Hey parents, just a heads up before we get started, this episode covers the history of Jack -O -Lanterns.
We talk about some myths and Halloween -y stuff.
So feel free to skip if you're not into that kind of thing.
Okay, on with the show.
Thom Coyle Oh Jack -O -Lantern, where are you pumpkin?
I'm busy. Joy, I think he's in your closet.
I've been looking everywhere for you, pumpkin pal.
It's almost time for the Halloween party.
Sorry, can't come. I'm booking myself a trip to Hawaii.
But we need you. You're a jack o 'lantern.
You are the spirit of Halloween.
Yeah, and tonight's the big night.
It's Halloween, Jack.
Did you just call me Jack?
Yes. Joey, just because I'm a jack o 'lantern doesn't mean my name is Jack.
It's actually Lionel.
Oh, OK. Lionel O 'Lantern?
Not the same ring to it, but still cool.
Thank you. ... Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take this call from my travel agent.
Hello, Bob? The Pumpkin Spice Hotel Suite is a yes.
But Lionel, you were made for Halloween.
You can't skip out now.
Why do you need me?
Paint a face on a banana or put some googly eyes on an eggplant?
No, it has to be a pumpkin.
with the cute and crooked smile and a little light inside?
That's my problem. It's so random.
Like, why a pumpkin?
Why the carved face?
It makes no sense. I can't play the part of a Halloween mascot if I don't understand my motivation.
But I can get into a pumpkin size Speedo and hit the beach. So if you'll excuse me.
That's it. You just need to know where you come from.
And boy, whoo -ee! Let me tell ya, Jack.
Er, Lionel. It is some fascinating stuff.
Grade A pure, head -scratching history!
But, you know, if the beach is more interesting...
Wait, you mean all my randomness has a reason?
I wanna hear it. Great, then come with me!
You're gonna hear a history to be proud of, pumpkin!
You're listening to Forever A Go from APM Studios.
I'm your host, Joy Dolo, and I'm here today with Baron from Eagan, Minnesota and Lionel the Jack -O -Lantern from my closet.
Hi guys. Hey, Joy. Hello, ready to get this episode startled?
But seriously, my flight for Hawaii leaves in five hours.
We got you Lionel, stay with us.
You're in for a treat.
So Baron, what do you love most about Halloween?
I love how like spooky and like creepy the season is.
Yeah, you don't get scared at all?
No, I actually love scary things.
I've kind of like loved them since I was a little kid.
Do you have any like unique Halloween traditions that you like to do?
Me and my dad set up like a haunted trail every year and we throw a really like big Halloween party where we like invite all of our friends.
Whoa, okay. So tell me more about this haunted trail.
So we usually get like a couple animatronics to get And like some people will like help out to like jump out and stuff and like usually I'll be the tour guide So I'll like lead in through it all.
Oh my gosh, this sounds terrifying No offense.
I would never go. I'm so scared of everything So you have like friends and family that'll like hideout.
Is it like in like a corn maze?
Is it like we have like a little like kind of forest in our backyard?
So we'll just kind of like cut out like a trail for like people to go through Okay Have you ever been one of the people that like hides out and jumps out at people or you always the tour guide?
I've done it a couple of times.
Do people, like, scream really loud?
Yeah. That's great.
I want to go. Have you ever carved a pumpkin before?
I have. Ooh, did you do the traditional, if you think of a pumpkin, like the traditional smile with the triangle eyes or did you do something spectacular?
I did Jack the Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas.
Wow! Yeah. How did you do that?
I just got, like, the picture and then you just kind of, like, trace it and then you, like, cut it out.
like really, yeah. Oh man, that's so sweet, you have the best Halloween.
I don't think I've ever done anything that cool before.
Do you ever go to pumpkin patches?
Yes, they're actually probably my favorite part.
I feel like it feels really good, like once you find the right pumpkin, you're like, oh, this is gonna be so good.
It's kind of like a treasure hunt, like trying to like find the right one.
Yeah, okay, so what are the list of top three things that you need for the perfect pumpkin?
Okay. I think it needs to be nice and round, and you need to check the whole thing to make sure there's not like any like weird spots on it or stuff like that.
And then you want it to be pretty big too, but you don't want it to be like so humongous that like you can't carry it or anything.
Smart, smart, okay, all right.
Well now I have some things to think about when I go to the pumpkin patch this year.
I never really did pumpkin carving or anything like that.
I think I did it once where we scooped out some seeds and we roasted the pumpkin seeds.
But I've never actually like sat and like drawn on a pumpkin face and done it.
Even though I never carved pumpkins, I've always admired them.
Jack -o'-lanterns are iconic.
See, Jack? You're a big part of Halloween festivities and fun!
It's Lionel Joy. Get with the program.
Oh my ghoulness? Of course!
But really, what's up with all this Jack stuff?
I mean, where does the name Jack -o'-lantern come from?
Oh, I'll tell you. The origin of the Jack -o'-lantern is actually pieced together from several different stories.
The light, the carved faces, the pumpkins, they all started with their own history.
And all of it came together to make you.
Yeah, you're like a soup with ingredients from different times and places.
Okay, I'm listening.
Let's start with your little glowing light that goes back to real, mysterious lights often seen in swamps or marshes.
Imagine this. You're walking home through a marshy field.
As the sun disappears and darkness settles around you, You shiver.
There's a chill in the air.
It's fall... when, according to many ancient traditions, spirits walk the earth.
You're squelching along when suddenly you see something up ahead, a faint glowing blue light.
Is it a lantern? A small fire?
A ghost? No! It's Ignis Fatuus.
What is...Ignis Fatuus?
It's a mysterious blue light seen in swamps at night.
We're not sure what causes it, but scientists believe it might be caused by gas coming from the ground.
Swamps are full of wet decaying grass, trees and leaves, and as these things break down they release gas.
We think the gas might light up or ignite out of nowhere, and that could make little bursts of glowing light.
Whatever causes it, this blue light has been seen in swamps around the world for centuries.
and people have come up with lots of stories to explain it over the years some thought the lights were ghosts with lanterns others thought they were magic flames made by fairies and people came up with names for it like willow the wisp and jack -o'-lantern so I'm named after a mysterious light seen in swamps at night makes sense my mom always told me I was the light of the party, but why did they call those lights Jack -o -lanterns anyway?
Well, a lot of people thought the lights looked like someone wandering around with a lantern at night.
And back in the day, in England and Scotland, night watchmen or security guards who worked at night were called Jack of the Lantern because Jack was the name people used to refer to men they didn't know and because these night watchmen were usually carrying a lantern.
So, you were named after a mysterious light, that kind of looked like a guy with a lantern.
Jack -o -lantern. Ka -bluey!
Mind blown! Though I think Lionel -o -lantern would've been a more charming name for a night watchman.
Don't you? I like the double L, but that's just one part of your history.
Are you ready for another piece of the puzzle?
You'd better bo -lieve it!
Okay. This next one is a myth people started telling about the man behind the jack -o -lantern light.
It was the 1600s. Back when ladies wore ruffly petticoats under their dresses, people galloped across the countryside on horseback, and everything was lit by candlelight.
And around this time, some people started telling a myth to explain Ignis Fatuus.
The star of this myth was a man who outsmarted the devil.
He went by many names, but in the most famous version of the story from Ireland, he usually went by Stingy Jack.
That's me name! Now, this Jack character was famous for being mischievous and selfish.
He didn't like to share, and he managed to trick the Devil not once, not twice, but three whole times.
Here, here, here...
Take that, you fiery old fob!
The myth goes, when Jack finally died and trudged up to Heaven, He was turned away for being a trickster.
So he trekked down to the underworld.
But when he arrived, the devil thought, oh, brother, not this guy again.
And he yanked the gates shut and hurled a lump of hot coal after him.
Yipes. But plot twist, that glowing piece of coal ended up being pretty useful.
Actually, handy to have a light.
Thanks, devil. So Jack got to work.
He hollowed out a turnip, which is a root vegetable that sort of looks like what would happen if a beet and a potato had a baby.
Then he picked up the lump of coal...
Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!
Put it inside the hollowed out turnip, and voila, he had a handy dandy lantern.
Ta -da! And as the old myth goes, to this day, Jack still wanders the earth carrying the glowing coal in his turnip lantern.
Thanks for the fun story.
But why did Jack use a turnip for a lantern and not a pumpkin?
Back then, in Ireland, people often hollowed out root vegetables like turnips and beets and used them as lanterns.
They didn't really grow pumpkins in Ireland, but turnips were pretty easy to get.
And sometimes people carved scary faces into their turnip lanterns, too.
Yeah. Some Irish turnip lanterns had super creepy faces.
Creepier than me? No one is creepier than you, Lionel.
Wow, thanks Joy. Maybe I should just embrace it.
My name IS fascinating.
I'm named after a spooky light and a guy who tricked the devil.
See? We told you. Hawaii is seemingly less appealing by the minute.
But you still haven't answered a crucial question.
How did carved pumpkins, like me, become a thing?
Why aren't turnips the go -to mascot for Halloween?
Orange, you excited to find out?
I am. Great! We'll have to hop over to America in the 1800's to tell that part of the story.
But first, let's plaaaaaay...
This is the game where we take three things from history, and try to put them in order of which came first, second, and most recent in time.
In honor of Halloween and all the candy we'll be eating, today's three things are Snickers, Twizzlers, and candy corn.
Okay, Baron, which do you think came first?
Which came second? And which came most recently in history?
Okay, I think candy corn came first because that seems like kind of older and like it's been around for a while.
And then I think Twizzlers are more like artificial and stuff but they've also been around for a while.
So that seems like it's older but not as old as the candy corn.
And I feel like Snickers are kind of like a modern thing.
Yeah, like Snickers came out like a couple of weeks ago.
I'm just kidding. But of like the recent times.
Do you like any of these candies?
I like Snickers a lot.
Yeah? Is there something about the gooeyness or the nuts or the weird nougat -y thing?
Yeah, just like, I don't know.
It tastes so good. Yeah, yeah.
I'm a huge Twizzlers fan.
I literally have like half a bag of it in my car right now.
Okay. So first up, we have candy corn, and then next is Twizzlers, and most recent in history, we have Snickers.
Yeah? Ready to lock that in?
Let's lock in. Let's lock it in.
All right. Well, here are the answers at the end of the episode, right after the credits.
So stick around. Hey, Forever ago, friends.
We love hearing from our listeners.
We want to know, what topic would you like to explore on the show?
Is there an invention or time period you'd like to learn more about?
Beren, what's something from history you're curious about?
If all of the dinosaurs were wiped out by the meteor, then how are birds related to them?
That is a great question.
How are they related?
Oh, this might be a whole episode.
Listeners, If you have a great question like that, or anything about history, record yourself asking your question and send it to us at foreverago .org slash contact.
And while you're there, you can send us fan art like maybe a picture of me and Hermes the elephant having a tea party.
And keep listening.
Brainzone universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults.
Since you're a fan of forever ago, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe.
Come on, let's explore.
Ultimately seashells are great because...
beach. Ah, what a great shell.
Need more Smash Boom Best, now.
Listen to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts.
you're listening to forever ago I'm joy and I'm Baron and I'm Lionel the jack -o'-lantern we just heard about a mysterious light seen in swamps at night some people called it jack -o'-lantern and we heard the myth of Jack and how according to legend he walks the earth carrying a hollowed out turnip lantern lit with a lump of coal from the devil.
But what I want to know is why Jack didn't use a pumpkin lantern in that old myth.
A gorgeous question, Lionel, which brings us to tale number three.
Cue the music. Welcome to America in the early 1800s.
Back then, people didn't have toilets, or running water, or Snickers, or Skittles, or Tootsie Rolls.
Tootsie rolls are the worst Halloween candy anyway.
What? Okay, agree to disagree.
Anyway, Americans mostly lived in the countryside back then.
And to entertain themselves, kids pulled pranks.
And one of the best pranks of all involved carving a face into a pumpkin.
Back then, pumpkins were everywhere.
Sounds like my kind of place.
Pumpkins were delicious, nutritious, and pretty easy to grow, so Americans grew a lot of them to feed themselves and their animals.
And there were more pumpkins than anyone knew what to do with.
Except kids. Kids put those pumpkins to work.
Imagine this, it's fall on your farm.
You've been working and playing outside all day, and it's time to go in for supper.
As you run up the road, darkness sinks around you and something catches your eye.
A glowing, terrifying face peeking out from behind a tree?
Aaah! Oh, wait a second.
That's not a person.
It's just a pumpkin with a carved face and a candle inside.
You can hear the kids who made it giggling behind the wall.
LAUGHS You've been punked.
Kids in their early 1800's pulled this kind of pumpkin prank all the time.
They'd cut the top off of a pumpkin, hollow it out, carve a face into it and put a candle inside.
Then they'd scare their neighbors with it.
Kids would hide along the road and jump out when their friends walked by.
Or they'd put the pumpkin on a stick, cover themselves with a sheet, and walk around the neighborhood pretending to have a pumpkin head.
This prank was popularized by the legend of Sleepy Hollow, starring the Headless Horseman, a ghostly horseman with a pumpkin for a head.
Aah! And by the middle of the 1800s, these hollowed -out pumpkins with faces started being called...
Jack O 'Lanterns! Wow.
So, why were American pumpkinheads called jack -o -lanterns, too?
We're not 100 percent sure, but when Irish and Scottish people came to the US, they brought the tradition of carving turnips with them.
And there were a lot of pumpkins in America, so historians think Irish and Scottish immigrants started carving scary faces in pumpkins, too.
And all these threads came together to make one unique thing.
a carved pumpkin with a glowing face called a jack -o'-lantern.
Fabulous. I love it.
And as Halloween became more popular, jack -o'-lanterns did too.
And after all, we celebrate Halloween in the fall, the same time pumpkins are ready for harvest. By the early 1900s, jack -o'-lanterns were a symbol of Halloween.
And carving pumpkins was a widespread Halloween tradition.
And it's stuck around ever since.
Huh. Now I see why drawing a face on a banana wouldn't cut it.
Right? You are a unique blend of history, happenstance, myth, and pranks.
True legend status.
No one could replace something that special.
Plus, carving jack -o -lanterns is creative and fun.
And they're beautiful and kinda creepy.
Historic and unique.
Artistic and entertaining.
Stunning and a little scary.
That is me. Hey Joy.
You still having that Halloween party?
I think my Hawaii vacation can wait One second though, I gotta call my travel agent Hello Bob cancel my pumpkin spice hotel suite I have a party to get to Hey Joy, this party is great.
And I love your costume.
You're a hot dog? No, I'm a Halloweenie.
And let me guess, you have a turnip lantern.
Are you Stingy Jack from The Myth?
Yep. Very on topic.
Nice. And then I said to him, just creepin' it real, pal!
Ha ha ha ha! Whoa, Lionel, making the rounds.
Everyone thinks he's so funny.
Come on, let's get this party started.
This Lionel lantern wants to dance.
Yeah, he's really come out of his shell or rind.
Turns out he's much happier repping Halloween now that he knows his story.
It is kind of wild how the jack o 'lantern is a mix of so many things.
First you had those mysterious swamp lights.
Some people thought they looked like night watchmen with glowing lanterns, also called a Jack -o -lantern.
And there was the story of that tricky guy, Stinchy Jack, who wandered the earth as a ghost with a glowing turnip lantern.
And eventually, carving pumpkins and putting lights in them became a hot prank in 1800s America.
Today's Jack -o -lanterns are a blend of all these stories and also totally their own thing.
So cool. Yeah. Oh, hey look, Lionel is starting a conga line.
Let's go join. Yes, and yes.
Boy, that pumpkin knows how to party.
That's it for this episode of FOREVER AGO.
It was written by...
Rosie DuPont. And produced by...
Nico Gonzales Whistler.
And Ruby Guthrie. Our editors are...
Sandin Totten. And...
Shayla Farzan. on. Fact checking by Jess Miller.
Engineering help from Derek Ramirez with sound design by Rachel Breese.
Original theme music by Marc Sanchez.
We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains on Universe team.
Anna Goldfield, Lauren Humpert, Joshua Ray, Marc Sanchez, Charlotte Traver, Anna Weigel, and Harang Woldusilase.
Beth Perlman is our executive producer and the executives in charge of APM studios are Chandra Cavati and Joann Griffith.
Special thanks to Leslie Benetine, Brant Miller, Ewan Kair, and Jillian Peterson.
And if you want access to ad -free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our Smarty Pass.
Okay, Barron. Ready to hear the answers for First Things First?
You bet I am! Oh yeah you are!
Okay, as a reminder, we're putting these three Halloween candies in order of when they were invented.
So you said first was candy corn, second was Twizzlers, and third was Snickers.
Yes. Are you ready?
I am. Oh man, I am so ready for this.
You don't even know.
I candy believe it.
That was a terrible pun.
You were right! Really?
Completely right! Actually?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got it.
Give me a high five.
Air five. Air five.
Okay, so candy corn, which we thought was older, was the oldest one.
And that was from the 1890s.
Whoa. So candy corn was invented in the 1890s and was originally called chicken feed because it looked like little kernels of corn.
It had a rooster on the package and its slogan was something worth crowing for.
I have to disagree because I think candy corn is like the worst candy.
I would not crow for it.
It has a soft melting your mouth texture and a mellow sweet, creamy flavor.
Like the jack -o -lantern, candy corn is an iconic symbol of Halloween.
October 30th was dubbed National Candy Corn Day in its honor.
And so next up we have Twizzlers.
Twizzlers were invented back in 1929 by a company called Young and Smiley.
The original Twizzlers were licorice flavored.
Licorice flavor comes from the licorice plant and can be described as earthy and salty.
By the 1970s, new flavors like strawberry, mint and chocolate were introduced, do you like the flavor of licorice?
No, not really, I don't really like licorice, it's like - That's okay, that's all right.
Not even the flavored ones, like cherry or?
No, I don't know. I just never really got them.
That's OK. It's not for everybody.
A lot of people don't like black licorice and a lot of people don't like candy corn either.
So I get you. I kind of like candy corn.
I mean, it's not like terrible, but like...
We can still be friends, like, we're still cool.
And last but certainly not least is Snickers.
And that was from 1930, the most recent in history.
So Snickers bars were invented in 1930 by the Mars family in Chicago.
They named the candy bar after their horse Snickers.
What's Snickers the horse?
It's made of nougat, peanuts, caramel and milk chocolate.
Snickers bars are the best selling candy bars in the United States and in the world.
Wow. Wow. And you like Snickers.
I love them. I like Snickers too, so we have that we agree on.
That's great. That's good.
Were you surprised by any of these answers?
Ah, I thought that Snickers were more recent in time.
And I didn't think candy corn would be like, I thought candy corn was maybe like 1930 or something, but it was like 1800s.
Yeah, yeah 1890s, way before that.
So Snickers are like almost a hundred years old.
That's almost as old as I am.
I did realize it. I'm not that old there, and I swear.
Join us next week for a new episode all about the first black woman to run for president.
Thanks for listening.
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