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Two people claim to know everything about something, but only one knows anything.
President Roosevelt wore an anti-gravity belt.
Dinosaurs had two brains.
Lucky kids live on Mars and go to school in flying cars.
Or at least they will one day.
Believe me, I'm a historian.
An astronaut or driver, DeLorean.
We'll be right back.
From Ringling, Oklahoma, this is The Big Fib.
And now, here's your host, Debra Goldstein.
Welcome to The Big Fib, the game show where kids choose between the spectacular show of Big Top Truth and the fireball fleabag of lies.
I'm your host, Debra Goldstein, and in the studio today is our sound effects robot Lisa, whose name stands for live in studio audience.
What's the matter, Lisa?
Oh, these are happy tears.
And by tears, I mean droplets of mechanical lubricant expelled from my vision ducts.
Human tears would rust my face.
Right, they would.
But why are you expelling mechanical lubricant droplets?
Well, Deborah, I'm reading this beautiful book.
It's called I'm Not a Dog Toy.
It's about a teddy bear that wants to be this girl's most favorite toy.
But but she does not appreciate all the super cool things about him.
So she doesn't want to be his friend, kind of like how how you don't want to be my friend.
Oh, wait a minute.
Okay.
First of all, I do want to be your friend and we are friends, Lisa.
We're super good friends.
You really need to revisit that narrative.
And second, that sounds like a really sad book.
OK, well, I didn't get to the good part.
See, there's this dog that totally sees the bear for the super cool toy that he is.
And he teaches the bear that it's way more fun to be friends with people and dogs and robots who can truly appreciate you for who you are.
Oh, that's a wonderful message.
Yeah, and it's written by this uber cool and wise and funny guy named Ethan T. Berlin.
He sounds awesome.
Oh, wait, is he the author of The Hugely Woojley Spider?
Why, yes.
Yes, he is.
I love that book.
I'll definitely order a copy of I Am Not a Dog Toy from wherever books are sold as soon as we're finished recording today.
And then you'll read it to me at bedtime?
It would be my pleasure.
Until then, we shall carry on with our show.
So why don't you tell everyone how our game works?
Okay, so this is crazy, but just hear me out, okay?
Okay.
Every week, we bring on two grown-ups.
One is an expert.
The other is a... This is where it gets real weird, Deborah.
Okay.
The other is a liar.
Oh, dear.
Yeah.
And it's the job of a human child to help us figure out who is who, because no one can spot a liar better than a kid.
I mean, we hope.
What are we lying about today, Debra?
We are lying about the circus, a traveling company of entertainers such as acrobats and clowns.
Lisa, have you ever been to the circus?
Uh, yeah, well, there is, uh, there's one thing that keeps me from going to the circus.
Oh, the clowns?
What?
No, clowns are hilarious.
They're all like, I got floppy shoes, floppy shoes.
No, I don't like tents.
I don't like the idea of spending time under fabric suspended by poles.
I prefer the stability of walls and a ceiling.
Thank you very much.
Would you say that that kind of construction makes you tense?
Your puns make me tense.
Okay, well then, why don't we pivot to something less punny, like meeting our contestant.
Lisa, who is our contestant today?
Our human child contestant is a nine-year-old who loves playing soccer and all things Godzilla, Ethan Batchelor. hello hi ethan how are you i'm bad you're bad why are you bad jk jk oh that means just kidding doesn't it that means jokes are cool is what he's saying oh cool k for cool gotcha so all things godzilla ethan tell us what do you like about godzilla everything about it everything it's not scary why would it be scary it's a giant lizard destroying the city that's fair right yeah deborah don't be such a scaredy cat i suppose sometimes giant lizards destroy cities and that's the fun and charm of living in a city I guess it's just the circle of life, isn't it?
Yeah.
Do you have a favorite Godzilla movie?
Oh, no.
They're too hard to choose.
I like Godzilla versus Olive Garden.
He goes in and he's like, how many breadsticks can I eat?
And then he eats 120 and they say, sir, you have to go.
And he says, rawr!
And then they say, okay.
I don't think I've seen that one.
Ethan, have you seen that one?
No, that's not even a movie.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Oh, are we talking about movies?
I thought we were just talking about ideas.
Sorry.
That's a pretty good idea.
That was just a concept that occurred to me.
I like it.
Copyright.
Yeah, copyright that.
Our first expert is Miranda Young.
Miranda, please introduce yourself to Ethan.
Hi, Ethan.
How are you?
I'm good.
Good.
My name is Miranda Young, and I actually grew up In the circus, it's sort of the family business.
And then I decided to sort of figure out our family history and became the family historian.
Thank you very much.
All right, then let's meet our second expert, Mark Schmidt.
Mark, please introduce yourself to Ethan.
Hello, Ethan.
Hi.
I'm Mark Schmidt and...
I am a circus historian and I work with an amazingly giant amount of circus material, some of it being like over 100 years old.
Hey, all right, then.
What kind of circus march screamers might you be sharing, Lisa?
I don't know about circus marches, but I'm happy to scream.
It's hot seat time.
It is indeed.
And that is when we put our experts on the hot seat while they answer Ethan's questions.
Lisa, whom should we put on the hot seat first?
Miranda Young, because her initials are M-Y, which reminds me of the word my, and the word my is part of my favorite phrase.
What's your favorite phrase?
My, oh my, look what the giraffe dragged in.
Wow.
Change it to the elephant.
Yeah.
My, oh my, look what the elephant dragged in.
Nice.
It works both ways.
Ethan, what is your first question for Miranda?
Miranda, how did the circus get its name?
The circus got its name from the word circle, which I guess makes a lot of sense.
The circus has always been very proud of its center of the ring heritage.
So it comes from the Latin word for circle.
Okay.
Both of you, what makes you a circus expert?
OK, who would like to take that question?
I certainly can.
My family's always been performing in the circus since after World War Two.
My grandparents joined the circus and it sort of just trickled down and every generation picked it up as a variety of things circus performers as trainers and as crew members.
Mark, what makes you a circus expert?
Well, for 11 years I've been working with that amazing circus collection and we get asked about the circus from people all over the world.
And I've written a book with a co-author about the trapeze, and on top of that, where i live was the trapeze capital of the world.
What it was out of necessity like are there a lot of bridges that are out.
I live in bloomington illinois, right in the middle of the country, And strangely enough, some grade school age kids started practicing at a gymnasium in the 1800s and they got good enough to become trapeze stars.
And they went with a circus and then it just continued to keep happening in this community.
And lots of center ring stars come from Bloomington Normal.
Yes, I live in Bloomington Normal, Illinois.
Is there a Bloomington Abnormal, Illinois?
That would really be the name.
That's our secret name.
That could be true.
Miranda, how do you train elephants for the circus?
Elephants are fun because they're super smart.
They're very intelligent and they love people.
So they listen really well.
And they're pretty easy to train with food.
They're very food driven.
So you can feed an elephant peanuts.
That's how I train Debra.
Right, Debra?
I do like peanuts.
Good girl.
Good girl, Debra.
Mark, are you afraid of clowns?
Oh, that's a tough one.
I am not afraid of clowns, but I totally understand why people might be afraid of clowns.
That's creepy.
Why?
Why do you think people are afraid of clowns?
The makeup.
Really?
The pies.
They're always throwing pies at people.
Is that why, Mark, people don't like pies?
It's possible.
Maybe you're allergic to pie.
I think it's also the idea that someone's hiding their face.
Dun, dun, dun.
The fact that you don't know exactly what The person is underneath all of that.
And so putting on a happy clown face or a sad clown face, or hopefully not a terrifying clown face.
It could be the nicest person or the scariest person underneath.
You never know.
You never know.
And that's what makes them scary, maybe.
There are all different kinds of clowns.
And so some clowns are silent.
And silent clowns might sneak up on you.
Deborah, there are 10 clowns behind you right now.
What?
Where?
No, there are not.
Oh.
No, there are 20.
There's 20.
Okay, this question's for both of you.
What is the weirdest thing you have learned about circuses?
The weirdest thing.
All right, who would like to start?
I can go if you'd like.
Go ahead.
So, the weirdest thing that I learned about circuses might be the most boring.
Oh, okay. is that circuses are a business.
It takes a lot of effort to move a circus from place to place and to orchestrate sometimes thousands of people working on a show.
And to get that show up in the morning and down at night and on the tracks if you're moving on a train to the next town.
And all of the paperwork.
We have so much paperwork on the circus.
You'd be shocked.
That does sound boring.
Wow.
What about you, Miranda?
What's the weirdest thing you ever learned about circuses?
I think the weirdest thing I've learned is that while like, the circus is a pretty old, you know it's been around for over 200 years.
But juggling is one of the actual oldest tricks in the book.
People have been juggling since the ancient Mesopotamians.
What do they juggle?
Did they have like rubber balls to juggle or were they juggling lions or what?
Chainsaws.
Who knows?
Because it's all in paintings.
We didn't have videos.
We don't have videos of the ancient Egyptians, but there are pictures of them, you know, holding multiple objects and throwing them in the air.
And it is very possible that they were juggling.
Wow.
Hey, Mark, what would you do if you were in charge of the circus?
Yes.
Oh, wow.
That would be a dream.
First of all, if I were in charge of the circus, I would make sure that there were lots of trapeze acts at the beginning of the show and at the end of the show.
It would be bookended by trapeze.
Someone would try for the quadruple somersault.
That's the most that that's ever been done.
I love the trapeze.
Again, I come from the trapeze capital of the world at one time.
It's in the air here.
Only for a little bit, then someone else catches it.
Have you ever been on a trapeze, Mark?
Oh, no.
No?
That won't happen.
I see.
Scary?
Yeah.
Heights are not my thing.
Too scary.
I can write about them and research them, but never, ever, ever.
I see.
Okay, both of you, can you do any magic tricks or acrobatics that you can see at the circus?
Hmm.
Hmm.
When I was a kid, I learned some trapeze tricks.
I was never a performer, but I did learn some trapeze tricks.
Well, I think that my circus act would be what some people here in town did.
They went into management.
I see.
That's where the real money was.
Gotcha.
They used to say that they would get up on the pedestal board when they were getting ready to do their trapeze act.
And they would count the house and just they would know exactly how much money was being made.
And so that's they could go ask for a raise because they knew that the house had been good.
Wow.
That would be my trick, making the money.
All right.
Here's a question.
You hear a lot of times people always threaten to run away and join the circus.
And I want to know if that's something that really happens and if that turns out well for them.
Anybody?
I mean, that's essentially what my grandparents did.
I don't know what they were running away from necessarily.
They just decided they want to take the show on the road.
And it worked out great, because now our whole family is performers and people working for the circus and training.
And, you know, it's in our blood now.
So it's a good option.
So yeah.
So Ethan, if you ever just get frustrated with life or you know things get you down, you could just run away and join the circus.
Does that sound good to you, Ethan?
No.
No, why not?
I want to join a business office.
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It's time for the shorts on fire round when our experts have to answer as many questions as they can before time runs out.
So experts, it'll be a fast trip down the midway.
Ethan, let's start with Miranda.
Okay, you can ask Miranda your shorts on fire questions now.
Okay.
What year did the circus start in the U.S.?
1793.
What is the name of the steam organ that plays music at the circus?
It's called a calliope.
Backdoor fit.
The Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Australia is a circus for trained fruit flies.
That is true.
What do you call the person who sells candy at the circus and carnivals?
That is called the sugar master.
My best friend.
What does P.T. stand for in the name P.T.
Barnum?
Uh, pass.
Please and thank you.
What do you call the dance-like moves that horses are trained to do?
That is called prancing.
If you are riding a giraffe in the circus, what are you really sitting?
That's a word used for a unicycle.
And that is time.
Oh, the time's up.
Lisa, will you please restart the timer for Mark?
My, oh my, look what the giraffe dragged in.
It's a restart of the timer.
Very good.
Elephant.
Sorry, elephant.
Okay, Ethan, you can start your questions for Mark.
Now, name three events in the circus.
The Flying Act, the High Wire Act, and Centurion March.
What do people in the circus call a bet?
That would be a Donaker.
What do you call the area where circus performers and workers live and get ready before a show?
That would be the backyard.
What is a one-ring circus?
Boring.
Would you rather be a lion tater or a sword swap?
I'm allergic to cats.
I mean, sword swallowing.
What is the oldest college circus program in the U.S.?
That would be the Gamma Phi Circus, and that is at the Illinois State University.
And that is time.
That's all the time we have, okay?
I'm sorry.
Wow, that went so fast.
It was as if our experts were getting shot out of a cannon.
Now, it is decision time.
Ethan must juggle all the facts and figure out who is our circus expert and who is clowning around.
Ethan, who is our big fibber?
I think Miranda.
Why do you think Miranda is our fibber?
Because she answered the questions faster than Mark.
Because she answered them faster, so that makes her a liar?
Yeah, you can't just answer them that way.
Hmm, I've never heard that explanation.
I like it.
I like that one.
Okay, all right.
Will the actual circus expert...
Please tell us who you are.
Gulp.
That would be me, Mark Schmidt.
That is correct.
Well done, Ethan.
That's right.
Mark Schmidt is a senior specialist in special collections at Illinois State University's Milner Library.
And he's also the co-author of a book about trapeze performers in the golden age of aerialists.
Amazing.
Well done, Ethan.
It is time for some fact checking.
Mark, were there facts that Miranda shared that were contortions of the truth?
Oh, yes.
See, let me just tell you this.
Miranda's answers were so convincing to me that it clouded my mind.
But the dead giveaway?
The dead giveaway is that a circus person would call that steam organ a calliope.
Not a calliope?
A calliope.
Oh, nautical.
So it's spelled the same, but it's pronounced Callio.
Interesting.
Very good.
All right, let's turn it over to Miranda.
Which facts did you tell us that were pure grandstandings?
The person who sells candy at the circus is not the sugar master.
That's called the candy butcher.
Okay.
The dance moves that horses do is not called prancing.
It's called dressage.
Okay.
What else?
I'll help you.
So PT in PT Barnum, do you know what that is, Mark?
Phineas Taylor.
Phineas Taylor.
Very good.
And what about do you know, Mark, about the Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Australia?
I am woefully ignorant of that circus.
I will tell you all that it is, in fact, a youth circus founded in the 1970s and is the only full-time circus school in australia, and it provides a program of education for kids of all ages and abilities.
So it is a circus, it is a real thing, but it is not, for fruit flies apparently.
Well, It's time to fold the show.
Thanks to our contestant, Ethan, the ringmaster of our podcast circus.
And thank you to our expert and liar, Mark and Miranda, and to Lisa, our roustabout robot.
And, of course, many thanks to our listeners tuning into The Big Fib, where we read light lies and where the truth is always the greatest show on earth.
The Big Fib is a production of Gen Z Media.
For more great shows, visit gzmshows.com.
While you're there, you can send questions for me to read on.
Ask Lisa and find out how you can participate.
Yes, you.
Yeah, you.
And you can follow us on social media at The Big Fib Podcast for behind-the-scenes photos and more true facts.
And you might as well go ahead and order that book, I Am Not a Dog Toy.
It sounds so good.
I can't wait to read it.
I don't know who wrote it.
It sounds amazing.
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