Corn Mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Corn Mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith"

Podcast Information

• Title: You're Wrong About
• Host/Author: Sarah Marshall
• Episode: Corn Mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith
• Release Date: July 31, 2025
• Description: Sarah Marshall, a journalist fascinated by historical narratives, explores the often-misunderstood topic of corn mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith, delving into their origins, cultural significance, and enduring allure.

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Introduction to Corn Mazes

The episode kicks off with Sarah Marshall and her guest, Chelsey Weber-Smith, discussing their personal connections to corn and mazes. Sarah distinguishes herself as a "corn enthusiast," while Chelsey proudly identifies as a "maize enthusiast," setting the stage for a deep dive into the history and appeal of corn mazes.

Notable Quote:

Sarah Marshall [00:00]: "...I'm Sarah Marshall, and with me this week is our dear friend Chelsey Weber-Smith, the host of American Hysteria and a maize enthusiast."

Defining Mazes vs. Labyrinths

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on differentiating between mazes and labyrinths. Sarah reads from a handout by Jeff Saward, clarifying that mazes are multicursal with multiple pathways and choices, often leading to dead ends, whereas labyrinths are unicursal with a single, winding path leading from entrance to center without any deceptive forks.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [26:12]: "In the English speaking world, it is often considered that to qualify as a maze, a design must have choices in the pathway."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [26:27]: "A labyrinth isn't actually meant to make you lost."

Origins and History of Corn Mazes

Sarah and Chelsey explore the surprising modern origins of corn mazes. Contrary to Chelsey’s initial belief that corn mazes are ancient, Sarah uncovers that corn mazes are a relatively recent invention, with the first documented instances appearing in American newspapers as early as 1988. While commonly attributed to Don France and Adrian Fisher of the American Maze Company in 1993, Sarah discovers earlier examples, notably David Anderson's "Corn Fusion" maze in Ontario, Canada, predating the official "invention."

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [17:36]: "Corn mazes were an invention of the 90s. Wow. That's shocking to me."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [17:47]: "I am still older than the corn maze, thank God."

The Role of Don France and Adrian Fisher

The duo delves into the contributions of Don France and Adrian Fisher in popularizing corn mazes. Sarah cites a New Yorker article highlighting Fisher's role in transforming mazes into a heritage business in Britain and their subsequent spread to America. Don France's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with his background in show business and connections with Disney, played a pivotal role in the commercial success and widespread adoption of corn mazes.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [48:54]: "Don France, who is working at Disney, and, like, I love him. Okay. Like, as far as I know, we are cut from the same cloth."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [50:38]: "I was shocked to see that Disney is involved in this potentially..."

Cultural and Economic Impacts

Sarah and Chelsey theorize about the broader cultural and economic implications of corn mazes. They suggest that the rise of corn mazes coincided with America's farm crisis in the 1980s, where farmers faced economic hardships. Transforming cornfields into mazes provided an alternative revenue stream, blending agriculture with entertainment. Additionally, the shift from traditional farming to farm-based attractions reflects changing societal values and the commercialization of rural landscapes.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [59:58]: "The 1980s are the decade of America's farm crisis... people, families losing farms and people losing livelihoods and their homes."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [60:15]: "So it's like, I wonder if the kind of farm as entertainment also is coming about at the same time."

Mythological and Literary References

The conversation touches upon mythological labyrinths, particularly the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Sarah draws parallels between ancient labyrinths and modern corn mazes, questioning why corn mazes are perceived as a new phenomenon despite the long-standing human fascination with mazes and labyrinths in mythology and literature.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [21:44]: "And you have to take a ball of thread into this labyrinth, which was designed by Daedalus... as you get to the center of the labyrinth where the Minotaur is."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [25:30]: "Yeah. I love not knowing."

Personal Experiences and Anecdotes

Both hosts share their personal experiences with corn mazes, highlighting the blend of fun and mild anxiety they evoke. Sarah recounts growing her own corn and the intricacies of pollination, while Chelsey describes her fondness for corn mazes despite her generally poor sense of direction.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [04:14]: "I grew my own corn last year in my front yard... takes up a lot of room."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [09:03]: "I like being lost. I like not knowing where I am."

Unexpected Discoveries and Historical Revelations

The hosts reveal their research journey, uncovering newspaper archives that predate the commonly accepted origins of corn mazes. Sarah's discovery of 1988 instances challenges the narrative that Don France and Adrian Fisher were the sole pioneers, suggesting a more complex and collaborative evolution of corn mazes.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [44:04]: "I have two from 1988. One from Muscatine, Iowa... and another from October 7, 1988, from the Times Advocate."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [44:35]: "Wow, you've blown up this narrative."

Theoretical Insights and Sociological Perspectives

Toward the end, Sarah and Chelsey delve into theoretical discussions about why mazes hold such an innate fascination for humans. They speculate on biological and sociological mechanisms, such as the hunter instinct and the desire for structured challenges. Additionally, they propose that hedge mazes in England may serve as status symbols amidst shifting class dynamics during the Thatcher era, paralleling the rise of corn mazes in America as both a survival and entertainment strategy during economic downturns.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [56:12]: "Why are people building all these hedged mazes... my theory is that throughout the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher and her pack help destroy labor rights and the working class."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [58:14]: "That's your sociology coming through there."

Conclusion and Reflections

The episode wraps up with reflections on the enduring charm of corn mazes. Sarah emphasizes the importance of rituals and how corn mazes serve as both entertainment and a connection to agricultural roots. Both hosts express newfound appreciation and a resolved intention to revisit corn mazes with a deeper understanding.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah Marshall [62:35]: "Corn. It's just the best."

Chelsey Weber-Smith [63:06]: "Every corn is a glamorous woman."

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Final Thoughts In "Corn Mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith," Sarah Marshall and Chelsey Weber-Smith provide an enlightening exploration of corn mazes, blending personal anecdotes with historical research and cultural analysis. The episode challenges preconceived notions, uncovering the layered history and societal roles of corn mazes, ultimately celebrating their whimsical yet complex presence in modern culture.

Transcript

[Sarah Marshall]

You see, no cornucopias in adult life, and elementary school prepared us for so many cornucopias. Welcome to youo Wrongabout, the podcast where sometimes we get lost in the maze. I'm Sarah Marshall, and with me this week is our dear friend Chelsea Weber Smith, the host of American Hysteria and a maize enthusiast. I am not a maize enthusiast, but I am a corn enthusiast. And between our two worlds, we have brought you this episode on the history of the corn maze. What are they? Where did they come from? And why? And also, why are they so dang much fun? I loved doing this episode with Chelsea. You can find their work over at American Hysteria. We have. We also have done a bunch of episodes together over here. I've gone on that show to talk about Chicken Soup for the Soul and babysitters and Urban Legends and so many more wonderful and sometimes scary things. And over in our bonus episodes on Patreon and Apple, plus subscriptions, you can find a new bonus that I had such a good time doing as well. Talking about Bigfoot, the man, or is he the myth, the legend with the woman, the myth, the legend, Lulu Miller. And we had such a good time. I hope you listen. And if you don't, just enjoy the forest, you never know who you're going to run into when you get lost. And that's it from me. Enjoy this episode. Enjoy the maze. Thank you so much for being here. Hello, Kelsey.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Hello, Sarah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Kelsey Weber Smith of American Hysteria. How do you feel about corn?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Well, I want to start with something you might remember.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It goes like this. Every corn is a glamorous woman.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay. I had a different idea melodically how that went.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I know. You were good. No, no, no.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's. It's. Everything's gonna be all right. Rockaby. That's.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's it? Yeah. Well, that is.

[Sarah Marshall]

But your version is better.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's literally what inspired it was that Rockaby song from the 90s. But what. What happened was Miranda and I were going through this corn maze last Halloween, and we noticed that every stalk of corn has that. And maybe you can add the scientific term that, like, hair that. From the top. What is that?

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know the scientific term, but the farmer term is silk. The corn silk.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

The corn silk. If you look. If you examine each corn, you will notice they all have different hairdos that look very glamorous. And so when you walk through a corn maze, I encourage each of you to choose different corns and make up a backstory for each glamorous woman. All right? And Sing the song.

[Sarah Marshall]

I love that.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

You know, Sing the song for yourself when Halloween comes around.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. So you're pro corn. You're a fan of corn?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, my God, I'm so pro corn, I would say. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Which is complicated because in America, a lot of our corn that we hear about anyway goes into ethanol and corn syrup, which is added to all of our cereal bars and such, you know, to hold our. Our economy together, I suppose. And so corn is this interesting thing where it feels like a very factory farmed, very kind of symptomatic of modern capitalism thing, but also corn. What a delight. I am sitting somewhere in America right now, and I'm looking out the window at a beautiful field of corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

You are not. That's so.

[Sarah Marshall]

I am, too.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. What kismet.

[Sarah Marshall]

Winking in the sunlight and beautiful. Chelsea, as you know, I grew my own corn last year in my front yard. I grew, like, eight stalks of corn. Takes up a lot of room.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's the most charming thing about you last year.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, now I have to find a new charming thing for this year. That's a lot to ask.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I mean, you can double up and just get more corn.

[Sarah Marshall]

Like, hey, well, it's a bit late. Well, we'll see. Portland's growing season seems to have extended as far as Thanksgiving because of climate change. So who the heck knows about corn frontiers?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Who the heck knows?

[Sarah Marshall]

All that's to say, like, even growing up in the world, there are so many details of it that you don't know about until you happen to look it up one day. And so I learned when I was growing corn, what I did know is that if you grow a small amount, you have to fertilize it yourself. Or not fertilize it, but pollinate it. You have to pollinate it yourself. Fertilizing is another job. And you take the tassels, which, you know, look like, I don't know, a tassel on a slipcover. Sarah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It looks like the women. It looks like the hair of a glamorous woman.

[Sarah Marshall]

It looks like the hair. Thank you. The high ponytail of a glamorous woman. You take the tassel from the very top of your cornstalk, and then you pollinate the silks of each ear of corn with the pollen on it, because each silk goes to a kernel of corn. And if you don't pollinate each silk, you're going to have missing teeth on your corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

So that's why that happens.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow.

[Sarah Marshall]

And then that's why you can't plant popcorn next to sweet corn, because you'll get them cross pollinated. You'll end up with a half sweet corn, half popcorn, and then you're gonna have a bad time.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. That's kind of. I feel like that's kind of like a rare thing in nature where you can kind of cross pollinate and then the thing becomes both things.

[Sarah Marshall]

Both things at once.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Is that rare? That feels rare.

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I don't know either.

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know. That's the thing we don't know. Isn't that great?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. I love not knowing.

[Sarah Marshall]

There's so much to know and not know and so.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And still find things to not know about and still.

[Sarah Marshall]

So this episode is about corn mazes. Where are they from and why? And this was inspired by me learning a fact that kind of blew my mind about corn mazes. Because my mind is capable of being blown re corn mazes and wanting to dig deeper into it. And I'm not saying that this is like the Pentagon papers or anything, but I had a really good time.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I know nothing about this. And I find that to be such a, like, blind spot in my personal canon, considering my love of Han.

[Sarah Marshall]

That is a blind spot. You're a complete person. Aside from this.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's it. That's my only.

[Sarah Marshall]

And we're gonna. We're gonna fill you out.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, I'm so excited.

[Sarah Marshall]

You'll know a lot about. About the corn maze. Okay, so you've been in a corn maze. What is a corn maze? For the uninitiated, to start.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. All right. Well, my personal experience with corn mazes has been pretty much relegated to the Halloween season and usually adjacent to a ha. I have traveled far and wide to visit. And you love a haunt.

[Sarah Marshall]

You've done some great episodes about haunts and haunters, I guess, are the terms.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes. Yep. Haunts and haunters.

[Sarah Marshall]

Professional haunters.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

One of my most. One of. I like to have, like a top 10 favorite things, and haunted houses are one of my. In my top 10. Just general favorite things. And the corn maze is usually either a separate thing or sometimes it's a haunted corn maze, which is so sick. Yeah. You just enter one end of the corn maze, and it twists and turns and it goes in different directions, and sometimes you reach a stopping point, you got to turn back around, and you just gotta find your way out. Like any other maze, but this one's.

[Sarah Marshall]

Made out of tall corn and it's only getting taller. How tall is it? Why? As high as an elephant's eye. By the Fourth of July.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Although that's actually. Actually, that's a bit early for it to be that tall, I would say. At least around here, it's for the rhyme. Yeah, it's true. You can't rhyme with August. You know, we are going to stop in Broadway, by the way. So this is all going to come together, but. Okay, so you've experienced a haunted corn maze. Have you found them to be difficult mazes to solve? Anecdotally? Are you good with mazes? How do you feel about mazes? Let's talk about that for a second. We talk about corn. What about mazes? I do not like being in a maze. I have a very bad sense of direction. I have gotten lost in my own museum. I like to know where I am. I will be on the outside of the maze waiting for you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. Okay. So I, too, have a sense of direction that is so bad that it is shocking and frustrates many people in my life. Same is true within the corn. But I. I enjoy it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Mm.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I like being lost. I like not knowing where I am. And I. I just. I do. I love. Amaze. I did a lot of mazes on cereal boxes as a child. Not to brag.

[Sarah Marshall]

I would just start in the middle and work my way back like Peter Kriff.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow, that's. That's. That's really special. Yeah, it's.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

One of your charming qualities.

[Sarah Marshall]

I like depriving myself of a challenge.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

But no, I mean, I enjoy. I do. I enjoy a corn maze. I'm running to it when I get the chance. I also like entering the corn. I do it carefully and respectfully. But it is really fun to, like, run ahead of your friends and kind of like enter into the corn and then say something from within the corn or pop out.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes, I see what you mean.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And scare people from the corn. So I do like that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Is this a good time to point out that. That we've watched Children of the Corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Together.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

And that's like. It's not integral, but we have a Stephen King connection. Why not? What's Children of the Corn while we're doing corn topics?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Well, Children of the Corn is a story of a strange Christian adjacent child cult that lives near the corn, among the corn, sometimes surrounded by corn.

[Sarah Marshall]

Surrounded by corn. This like a. A small town in Nebraska that mysteriously has no adults in it.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And they worship the. Or they. It's not that they worship the corn, but a corn. The corn is a tool of their worship. And he who walks behind the rose is their Kind of God slash devil figure. I don't know. It's kind of a. It's kind of a confusing.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, God monster. Actually, perhaps, to go with our theme, a bit of a minotaur type figure, because sacrifices must be made to he who walks behind the rose. And of course, into this, enter a squabbling couple. So you know how that's going to go.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, they mad at each other. They real mad.

[Sarah Marshall]

But it's a really. It's a good early Stephen King story. It's a fun movie. It's got, like, a lot of corn imagery because it is, like. It's like a Christian corn cult, basically. And on some level, I think Stephen King has always been good at writing for people on such a big scale because of kind of understanding on a very molecular level, like, what are people truly scared by? And this idea that there's something sinister about corn, especially in the 80s. I want to come back to that later, actually. Ooh.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And it's like, making me think that something unique about corn as a crop is that it grows taller than a person, which feels not common. So it's like. It is one of the only things that you can be, like, fully obscured by, which feels somehow important.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes, I think so. And also that, like, I mean, I was struck by this just doing my, like, yard corn, but where, like, you plant, like, a little kernel of something, literally a kernel, and it gets, like, 10ft high.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's incredible.

[Sarah Marshall]

And like, it's. It feels strange to create something that big that isn't a menace in some way. That's true. It's like the blob, it just gets get bigger and bigger. But that just means you get more corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

And you do have to water it a lot. And then. And actually I left my corn up just to see when it would sort of disintegrate, and it. It stuck around.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's so nice. You've got, like, this harvest party decoration because, like, do you remember in elementary school when they suddenly were like, we're not really doing Halloween part anymore because maybe our Jehovah's Witness students or something. And so we started having that because.

[Sarah Marshall]

Interestingly, I went to private schools who were like, we're private, we're Christian, we're doing Halloween.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And that's great. I love that. But we had, like, harvest parties for a while, so it was like, very, like, cornucopia coded.

[Sarah Marshall]

You see. No cornucopias in adult life. And elementary school prepared us for so many cornucopias.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I thought I Would have to deal with so many more cornucopias than I have.

[Sarah Marshall]

Exactly. To paraphrase, found Mulaney on quicksand.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Sarah Marshall]

But have you ever felt any sense of, like, oh, crap, I'm lost in a corn maze. Have you felt, like, anxiety in a corn maze?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I like to allow myself plenty of time when I go to a haunt, so I don't usually feel the pressure. You're often surrounded by children, which makes the whole thing feel less. Like, less sinister.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, that's true. Although, also, don't you feel that sense of, like, oh, my God, a beautiful, bright summer's day. It'd be the last thing that anyone could imagine that I would get swallowed up by this corn maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

You know, I don't think that when I'm in a maze, I feel like I am home, I am supposed to be here, and I will be lost for as long as it takes.

[Sarah Marshall]

I might catastrophize a little bit, Jess.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Because at the end of the day, you can always just plow right through the corn and get out. That's what I say.

[Sarah Marshall]

I guess that's true. I guess that's true. But what about. What will. What will he who Walks behind the Rose think then?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

The other horror movie that I watched recently, like, after I knew we were doing this corn maze episode, was Signs. Have you seen Signs?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I imagine you must have.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, because it's crop circles, which I hadn't even thought about, but. Crop circles. Let's just say that there are two phenomena in this story we're talking about today, and one of the questions is, how much can one random guy in England accomplish in creating a global meme? And it's like, quite a lot, actually, is the answer here. Because the story behind crop Circles, basically, is just, like, it started off with some guys in England faffing about as they do over there, and then everyone was like, my God, no two human beings could have knocked over corn this way. And then it just became a way to signify that aliens had stopped by. Right.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. I mean, that's. That's the story. I know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Got some buzz going.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I've. Yeah, let's get some buzz going. I've really. Yeah, I've wanted to do a crop circle episode. I know it'll happen one day.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, you gotta.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

But it's a very impressive prank hoax. Really took some skill. I mean, those are some pretty amazing mathematical designs. Like, I don't know how you would do that. That seems so hard to me. So I do kind of understand why people couldn't wrap their mind around it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And I don't. I just don't know a lot about it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, well, okay, so here's my big question to you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

How old do you think corn mazes are?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I would think, like, pretty old, like some hundreds of years.

[Sarah Marshall]

Tell me. Give me, like, a. Just a guess for me.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Gosh. Okay, let's see. It's feeling, it's giving medieval for me. So let's go 1500.

[Sarah Marshall]

I love it.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

I think that's a very reasonable guess. And now let me read you something that I read in the New Yorker in 2021. This is from an article called how the World's Foremost Maze Maker Leads people astray by Nicola Twilley. And it's about a maze designer named Adrian Fisher who comes off as fairly unpleasant, and it dumps this little fact sort of randomly that made me go, what? Oh, my God. Okay, so let me read to you from this New Yorker article. Yet today, maze observers agree that there are more mazes than ever before and more being built each year. Mazes under Fisher's watch have become part of the British heritage business. They regur at stately homes where, along with tea rooms and gift shops, they can raise money to pay for otherwise crippling repair and tax bills. They have also diversified. Fisher helped invent the corn mazes that pop up alongside pumpkin patches on farms across America each fall and reintroduced mirror mazes to piers, theme parks, and malls worldwide. Okay, who cares? So this guy helped invent corn mazes. And I thought, what? And then I looked it up.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

What?

[Sarah Marshall]

And according to everyone speaking with authority on the subject, the corn maze was invented by Don France and Adrian Fisher, but mainly don France in 1993.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

What?

[Sarah Marshall]

In Pennsylvania?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I'm older than the corn maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

Isn't that terrible?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. I mean, it's, like, kind of, like, terrible, but also kind of. I love it like that. Corn mazes were an invention of the 90s. Wow. That's shocking. That's so shocking to me.

[Sarah Marshall]

Tell me why it's shocking to you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I don't know. It just feels like, you know, I'm like, I'm relating them in my mind to hedge mazes. Yes, Right. Which are probably fucking old, but, like.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I hope they have to be. They have to be.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. Well, I mean, let me tell you about Adrian Fisher for a second. 1991 in England was the year of the maze, because Adrian Fisher declared that it was. And everyone was like, okay. And Adrian Fisher Declared it that year, according to him, because 1991 was the 300th anniversary of the Hampton Court hedge maze being completed. Which is kind of the best known hedge maze probably in England, because it's at Hampton Court, which I've been to, because it's a big, you know, cheesy tourist attraction castle, and it has a big hedge maze and also guys pretending to joust. I was telling my mom about this and she was like, oh, do they hit each other? And I was like, no, they're just, like trained to, I think, hit each other's little plywood shields and then take it a little tumble sometimes maybe.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's nice. I like that.

[Sarah Marshall]

But they only die by accident. Okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. Wow. Okay. All right, I'm wrapped.

[Sarah Marshall]

But tell me of your. Of your hedge maze. Have you been in a hedge maze?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I feel like I've been in a hedge maze. I don't have, like, a memory that's becoming available to me at this moment. But, you know, I mean, I've. My family is English. We've been back to the. The home country a number of times.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I imagine you've got hedge mazes in your DNA.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

We've got. Yes, yes, we got hedge mazes. But I've also done like. What are those? No, nevermind.

[Sarah Marshall]

No, tell me.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Well, I was thinking about those, like, meditative.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Labyrinth mazes that you walk on, but there's not, like, walls.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Well, those appear to be older because Shakespeare writes about a cut turf labyrinth and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Okay. And those, of course, there's like an interesting kind of class thing at work, I think, potentially, where a hedge maze, like, often they're grown out of you, which I think in itself is kind of a status symbol. They're grown out of you. Trees, not you. Chelsea.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

And yew. And that's kind of a status symbol, I think, because they take so long to mature that you have to have them as an expression of like, I have all this room to turn into a hedge maze. I have to have someone design it. I have to maintain it. It's going to be expensive, obviously, but also I have to be rich in time to allow these. These fucking ewes to get tall enough.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's a real long game. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

So it's like a kind of a wild status symbol when you think about it, to be like, I'm going to build a hedge maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Sarah Marshall]

And so at least some of these places that are creating these hedge mazes around the time of Hampton Court or kind of into the 18th century, I think, are doing it with the understanding that as. Again, as you talked about in this Halloween episode, that, like, if you're rich, you offer things to poor people because you don't want them to come after you. And so. And that's just my read.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes. No, that's it.

[Sarah Marshall]

But if you have a hedge maze that just the people who live in your village can, like, maybe come use on festival days, and you, like, give them a little wine and some music and some hedge mazes, then, like, you know, maybe they'll let you keep your hedge maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, it's like Brad and circuses.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Brad and Heggmazes.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Does sound fun. Oh, no. I've been tricked.

[Sarah Marshall]

And getting into the Stephen King of it all. I didn't plan it this way. It just happened. But like in the Shining, the book, there are these topiaries that seem to come to life when you're not looking. And obviously, there's really no way to depict that in a movie you make in 1980 without it looking like Jason and the Argonauts. And so for that reason, and probably more reasons than Stanley Kubrick's the Shining, we get a heg maze. Well, I was just thinking that maybe this is a good time for you, as a poet and also as a regular person, to talk about the most famous labyrinth that didn't have David Bowie in it, which is the one with Theseus and the Minotaur in it.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, okay. Oh, God. Okay, let's see.

[Sarah Marshall]

Sorry. To mythology you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

No, I'm not. I'm not so good at mythology here, but. Okay, we've got.

[Sarah Marshall]

I can help you out.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

All right. Let me do my best here. We've got a maze. We've got a Minotaur, see, all chained up in the center of the maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know if he's chained. I'm not sure about it. I mean, that's mythology. There's a lot of different versions. Yeah, he's all chained up.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay, sure. And then he's got a gag in. He's got. Yeah, exactly. He's got to get in there, and he's got to stab the Minotaur and kill him for a reason. I don't remember. That's about all I can say about the Minotaur.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's really good.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's embarrassing.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, is there perhaps a ball of thread, maybe?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's my favorite one. Okay. Okay. So it's like a bit of a Hansel and Gretel scenario where he ties the thread at the end. And then unravels it to get his way back.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, yeah, Theseus does, because basically he's going to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, who has. I just learned today, the Minotaur was conceived when a queen. I think a queen got bored while her husband was away and saw a bull and was like, oh, I want to have sex with that bull. And then got inside a big cow statue thing, like Ace Venkura. And. And that's how the Minotaur was born. Which it's. I mean, not to accuse anyone of a double standard, but I guess it's fine when Zeus does it.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, I guess it's completely fine when he does it. Y. Never change.

[Sarah Marshall]

Cancel Zeus. But so. And of course, the minotaur, who has the body, I guess. Well, what's a Minotaur, Chelsea?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Is it, like, hot guy's body, Big old bullhead?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, I think it's just kind of a bull body of a man. I feel so embarrassed for not having confirmed this. Hold on. We really need to go back to Minotaur school.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Minotaur. School Minotaur. I say Minotaur, but it does seem to be Minotaur.

[Sarah Marshall]

I could go either way.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

I think I'm partially saying it in homage to Julie Kearns, who's my favorite interview subject in room 237, which is a documentary about fan theories about the Shining. And one of the things she talks about is that it feels like the movie becomes an homage to the labyrinth and the Minotaur at a certain point.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's cool.

[Sarah Marshall]

And of course, we have Jack Nicholson, who looks like that anyway, but at the end of it, like, ending up looking very much like a bull charging around.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, inside of a hex maze, AKA a labyrinth.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Very cool.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. Head and tail of a bowl and the body of a man. That's fun. We gotta have a nice silhouette for your coins.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Definitely. Yeah. Gotta have the tail.

[Sarah Marshall]

Great quads in the Amazon.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Real. Real beefcake. That's for sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

So anyway, but the idea is that you have to take a ball of thread into this labyrinth, which was designed by Daedalus, by the way. Daedalus of Icarus and Daedalus fame. That was the midqual.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I know that guy.

[Sarah Marshall]

And you have to unravel it, as you said, very Hansel and Gretel. Like, as you get to the center of the labyrinth where the Minotaur is who you then must slay. And then you can follow the thread back out to reunite with your lady fair.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Ah, yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Although I think something else bad happened in that one. But I always really found this to be a resonant image and have always liked the idea of a labyrinth. And the thing is, so has basically everybody for thousands of years. And that was one of the things I found interesting.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Researching this because I think one of the reasons it feels weird to us that corn mazes are allegedly such a new concept is that mazes feel, if not eternal, then like extremely perennial and extremely sort of deeply felt and maybe even deeply craved for human beings.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, I could totally see that. I don't know what I'm like, what's the underlying biological mechanism that's happening there? I don't know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Like why?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I don't know. Maybe it's like something, something in us that like, you know, like the hunter in us that is twisting through the world looking for pray. I don't know. That's the best I got right now. But maybe we'll come to it. Maybe we'll come to it at the end.

[Sarah Marshall]

I think we will.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

We'll get somewhere because. Okay, so here's another question for you. This is. I think this is my only other big question for you. It's. I'm trying to not make it a big pop quiz, but what is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, okay. I think. I know. I think a labyrinth is totally enclosed except for one entrance and a maze has one entrance and one exit.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, that's very interesting. No, well, I think you are close at least. Okay, so let me bring my hand out. So this is a PDF that's from a labyrinth enthusiast website and this is by Jeff Saward, whose name I might be mispronouncing. S A W a R D from the book Labyrinths and A Definitive Guide to Ancient and Modern Traditions. Here's my handout for this class.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, I love a handout.

[Sarah Marshall]

Mazes or labyrinths, what's the difference and what types are they? Okay, let me read this to you. In the English speaking world, it is often considered that to qualify as a maze, a design must have choices in the pathway. Clearly, this multicursal category will include many of the modern installations and entertainment parks and tourist attractions which exist solely for the purpose of perplexing visitors, as well as the traditional hedge mazes and public parks and private gardens around the world. Popular consensus also indicates that labyrinths have one pathway that leads inexorably from the entrance to the goal, albeit often by the most complex and winding of routes. These universal designs have been known as labyrinths for thousands of years. And to qualify as a labyrinth, a design should have but one path.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Isn't that interesting?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's really interesting. Okay. Yeah. So it's. A labyrinth isn't actually meant to make you lost.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Huh. All right.

[Sarah Marshall]

In a nutshell. Yeah. Completely. And I'm going to send you an image here.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

From our lovely handout by Jeff.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Mr. Jeff. I had a teacher in school called Mr. Man. Isn't that hard? Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

So I just sent you an image from the first page of this PDF. We'll have a link to this in the description, but a maze which looks similar to the Hampton Court maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

And to the right, kind of a classic labyrinth.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. It's exactly what you described it as. The maze has different places that, like, end in a dead end, and then you'd have to go back around and, you know, you have to find the right way through, and you got to make. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or you have to make choices. You have to go left or right or whatever. And so what I find interesting to kind of theorize about this mythological labyrinth is that you bring perhaps the thread in, not because it's difficult to find your way in, which seems to be not too hard to do, or else maybe the Minotaur would get hungry. But perhaps it's finding your way out that is where the difficulty comes in.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

But why?

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

They're not following traditional labyrinth rules, but it's okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. All right.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, and then we get into. And again, I'm going off of our handout by Jeff. We have classical labyrinths which we can find or that archaeologists have found going back to about 2000 BCE.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Whoa.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right. And then we also have Roman labyrinths dating from about the same period. And these are. We apparently encounter largely in the form of mosaics, if not entirely so.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, so it's like what we think of now, where if you go to, like, you know, like, a Unitarian church or something, they're like, here's. I remember as an adolescent, obviously one who was like, Jim Henson, labyrinth pilled. Being very disappointed when there would be a church that was like, come see our labyrinth. And it was just like some swirls on the ground. You were supposed to, like, walk down very slowly while thinking about your life. And I was like, I would really more like to be rocked like a hurricane by David Bowie right about now with, like, real walls and owls and everything.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. I need a little terror if I have to contemplate my life. All right.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right. So, like, yeah. When you say a corn maze is perhaps a more religious experience for you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, yes, certainly, I certainly. And, you know, I respect the labyrinth of the Unitarian Church, but it's not. And I've done it before, and I've tried to, you know, do some mindfulness practice and everything, but, no, for me, beauty is terror. Donna Tart.

[Sarah Marshall]

Beautiful.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Secret history.

[Sarah Marshall]

There you go.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

But, yeah, I gotta. Gotta have the corn.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, well. And so what I found interesting about this research is that we can see the labyrinth. And what you picture when you picture, you know, like a Unitarian church labyrinth, where there's one entrance, it kind of you go to what feels like the center, and then you go all the way back around, and then you're at the center and you go all the way back around, and you kind of meditatively walk around it until you get to the middle, and then inexorably leave the way you came by. Only one path. Don't know what Theseus really needed that string for, except maybe as a precaution.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Sure, sure. It's a pageantry.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. But it's interesting to me that, like, the contemporary idea of the labyrinth is a maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Because, I mean, I'm thinking of, like, again, we'll call it the Unitarian Labyrinth is like more of like. Well, no, because I was going to say it was like the cereal box because it's flat, but then it's not, because the cereal box is the maze. And that's kind of the whole point. Whereas the labyrinth only has one way to go. So you wouldn't put that in a cereal box except for little babies like you.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, exactly. I can do it. I just don't want to do it. Chelsea. It's faster to not do it. Okay, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

But it's also interesting to me that this seems to be recurring and perhaps spreading a little bit like a meme, you know, because any kind of like, to my understanding, any kind of replicable, repeatable kind of idea, like an image or a fashion or a phrase that can be copied and spread across people and across culture, basically.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Because this idea of this kind of, like, swirling labyrinth that looks almost, to me like the whorls on your fingerprints spreads across Europe. In the Middle Ages, We. You know, there's a. Apparently a beautiful medieval labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in Paris, and the labyrinth just kind of. It feels like it endures as a symbol that feels intuitively meaningful to people in a way that we don't necessarily understand but want to keep reproducing or I Don't understand it. Maybe somebody did.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. The swirls on the fingertips is really pretty.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thank you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

As an image. Because that also makes me think of like, God. Did you ever read the book Ishmael? No. Okay. But you know what it is?

[Sarah Marshall]

I know it's like, about a gorilla who talks.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. It's like the gorilla is the guru of the story. Kind of like, you know, delivers knowledge. It was a very high school book for me.

[Sarah Marshall]

I, you know, I liked it when Michael Kane did it in Charge of the jungle. So there you go.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, that's just, just as good. But they talk about in that book, you know, how like. Or maybe it wasn't that book. If I know Story of B, there's like several. But, you know, it's like how, like the veins in your arm mimic the way that the streams look and the way that the patterns in the leaf look, you know, and whatever. And it's like fractals. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's it. Fractals could be that. That's an easy way to say. What I'm trying to say, fractals is that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, yeah, I see. So like the. The labyrinth is a fractal of the fingerprint in a way.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Something like that. That's what I was going for.

[Sarah Marshall]

And then also, according to Jeff, there's a snoopy labyrinth at the Charlotte Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa. I don't know if it's still there. I sure hope it is.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Me too.

[Sarah Marshall]

Me too. But also crucially, in a labyrinth, there aren't walls around you. You know, there might be some amount of turf, but like, you always know exactly where you are and also where you are in relation to other people.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay, so wait, I have a question. So a labyrinth.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Kind of by definition has low walls.

[Sarah Marshall]

I think today they do. You know, and then in terms of history, maybe we aren't all being as tidy as Jeff is. And people are referring to historic labyrinths like in ancient Egypt that probably did have dead ends or something. But I think generally. Right. If you're talking about. Again, if Shakespeare refers to a cut turf labyrinth that we know existed at the time, although they aren't really preserved typically because it's just too ephemeral a lot of the time. It's just like some grass or some vegetation and pathways cut through it and not the sort of like grand sort of heritage maintained thing like a hedge maze would be.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

The mazes that then begin to be built for people who can afford to actually build something semi permanent, there begins to be innovation Interestingly, because for a long time there's. And again, I'm using Jeff's handouts terminology. There's simply connected mazes where everything is the same wall of heggs. So you could theoretically just keep your hand on the hegg as you enter and stay with it and eventually find the centrifugus based on that.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, I remember that theory or whatever from being a kid where that was the way to solve it. I do remember that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. And then I think late 18th, early 19th century, we solved the hand on wall maze problem. And people start commissioning mazes that have different areas of heg where you can get turned around, you can get lost without there being a dead end. But where you think you're making progress and you're not, they sort of evolve as I assume as more people get hired to do them and have more time to problem solve them and innovate and then share that information. And again, we're talking about the time of the printing press and of ideas, you know, the kind of the birth of the bestseller as we know it in the 18th century and ideas spreading faster and faster than ever before. So it's like, because rich people are paying to have them built. It's a time of maze innovation.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And I wonder if, like, it being kind of like the age of reason time would be like. It just feels sort of like a mathematical. More like.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, it was a great sanctuary for dorks.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, Big dork time. I'm surprised Ben Franklin didn't commission a maze. He probably did.

[Sarah Marshall]

He could have. Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

A maze full of women around every corner.

[Sarah Marshall]

He's an amazing man.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, he's a real special guy. Our favorite.

[Sarah Marshall]

So. But I guess, I don't know, I just want to read again because I found this oddly poetic, this distinction on the first page. To qualify as a maze, a design must have choices in the pathway. To qualify as a labyrinth, a design should have only one path. Yeah, it's like different concepts of fate.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Ooh, I like that for sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

And what I'll also say is that the corn mazes I've been in, which I really enjoyed, have not been hard because I'm not good at mazes. And usually there's like a couple of little baby dead ends, but then you're like, oh, we have to go this way. And I would like to hazard that of course there's all types of corn mazes, but that a lot of corn mazes exist more as corn labyrinths, where the point is simply to be drawn inexorably into the corn and then gradually back out again.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

So. And you think that that's like. Say that. Okay, say that one more time for me. I want to make sure I'm getting it right.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, I think that so many corn mazes are just, like, so easy that, like, they're technically mazes, but what if they function more as labyrinths?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. It's like a hybrid.

[Sarah Marshall]

To draw us into the corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Just to draw us into the.

[Sarah Marshall]

And into nature, in a sense. Or at least into this, you know. Well, we'll get to it, but like, into the scene that you're trying to be a part of by doing the sort of seasonal, like, pastoral farm visit, you know, pumpkin getting activities that people do.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

A little bit ritualistically. Not in a bad way. We need our rituals.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, we need our rituals so bad. We're drowning without our rituals. That makes sense. I've never been in a corn maze that I ever got stressed out about. Right. Where I'm, like, not even, like, scared, but just, like, I'm ready to get out of this corn maze. It's usually, like, I'm in there for the right amount of time.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's like a, you know, a nice half hour to an hour of just meandering in the corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Yeah. And I never pay attention. I never know what the. What the hell I'm doing. You know, I'm not, like. Okay, I'm not, like, mind mapping the maze. I know a lot of people can do that. There is no chance for me to mind map anything, let alone a corn maze. So I just kind of wander around until I get out. And I get out, and I'm like, all right, that was fun. I liked that. I saw so many corns that were glamorous women, so.

[Sarah Marshall]

They really were. And keep your hair out of the sun.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Come on, girls.

[Sarah Marshall]

So where were we? Labyrinths are thousands of years old, but corn mazes are from 1993.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, that's wild.

[Sarah Marshall]

What do you think about this, Kearney? So far here at the center, perhaps, of the corn maze. But we still have to find our way out.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Ooh. Ooh. Okay. I didn't know that labyrinths and mazes were different, so that was fun to learn about. And I think. I mean, I'm still just so surprised that it took so long to do it with corn. It just feels like. Like a very obvious thing to do. And so this started in England, though. Not because it feels so American to me.

[Sarah Marshall]

If we're like, this started in In Pennsylvania.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, it did. It is American. Yeah, it's ours. Hands off.

[Sarah Marshall]

So let me read to you the website americanmaze.com which is the website for the amazing maze maze. M A I Z E. Clever. M A Z E. The original and still the best getting people lost since 1993. About. The American Maize Company led by Don France, pioneered bringing the art of the maize to America and to the cornfield. In 1993, we created and produced the first ever cornfield maze for private and public entertainment at Lebanon Valley College in anville, Pennsylvania. Until 1993, the maze was seen as a mostly passive art form. The largest maze was constructed in order to fit in the back lot of an English manor. And the new American interpretation, the amazing maze maze has been recognized and imitated throughout the world as a new and unique family entertainment alternative for the summer and harvest seasons.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. We did it, Joe.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, okay, but here's what I did next. Okay. And let me give you a Hint. It involved newspapers.com.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Newspapers.Com. Where is our merch? We're waiting for our merch. Bring us our merch.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I searched corn maze because I wanted know if there were any corn mazes predating John France and the American Maze Company.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay. And that's where you gotta go. All right.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I'm sending you some links.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, well, yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Open up your email and when you get it, scroll down to where it says articles and then you can click on any of those links.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay, I'm doing a random click. Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay. And read what comes up.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Ooh. Come to wall Videl. Come to Wald Vagels for a hauntingly good time. Visit pumpkin land Hayrides to the pumpkin patch. Huge pumpkin selection. Caramel apples. Apples. Bring your camera. Visit the petting zoo. Tour the haunted granary. Find your way through the corn maze. New in 1991. This is freaking. This is a bombshell.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's how I felt, to be honest.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, no, this is huge because you had said that the. They said the first corn maze was in 92.

[Sarah Marshall]

93.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

93, yeah. Wow. Liars.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, it's not looking good, babe.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

No, it's not looking good, babe.

[Sarah Marshall]

And so this is from the Daily Gleaner of New Brunswick.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Corn maze folks stopping by David Anderson's farm may be amazed by his corn fusion. And this is from 1991. A 45 year old farmer has cut a maze in 100 meter square field of elephant's eye high grain corn. Even I got lost in it. Anderson says of the place he calls Corn Fusion. Anderson has put signs along the roadside to bring attention to the maze and lure. Lure people to his farm in Walsingham, Ontario, a hamlet near the north shore of Lake Erie. It's attracted quite a few folks, Anderson says. At various points in the maze, signs offer information about growing grain corn, a cash crop used in a range of products from livestock feed and junk food to spark plugs and disposable diapers. What we're trying to do is our little bit to educate people who come here in some aspects of farming, says Anderson.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. So wait, did we steal the corn maze from Canada?

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay, so I went looking for references to corn mazes and the earliest one that I found on Newspapers.com. so I have two from 1988.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Whoa.

[Sarah Marshall]

I have one from September 8, 1988, from Muscatine, Iowa.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

And the other, by the way, that's.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

One month after I was born. So I am still older than the corn maze, thank God. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

And the other is from October 7, 1988, from the Times Advocate, reporting on a pumpkin patch in Escondido. Which means that according to Newspapers.com, the first confirmed incidents of a corn maze in these United States was in Muscatine, Iowa, in September 1988.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow, you've blown up this narrative.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I will read you this ad. Fall on the farm. Mini hay rack rides through Mr. Corny's Mystic Meadow. Adults $1.50 children 3 to 12. $1 includes mini hay rack rides, Play Barn, Iowa Proud Barn and two acre corn maze. See how fast you can find your way out. Join us for Raise a Ruckus. Saturday and Sunday evenings in the Country Barn Theater. Ticket price includes admission to all other activities on the farm. Open weekends, 11am Duster, October.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. Wow. God. Okay, so it is American. That's what I'm really counting on here, is that we can claim it as our own. Okay, so I really feel like this is a call out to the amazing maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

That was how I was feeling, too. But here's the thing, the last thing, the center of this maze for me, if you will.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Because all the sources I could find that are like, the history of the corn maze, where, like, Don France and Adrian Fisher invented the corn maze in 1993, but none of them say why. And from the New York article, you get the sense that Adrian Fisher was, like, good at PR and knew how to create the sense of demand for what he was doing. Because, like, 1991 was the year of the haggish maze, because he declared it that. And it really worked out for him. He's designed a lot of mazes that have done well and, like, you know, you can charge admission to them so people can come to like your heritage home and, like the article said, help pay for the upkeep because those things are, you know, drafty.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Absolutely.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yep. But also, he's kind of a great 20th century example, I think, of being like, I really want to make mazes. And so I'm going to sort of generate PR that creates the idea that people like mazes. And then people will be like, I guess I do like mazes license. Yeah, that's what PR is.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's what PR is. Yeah. It's. You could call it corn propaganda.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's creating a sense of demand kind of out of nowhere.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

So I was like, who is this man, Don France? And did he get involved in a highly cynical marketing maneuver with this English maze guy? What is the story here? Yeah, but then I read this article. Actually, I'm going to send this to you to read.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

But this is from broadwaydirect.com okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

This is called the Amazing Maze Maze. The Amazing Maze Maze is the brainchild of Dawn France, who has done most everything in show business. He's been a dancer and a Seiko commercial and the first marvelous magical Burger King in test ads. Wow. In a producing capacity, he's worked on the Super Bowl, World Expo, and Liberty Weekend. France has also been a general manager of such Broadway shows as a class act and will soon co produce a new off Broadway musical called Disenchanted. And while no parent is supposed to have a favorite child, France seems to speak most proudly of the Amazing Maze Maze. However, France is quick to proclaim the Walt Disney Company, for which he was a creative director in the early 1990s as the Mazes of his godfather, Goosebumps. Okay, should I go on?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, go on. Okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

This is crazy. Okay. In June 1991, France, who'd been producing and directing such Disney World attractions as the Spectro Magic Light Parade, saw some Culture Entertainment TV clips that Disney had been sent. One of them was a tourism promotion for European mazes. France had never encountered a maze, but the idea of maneuvering through one appealed to him. France's preference for a window seat while flying helped the idea too. He would gaze outside and see field after field after field, all of which ostensibly seemed to have nothing happening in them. Quote, I was also reminded of Field of Dreams, he says, before quoting its most famous passage. Quote, if you build it, they will come. But could Dawn France build A multi acre maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

What are your thoughts so far?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I mean, I just feel like, how is Disney, like, lurking in the background of everything? Is Disney he who walks behind the rose? Actually. Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Walt Disney.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

All right. Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or Mickey Mouse. I don't trust that guy.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

No. I hate Mickey Mouse and I'll say it forever. I think he's a bad person.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. And Minnie Mouse is okay.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Minnie's okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Mickey Mouse. I would believe that. Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I do think she enables.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, that's probably true. We're more Goofy people, I would say.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was always a Donald Duck person because he puts it all out there. It's like he's a dick. But he's a dick to your face.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's true. Yeah. He is truthful. And he's got a little sailor suit on.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

So, yeah, he's funny.

[Sarah Marshall]

Can't complain about that.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

He does a funny, funny voice. So, yeah. I just think. Think I was just shocked to see that. That Disney is involved in. In this potentially.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right. I. You wouldn't think that Disney would be involved in corn mazes, but in a.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Sense I would think that they would become involved and then make it like a hyper reality corn maze. Right. Where it was like fake corn, but they're like way bigger.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. And they replace the corn with screens. Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And then the corn sings. Yeah. But no, I didn't expect it to be at such a ground floor level.

[Sarah Marshall]

Would you like to read us some more?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Sure. Absolutely. While he was looking for solutions to build that multi acre maze, Disney was trying to solve the problem of making Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway musical, which I saw when it was on the road in the early 90s, by the way.

[Sarah Marshall]

See, we love a spectacle. Americans understand spectacle.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Absolutely. Okay. Quote, so many people said it couldn't be done, says France, that the idea was knocked down six times. But the resolve of Michael Eisner.

[Sarah Marshall]

Wow, legendary.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Then the company. Yeah, Just the worst, really.

[Sarah Marshall]

Saying something for Hollywood.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, really. Then the company's CEO inspired France to continue his impossible dream. Even as, to paraphrase an old Ira Gershwin lyric, quote, they all laughed at Donnie and his notion when he planned an outdoor maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

What lyric is that paraphrasing? I have to ask.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I don't know. I have no idea.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, I like the reference article continues.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

France's 20th class reunion at Lebanon Valley College in Anvil, Pennsylvania proved vitally important. Quote, when I mentioned to the schools for president what I had in mind, France says he was soon taking me to farms. Yet even there, France Was met with resistance. Quote, the first farmer says, I spend a lot of time keeping kids out of there. That's not a Pennsylvania accent. I can't do that. He says, chuckling with understanding of the man's plight. The way the second said, I plant corn, I grow it, I harvest it. Made me see nothing would happen there.

[Sarah Marshall]

Too, if we're not careful. This is going to be made into a Matthew McConaughey movie.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, I could see that. I would also see it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or actually Roger Bart. Yeah, that's who I go with.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

So I guess what's happening here is farmers are like, this is my corn. Why would I cut my corn into a maze? I hate children. And they come in here.

[Sarah Marshall]

Why would I do something so silly?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, okay. Third time was the charm. A farmer who had three acres to spare told France that he'd been clearing 200 an acre in a year. When the sun, rain, and insects had all cooperated, that was enough to start France negotiating. Quote, I told him I'd even give half the corn back to him. He adds with a grin.

[Sarah Marshall]

And the article says, indeed, you can't have a maze without getting rid of some of the corn. That's so true.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's so true. It's so true. Francis calling his company the Amazing Maze Maze had its roots in Disney, too, albeit in a roundabout way. It started when France was asked to guide the Broadway producing directing legend Hal Prince of Phantom of the Opera fame and his family around Disney World. Prince was so impressed with France's three day excursion that he recommended it to his most famous collaborator, Stephen Sondheim.

[Sarah Marshall]

What?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Of into the woods fame. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. So France gave Sondheim the deluxe tour as well. This. I cannot believe this. All star cast, right? This is crazy. Wow. Okay. They kept in touch. And at dinner one night, Sondheim asked about France's immediate plans. Quote. And when I told him, says France with wonder still in his voice, Steve immediately said, without missing a beat, Steve, of course. It's like so funny. Steve immediately said without missing a beat, the Amazing Maze Maze.

[Sarah Marshall]

No way.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. Yes. No less than Stephen Sondheim gave me the name. And that convinced me that this was destiny.

[Sarah Marshall]

Isn't that beautiful?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow.

[Sarah Marshall]

And then he brings on Adrian Fisher to design it. Yada, yada, yada.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That is incredible.

[Sarah Marshall]

And that leads me to the fact that. But in many parts of America, certainly around Portland, and certainly, I'm sure still in Muscatine, Iowa, and lots of other places, areas where there used to be family farms that grew and sold Crops now have farm attractions. And one of the biggest farm attractions, I think, that has spread across North America, I would say, at this point, is the corn maze. Yeah. And what's interesting is that I'm sure that the amazing maize maze, if you look it up like. Like it was on Good Morning America. You've got Adrian Fisher, who's good at PR for his mazes. You've got Don France, who is working at Disney, and, like, I love him. Okay. Like, as far as I know, we are cut from the same cloth. We're like, you get to a certain point in life, you've accomplished a certain amount artistically that you set out to, and one day you wake up and you think corn. And people are like, what are you doing? And you're like, what. What are you excited about lately? And you're like, well, corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Corn.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. And you know that it was the first amazing maze maze, built in 1993, was in the shape of a dinosaur. Some of the proceeds went to flood relief. You know, and it was built, as the article talks about, on a farmer's field where the economics of growing corn in that space meant that you could get about $200, but if you charged admission for that amount of corn, you could get more hundred dollars.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. That makes. That makes perfect sense.

[Sarah Marshall]

And can I float to you two theories about corn mazes and hedge mazes, one of which I feel more confident about?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes. Are these your theories?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay, hit me.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay. So in England, in a way, that probably affects the spread of corn mazes in the early 90s, everyone is, like, newly excited about hedge mazes, partly because Adrian Fisher is good at creating work for himself, but also partly because there's something innate in people. I think we agree, based on this conversation, that wants to be in a maze and that wants to be in a scary situation that isn't too scary. Or in your case, not scary, but at least a vexing situation.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or just to be forced to be exposed to nature for about an hour in a way that you can't abandon in the middle. And I find it interesting that there is also enough hedged maze building to keep maze designers in business, at least to an extent.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

And why are people building all these hedged mazes at the time? And my theory is that it's because throughout the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher and her pack help destroy labor rights and the working class. And as in the United States, where something similar is going on in the 80s, when the working class and the concept of labor rights and union households are Being crushed by the executive office, then what remains, or one of the demographics that remains, are people who, rather than identifying as pro labor and as working class, now identify as aspiring middle class or aspiring upper middle class. Okay. As they continue up the ladder. And so I wonder if in hedge maze England of the late 80s and early 90s, there's this, people want to buy more hedge mazes. Because if more people are buying property and if there's a sense of class mobility perhaps happening underneath you that makes you like what you have a little bit less. Maybe you need a giant status symbol like a hedge maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Which says, not only am I here, but I'm going to be here for a really long time. And I, in fact, I've always been here and I'll always be here.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow.

[Sarah Marshall]

And you are just temporary because you have no hedge maze.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. And I'll let you into my hedge maze so you could feel what it's like for an hour. And then I'll cast you back out. It's the bread and circuses thing a little bit.

[Sarah Marshall]

And then I'll feed you to my bull baby.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

My hot beefcake bowl. No, I, I, I think that's very interesting. That's like your, your sociology coming through there. Right. I mean, it's like, I think that makes sense. Like with you said, like what you said with the length of time it takes. It's like that's exactly what you're saying, is you're investing in an idea what's status symbol.

[Sarah Marshall]

Like saying, I know exactly where I'm going to be in a decade and it's right here.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I mean, and on a less theoretical level, I think probably more seems less theory and just more materially real level, the 1980s are the decade of America's farm crisis, where basically an unbelievable number of farmers go out of business for various factors, partly that many of them were very overextended with loans, had been encouraged to take out loans or to mortgage more land or more expensive equipment because United States agriculture in the 1970s was being used to feed the world. And then circumstances change. Gas prices went up, interest rates went way up. Banks started freaking out and deciding that they needed to collect what farmers owed on a loan immediately as opposed to over the course of many years. And there was just this chain reaction of, you know, really an entire livelihood collapsing in many places. Yeah. And people, families losing farms and people losing livelihoods and their homes and their relationship to the land. But also, I think a huge milestone in the story of Americans troubled relationship with the land and being sort of forced off of it by banks in this case.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Wow. And let me float something else. Okay, so, like, everything you're saying is. I. I think so. Right on. But then it's like, you have to do what the rest of America has done in the last, you know, few decades is pivot toward entertainment as our export.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

So it's like, I wonder if the kind of farm as entertainment also is coming about at the same time.

[Sarah Marshall]

The farm as Disneyland. Really?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah. Like the little teensky Disneylands you can go to. Yeah, yeah. Because it just. It wasn't cutting it otherwise.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Because the way you endure is to evolve and become a little theme park.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Because, you know, the farm crisis happened because so much of the time, the amount of money that it costs to run a farm, you got less money back at the end of a season.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

So you have to make a corn maze to survive. So corn mazes are fun, but also, I think they proliferated in the early 90s. And we, for. We see our first newspapers.com incidents of a corn maze in Muscatine, Iowa, the epicenter of America's farm crisis.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

They're a sign of the American farmer surviving. And also, it makes total sense, based on what you're saying, that then the quote first and, like, the language of that website is weird. They're like, formally a passive form of entertainment. It's like. Yeah, I guess it's fair to say that this is the first actively entertaining corn maze because it's really, really big and it looks like a dinosaur. Like, it's the first one. Maybe we. I don't know. But Also, according to newspapers.com random American farms had corn mazes as early as 1988. And so I think we're looking at something where somebody didn't invent something, but they did help popularize it and spread it as a way for people to survive. But also the American farmer. And the American farmers, cute little kids, thought of it first. Yeah. Thank you and good night.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Thank you and good night. Wow. Wow. What a journey.

[Sarah Marshall]

What a journey through the maze. Let's go get a corn dog.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Let's get a corn dog. And, like, man, I just. I did not expect any of this. Yeah, I just. I loved doing this, and I will never go through a corn maze the same way again. That's for damn sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

I love doing this with you too. And like I say, love the corn, respect the corn. If you want to add something delicious to your summer salad, go get an ear of sweet corn for probably 50 cents and just put some fresh corn in your salad. Oh my gosh. Corn.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Great.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's just the best.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Grill it up, leave it in the friggin. It's friggin little jacket. It's a great little jacket.

[Sarah Marshall]

Husk.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Husk. And I'll just say, Sarah, thank you.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thank you.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

This was so much fun.

[Sarah Marshall]

Stay safe in the maze. There's corn to eat if you get lost.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

And I just want to reiterate one more thing, if that's okay.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Every corn is a glamorous woman Every.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Corn is a glamorous woman. Every corn is a glamorous woman.

[Sarah Marshall]

And that was our episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to the eternal explorer Chelsea Weber Smith for bringing us to the places that I certainly would be too scared to go to on my own. Thank you to Miranda Zickler for editing and producing. Thank you. You to Carolyn Kendrick for editing and producing. And of course, make sure to check out American Hysteria and all the episodes Chelsea and I have worked on together over the years. We've had so much fun. Thank you also to Miranda Zickler and Magpie Cinema Club for their rendition of Every Corn is a Glamorous Woman, which in my opinion is the song of the summer. Thank you for being in the corn with with us. We'll see you next time.