spandex might be considered the modern elastic. It's basically the base of anything stretchy that you use today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it said here, we said it's in all kinds of stuff. They said it's in about 80% of all clothing bought by Americans. So even if you don't think spandex is in something, it may have a little spandex in there.

[Josh Clark]

It's in 80% of all clothing bought by Americans, 100% of all spandex pants bought by Americans. Think about that stat for a little while.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Including jeggings, he points out. He calls them pajama jeans, but I've always called them jeggings.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, is that the same thing?

[Josh Clark]

I believe so, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

I hope so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Emily, when we put them on, her daughter, she calls them jazzy pants.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, That's a good one, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that's, I think, usually due to the Pattern more than the snapback.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So we can sit here and procrastinate for several more minutes if you want, but ultimately we're going to end up on the chemistry part, you realize.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. And because I don't understand chemistry at all. Take it away.

[Josh Clark]

I'll get you for this, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll throw in some words here and there.

[Josh Clark]

So I don't really know chemistry either, but I know both of us crammed on this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So forgive us all you chemists out there, if we get something wrong, let us know. But from what we understand, it's magic. Yeah. There you go. The end. So rubber, whether it's natural or synthetic, is a polymer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And it's a specific kind of polymer called an elastomer. It's an elastic polymer, has stretchiness and resilience, it's flexible. And any kind of polymer is basically, if you look at the molecular structure of it, it's made up of these long repeating chains of the same unit over and over again. The units are called monomers. And depending on what the monomer is, that leads to different kinds of polymers. And with elastomers in particular, if you look at some polymers, the structure is bulky and big and compact, and it's rigid and heavy and not flexible at all. Still, other kind of polymers, say like a plastic or a resin, are crystalline in structure, and they fit so well together. They're also rigid and not very flexible either.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Then you have elastomers, which are a kind of polymer, and because of their molecular structure, they are super flexible, super stretchy, and they snap back into place.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And normally they're. I mean, they liken it to this article. Like a coiled. Like a big mass of snakes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they have this really neat quality, these elastomers. When you apply force to it, the molecules actually straighten out in the direction that you're pulling it. And that's sort of the snapback you're talking about. But as soon as you release it, it goes back to that coiled up arrangement.

[Josh Clark]

Right. When you pull it, when you apply force, they line up basically like those snakes, head to tail in one single long line.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a scary snake.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then when you release it, it goes back into its original form of that. That coiled mass. Right. Perfect. Okay. One of the reasons why any kind of rubber, natural or synthetic, is flexible, a flexible polymer is because its glass transition temperature is actually pretty.

[Kel Penn]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is where I kind of just got foggy.

[Josh Clark]

So this is. It's as simple as this Chuck, a glass transition temperature, it's not a melting point. A melting point is where the substance actually basically just turns into a liquid state. A disordered liquid state.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The glass transition temperature doesn't affect the, the, the molecular makeup of the substance. Instead, it basically applies this property. Flexibility or rigidity. Yeah, it's as simple as that. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And so anything that has a low glass transition temperature relative to what we have as normal temperatures outside in, in the world or in our homes or whatever, is going to be flexible and floppy. Anything with a high glass transition transition temperature is going to be rigid and hard and not flexible. So it's just suffice to say anything rubber, whether it's natural synthetic, has a low glass transition temperature. So it's flexible under normal temperatures. But even if you, if you took a piece of rubber, natural rubber, and you applied, you applied the temperature of negative 70 degrees Celsius or negative 94 degrees Fahrenheit, it would crystallize. It's below the glass transition temperature. So it would just basically turn rigid and crystallize and ultimately would break apart. And that was part of the problem with those early pre vulcanized rubbers. They would fall apart because the glass transition temperature is not like an exact moment where the thing converts from flexible to rigid. It's the median of a large thermal window where it starts to get crystalline and rigid and then is completely crystalline and rigid on the other end. So, of course you would think if you get down to say, 20 degrees, like it would in Boston or New York in the 19th century, and you're walking around with rubber soled shoes, they're going to crystallize and break off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

That's what's going on. It all has to do with the glass transition temperature.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. So during vulcanization, they heat that up with sulfur, and that makes those polymer chains link together with sulfur atoms. I guess that's like almost like a glue.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like it's like a molecular glue from what I understand. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. So even when you apply intense heat or extreme cold, it will maintain its molecular shape.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but here's the thing I've been talking about why your elastic band doesn't last forever and why your socks will eventually be around your ankles. This elastic eventually will lose that snapback due to oxidization, oxidization, oxidation.

[Josh Clark]

I like oxidization.

[Chuck Bryant]

Natural rubber, this oxygen, and in particular ozone, is going to start breaking those bonds within just days. So it happens pretty quickly. And that's why we heat and treat Rubber, like we do. But even still, over time, that ozone, and combine that with light, UV radiation, it's another culprit. That's what's going to cause that to eventually break down over time.

[Josh Clark]

That would make sense because with vulcanization, what you're doing is adding sulfur to the polymer, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And if you. It would make sense then that either UV radiation or something else could break those bonds between the sulfur and the other. The other ingredients. And then they would be replaced by oxygen. So oxidation would take place, Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So it's pretty much ozone, UV radiation, and then cold actually does make a difference. It's not going to hold up quite as well in cold weather. Like, if you take a pair of underwear out and like, you know, negative 20 degrees in Minnesota and you start really stretching it out a lot, it's gonna. It's gonna lose its elasticity really fast.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. Anybody from Minnesota can tell you that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, who knows? They may have to buy more underwear than, like, Hawaii. I have no idea.

[Josh Clark]

They all wear union suits up there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's true.

[Josh Clark]

So you want to finish with Pat Benatar?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Let's bring her out.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Come on, Pat.

[Josh Clark]

Going to do an acoustic set.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man. How great would that be?

[Josh Clark]

So we did a little digging and we were trying to figure out who basically started the 80s spandex rocker trend. The rocker spandex trend.

[Chuck Bryant]

She was the first thing that came to my mind.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I just didn't know exactly how I

[Josh Clark]

would have guessed it went back beyond Pat Benatar. And then I found out that Pat Benatar has been a musician for much longer than I realized. But apparently the whole thing happened on Halloween of 1977.

[Chuck Bryant]

Awesome.

[Josh Clark]

And by this time, Pat Benatar was already like a pretty regular fixture on the New York City club circuit. And so she dressed up as a character from Catwoman of the Moon. Have you seen that movie? No, I haven't either. But apparently Catwoman on the Moon is a cult classic sci fi movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And I guess they wear a lot of spandex. So she dressed up in some spandex get up and decided to play a show that night at Catch a Rising Star, which is basically her house club. You been there? No, I haven't either.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is it still around?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is it?

[Josh Clark]

I think I know of it from, like, Comedy Central in the 90s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think that was the name

[Josh Clark]

of a show, but I think it was from that club.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was it filmed there?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so. Could be wrong. But anyway, she, she was used to playing shows there, but she played the show in this get up, the spandex getup and noticed that the crowd was like into it a lot more than usual.

[Chuck Bryant]

Then I said, wowie, wow, what's she wearing?

[Josh Clark]

Pretty much. It was about as simple as that. She was like, okay, let me try this. I want to do a little experiment and I'm going to do this again, but not on Halloween. I'm going to dress up again and do the same show. And she did and got another response, like way better than usual response. So she's like, that's it. I'm doing spandex from now on. Wow. And that was that 1977 Pat Benatar starts the 80s spandex rocker trend.

[Chuck Bryant]

I would count that as the fourth dinner party factoid.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I would say so too.

[Chuck Bryant]

And if you want a fifth catch, A Rising star is a chain of comedy clubs and was also a TV series in Canada.

[Josh Clark]

Ta da. You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

That's it for Elastic, everybody. If you want to know more about it, type that word into the search [e-mail] and who knows what amazing things will come up.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And since I said search bar, it's time for listener man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm gonna call this short, but kind of funny. Hey guys, quick and trivial email from a fan in Pittsburgh. I too appreciated in your episode on Body snatching Live episode on grave robbing. I too appreciated how cool Charlie Chaplin's body robbers partner's name was Gancho Gnev. And I tell you, we did that show a few times and you and I never ceased to not crack up at the words gancho ganev.

[Josh Clark]

That's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's still happening. Being Jewish, I thought a little Hebrew Yiddish languages were involved. And Genev in fact does mean thief.

[Josh Clark]

Oh really?

[Chuck Bryant]

And then he stretches it a bit, then he says, gancho, for that matter seems to be Spanish for hook, like dance moves. And he said Charlie Chaplin was a dancer. He said so maybe that's a stretch on the second part, but it seems as though Gancho Ganov was born to steal Charlie Chaplin's body.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll give you props on the gnuff part at least. And that is from B.D. wahlberg. And he said, P.S. you might remember me from Pittsburgh. At your live show, I asked a question in the Q and A about how you find new ways to rip on the post office. And I still remember I gave my Trader Joe's bag to Somebody in the audience, and that was bd. He still. Still have Chuck's Trader Joe's bag hanging in my kitchen.

[Josh Clark]

Nice, man. Well, thanks a lot, bd. We appreciate it. That was. It would have been even more ironic had he been referencing the DB Cooper episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, did you hear about the new info?

[Josh Clark]

I did, and it actually makes a lot of sense to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So for anyone that hasn't seen, they found some actual new science that seems to indicate they found these four elements in the tie that BD DB Cooper wore. And apparently these elements are very specific to work being done by the Boeing company.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it gives a lot of credence to the theory that he was a Boeing employee.

[Josh Clark]

And even more specifically because it was on his tie. If he were, like, working the actual machines that were manufacturing this thing, he would have been wearing, like, coveralls or something, not a tie. So it indicates that if he worked for Boeing, he would have been, like, an engineer or a manager who would have been wearing a tie on the floor while he was out there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, I. I think this is, like, the biggest lead they've ever had.

[Josh Clark]

I think so, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. You know who's excited about it? Secret.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, boy.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to know what we're talking about, we did a DB Cooper episode and this popped in.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. It's a live episode that we hope will be available to you soon.

[Josh Clark]

What else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, and actually, wow. Boy, this is exciting. We just got, literally, an email reply from BD because I said we were gonna be reading this, and I think this bears mentioning. What a day maker. Guys, if you use a pronoun for me, I go by they and them rather than he or she.

[Josh Clark]

I know who you're talking about because

[Chuck Bryant]

I am non bi, non binary listener. What up?

[Josh Clark]

What up, bd? Thank you. It's good to hear from you.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I'd love to surprise my BFF Carlisle with a great big audio high five.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I think that just happened.

[Kel Penn]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, this is, like, real time correction. Slash back and forth with bd.

[Josh Clark]

Let's just see what happened. Email Obama real quick. We'll sit here. Let's see what happens next. We're just gonna take this for. We're gonna take this ride.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, thank you, bd.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, thanks a lot, bd. Good to hear from you. All right, well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us. I'm Oshclark. You can also hit me up at the official Sysk podcast. Handle. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles Wchuckbryant and UFFyou should know. You can send us both an email to stuffpodcastowstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the Web stuff you should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

[Parent]

With my mom and dad living in Orange county, when we bring my five and seven year old to visit, we are sometimes in for a two hour drive that could feel like 10.

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[Parent]

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[Kel Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay on The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts

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[Josh Clark]

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