And now it's time for Who Smarted?
Aw, what an awesome five-star review for Who Smarted?
Thanks, Raquel from Utah.
Oops.
Hey, Smarty Pants.
Gosh, you caught me in a restaurant bathroom reading Who Smarted reviews on the toilet.
I know, it's kinda gross.
Here, let me wash my hands.
And my phone.
Then I'll be right with you.
There, that's better.
Let's get out of the bathroom.
Um, you might want to flush again.
Some of my friends didn't make it to the sewer party.
Huh?
Oh, brother.
A talking roll of toilet paper.
Why am I not surprised?
Hey, this is who's smarted, baby.
You should know by now anything goes and everything talks.
So true.
And so weird.
But also so great.
What should I call you?
I'm a toilet paper roll.
I don't have a name.
But a lot of people call me TP.
TP for toilet paper.
Aren't you a smart one?
Okay, okay.
Slow your roll.
Get it?
Roll?
Uh-huh.
You gonna flush again or what?
There we go.
Anyway, I'll see you around, TP.
Catch you on the backside, trusty.
Um, right.
Actually, while I have you here, I was thinking there is a lot that Smarty Pants and I don't know about toilet paper or TP.
Like, who invented toilet paper?
How long has it been around?
What's it made of?
And what was life like before toilet paper?
Sure.
I can answer those questions, trusty.
Great.
Then it's time to get rolling with another big whiff of science and history on... Who Smarted?
Who Smarted?
Who Smarted?
Who's smart?
Is it you?
Is it me?
Is it science or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on Who's Smart?
All right, TP, let's start at the beginning.
How long has toilet paper been around?
Believe it or not, toilet paper has been around for a long, long time.
Longer than most people probably think.
And it all began here.
In the Chinese restaurant where I was having lunch?
No, not the restaurant.
Ancient China.
Use your teleportation app to take us to 6th century China.
Hang on, TP.
Here we are.
Ancient China.
Around 600 CE.
Also, you can stop holding on to me now, TP.
We made it.
Sorry, I can be a little clingy.
Anyway, welcome to the birthplace and time of toilet paper.
So wait, you're telling me toilet paper was invented thousands of years ago?
Sure am, and it sure was.
It's believed China had TP way before anybody else.
In fact, during China's Tang Dynasty, which lasted a few hundred years, starting in the year 618, a Middle Eastern traveler even remarked about their toilet paper.
Really?
How do you know?
Were you here to hear him?
Uh, no, trustee.
I was born last month.
Luckily, for all toilet paper historians, there's a written record of what he said.
Oh, so what did he say?
He said...
The Chinese do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities, but they only wipe themselves with paper.
I see.
So you're saying other parts of the world just used water to clean up after they did their...
Necessities?
Well, I'm not saying it.
He said it, but yeah.
But the truth is, in other parts of the world they used all sorts of things instead of toilet paper.
Ooh, smarty pants.
See if you can guess.
Which of these items did people historically use instead of toilet paper?
Ready?
Go.
Leaves. hay, grass, stones, broken pieces of ceramic, sponges, seashells, corn cobs.
Did you get them all right, Smarty Pants?
Because all of those answers were right.
Wow.
They sure used a lot of things to wipe the old derriere.
They sure did.
And while some of them might sound odd, they did manage to get the job done.
I gotta say, a few of those things don't seem... super comfy.
Which is why toilet paper seems so fresh and fun and fancy.
No more corn cobs and hay for the ancient Chinese.
By the 14th century, in what is today the Zhejiang province of China, 10 million packages of toilet paper were made each year.
And that's just in one region of the country.
Impressive.
And get this, each package has between 1,000 and 10,000 sheets in it.
Most impressive.
Not only was it a lot, the sheets themselves were huge.
Each sheet of TP was two feet by three feet wide.
Wait, what?
Did you say two feet by three feet?
Smarty Pants, that's like the size of a welcome mat.
I know, I know, pretty crazy stuff.
But these super fancy, ginormous toilet paper sheets were used pretty much only by royalty in the imperial courts.
Regular folks who weren't royals but could do a bit better than corn, cobs and rocks, had toilet paper made from wool, hemp and other natural fibers.
I'm no diva, but I would definitely prefer wool over a handful of rocks or broken ceramic pieces any day.
But when did toilet paper start to look more like what we use today? took a while longer.
It wasn't until 1857 that an American named Joseph Gaiety invented what we consider to be the first modern toilet paper similar to what you find in stores and bathrooms today.
But it wasn't sold in a row.
It was sold in a package of individual flat sheets.
You had your own little stack of TP.
Oh, okay.
Still beats seashells.
Smarty Pants, true or false?
When Joseph Gayetti invented the first modern toilet paper, his name was printed on every single sheet.
The answer?
True.
Yep.
For some reason he thought it was a good idea to have people in the 19th century wipe their butts with his name.
Hmm.
I don't know how I'd feel about someone wiping their butt with my name.
Then again, if it was trusty paper, you wouldn't even have to change the initial.
Trusty paper?
T.P.?
?
Get it?
Got it.
Good one.
All right.
Now that we're on a roll, when and where did toilet paper go from a stack of sheets to a roll of continuous perfectly perforated squares?
Well, the where is... Any guesses, Smarty Pants?
Where was the toilet paper roll created?
TP?
If you said the USA, you're right.
Yep, the first toilet paper roll was created in the United States by the Scott Paper Company.
But other parts of the world took a little longer.
For example, Europe, where they didn't get rolling with the TPR until 1928.
That's 38 years later.
I wonder what took so long.
Anyway, I'm guessing the Scott Paper Company made their way over to Europe?
Nope.
The first European role was created by a German man named Hans Klenk.
He started a toilet paper company called Hakla, which is still a huge company in Germany today.
I see.
So does Hakle mean toilet paper in German?
No.
It's actually just a combination of the first half of his first and last names.
Hans Klink, Hakla.
But funnily enough, it actually came to mean toilet paper.
See, when TP first hit the shelves, people were actually embarrassed to buy it.
So the Hakla company came up with a clever slogan.
Ask for a roll of hackla if you don't want to say toilet paper.
Of course, today people call toilet paper a few other names.
There's TP, of course, and toilet tissue, tissue paper, bathroom tissue, loo paper, bog paper.
Smarty Pants, do you have any fun nicknames for toilet paper in your home?
Call them out.
Nice.
Now, look around to see if anyone is staring at you for yelling out names for toilet paper.
And for the true toilet paper fans, if you're ever in the German city of Dusseldorf, be sure to visit the Hakla Toilet Paper Museum.
A toilet paper museum?
Really?
Is it flush with information?
That's right, smart guy.
Believe it or not, it provides an excellent visual history of the many toilet paper innovations over the years.
Hey, smarty pants.
Which of these is a real item you can actually find at the Hockley Toilet Paper Museum.
A. Chocolate-flavored toilet paper.
B, a two-pack of TP, where one is designed for going number one and the other for going number two.
Or C, glow-in-the-dark toilet paper.
The answer is coming up right after this quick break and a word from our sponsors.
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Now back to Who Smarted?
Okay, smarty pants.
Which of the following will you find at the Museum of Toilet Paper?
A. Chocolate TP.
B. Specially made TP for number one and number two.
Or C. TP that glows in the dark.
The answer is B.
In the 1960s, Hakla sold a two-pack of toilet paper called the Duo Row.
The two rows in the package had two different textures a soft one for doing number one and a stronger one for doing number two.
Whoa.
That's actually kind of a great idea.
Which reminds me TP wasn't always the soft cottony 2, 3 or even 4-ply luxurious bathroom tissue it is today.
The early versions of TP were rough on your bum.
And I mean rough.
It wasn't until the 1930s that a company called the Northern Tissue Company came out with splinter-free toilet paper.
It was a real game changer.
Splinter-free?
Are you saying that before that people got splinters just wiping their?
But of course TP wasn't as finely processed as it is today.
So back when it was on the rougher side you might get a teeny, tiny little wood chip stuck in your.
But luckily toilet paper's come a long way since then.
What is it made of?
I mean, I assume it's made of paper since it's called toilet paper.
But how exactly is it made?
And how do they make it so soft?
Smarty Pants, do you have any ideas?
Well, thankfully, we've come a long way from corn cobs and rocks and wool.
Today, toilet paper is generally made from pulpwood, a type of timber that's pretty soft.
Since it's called pulpwood, is it mashed up into a pulp and then flattened out to make toilet paper?
Bingo.
Not to mention, a lot of other stuff happens between the time it's a tree to the time it's TP.
First, the wood is, as you said, made into a fine pulp.
Sometimes TP is also made of existing recycled paper which also needs to be moistened and mashed into a pulp.
Then the moist pulp is flattened and rolled into huge sheets where bleach and other substances are added.
But all these substances are safe for my bum bum, right?
You bet your bottom.
They just help to make the grayish pulp clean and soft and white so it can become the TP you know and love.
At this point, the huge bleach white sheets of pulp are flattened and dried.
And at this point, they're already starting to resemble toilet paper.
What about all the little designs on the TP?
TP?
Like flowers and waves and cool little patterns.
Those get added toward the end of this process, and they're not just there to make the TP look cute.
Those designs also add texture, making the paper stronger and more durable.
From there, the rolls are cut down to size, packaged, and shipped off to the stores.
Well, me and my butt are definitely very thankful for you, TP.
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
But there is one more thing I need to know.
An age-old question that has confounded generations of toilet paper users.
Perhaps you can solve this toilet tissue conundrum.
Uh, sure.
What is it?
When it comes to putting a toilet paper roll in its holder, should it spool out from the top or the bottom?
Smarty Pants, how does your toilet paper spool out?
Overhand?
Underhand?
Something else?
Ooh, that is a question that gets asked a lot.
And the answer is, whichever way makes you happy.
When it comes to TP, sometimes you need to start at the top to reach the bottom, and sometimes you need to work from the bottom up.
But either way, the soft gentle strong, occasionally scented goodness of today's toilet paper is sure to make you smile from rear to rear.
Oh, wow.
That was beautiful, TP.
No ifs, ands, ors.
A super fun shout out to super smarty fan Simeon in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
You wrote in to say you love that Who's Smarted lets you learn stuff, but not like school.
Instead of division, you're learning how much poop elephants make in a week, which is clearly better.
We couldn't agree more.
Thanks for listening, Simeon.
This episode Toilet Paper was written by Phil forgot to flush Jeremy and voiced by Mike out of TP Pravetti and Jerry Colbert.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh, wash your hands, Han.
Who Smarted? is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max, two-ply Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian squeaky clean Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam get the plunger, Davis.
Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Kolber.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
Too smart and...
