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Acast.com. Hi everyone and welcome once again to History Dweebs. My name is Tim. Welcome to the podcast where we take a lighthearted look at the dark side of history.
The topic of our podcast today is Jaws of Death, the life of Mabel Stark. Mabel Stark was the first, very first, female lion tamer. Was she on Game of Thrones? I don't believe so.
Whatever. All right. But we're going to talk about her incredible life. Now, Brandy.
But before we do, let me remind everyone that we are a comedy podcast that we will take a look at history and some of the darker side of history, some of the dark stuff we talk to do to crime. But we also use, sometimes we use humor, sometimes it's offensive humor. So we're not safe for work, which is odd, Brandy, since we record this at work. Isn't that ironic?
It is the definition of ironic. And so if you're offended by foul language or, you know, foul or offensive humor, then check out one of the other wonderful podcasts that are out there, especially in True Crime. We've got our friends that they welcome among us. If you're interested in Paranormal, you can check out Brandy's other podcast she does with Rachel called Haunted Visions.
You can check out our friend, these podcasts, Best Stores of True Crime. If you like sports, you can check out Dead Ball. So a lot of other podcasts out there for you too. Pellethora, including Already Gone, and our good friend Nina.
But a lot of good podcasts that somehow manage not to use foul language, Brandy. They do not cuss like sailors, like you and I. No, they're better than us. Yes.
Before we get started, before we get into introductions, we thought we need to address this so that we can get it out of the way. We are normally joined, of course, by the very distinguished colonel. He is not with us this week. The colonel is, well, how do we put it, Brandy?
He's on a five-gave suspension. Yeah, well, it's a kind of indefinite suspension. The colonel said some very bad things, and so we're hoping he gets the help he needs. And, you know, he's been counseled on some of his offensive behavior.
Yes, and although we're an offensive podcast, you know, there is a line that we won't cross, and unfortunately, the colonel has crossed it. Had to bring the hammer down. So our hope is that he will get the help that he needs, and he will join us in future podcasts. But for right now, we're going to do this with myself and the very lovely and talented Her Majesty, a woman who is known as Brandy the Benevolent, Queen Brandy the First.
How are you today, Brandy? I'm good, Timmy. It's Friday. I'm ready.
I'm done with this week. You know, as I was writing this, I know, this week has kind of sucked. We had the whole Chuck debacle, and, you know, it's just been a long week, and the weather stopped, and... Chuck is a debacle.
Yeah. On a good day. On a good day. But I'm confident he's learned his lesson, and he'll be back.
Are you? No, not really, but, you know, it's tough love, right? It's nice to dream. And as I was researching this topic and writing this topic of Mabel Stark, first of all, she doesn't kill anyone, which I know is a great disappointment to you and many of our listeners, especially my mom, who loves murder.
But as I'm, you know, researching this and writing this script, I'm thinking, this is such an interesting story. And then throughout the whole time I'm writing this script, I'm hearing you say in my head, well, this is stupid. This is fucking stupid. So I'm sure you're going to share your feelings about that.
It's disappointing she's not on Game of Thrones. Well, I'm sorry. I mean, Mabel could have been the long-lost sister. Not every Liontanger is on Game of Thrones.
Yeah, but there's Starks on there. Oh, there. Oh, Mabel Stark, yes. Winter is coming.
Winter is coming. It is. Winter is here, actually. Yes.
Quit fucking around with it. Winter is here. I thought we had tornado warnings for Sunday. Isn't that weird?
I know. I'm pretty excited about it. All right, let's talk about the life of Mabel Stark, Brandy. Excellent.
I'm going to give you a little background on the circus, because I know you love the circus. All right, I'm a sucker for a good circus. Here you are. The first circus, Brandy, came to the United States in 1783.
So that was pretty early on. I bet they had clowns. Yeah, I'm sure they did. I saw it, by the way.
Oh, did you? Yeah, I watched that. I don't get it. I mean, to me, it's stupid, but I know people love it, and if you say it's stupid, then you're like you're spitting on the flag or something because it's Stephen King.
No, I enjoyed the movie. I mean, I liked it. I thought it was good, although I do not like clowns at all. I have a clownophobia.
Is it clowns you don't like or is it Pennywise? No, it's clowns. I don't like clowns. Okay, so...
They paint a smile on it. It's just ridiculous. Sometimes it's the only way you can get a smile on it. Well, then you shouldn't be a fucking clown.
You shouldn't be a podcaster, that's for sure. Yeah, you don't need to be a clown. The first circus, Brandy, came to the U.S. in 1783.
At a time, the most popular animal act was the horses. The horses? Yeah, they had the horses. And they did little tricks.
You know, they'd get on their legs and, you know, I played rugby. I don't know what they did. They played rugby. Still a little soft shoe.
Didn't figure that out there. Most circuses had a traveling group of wild animals that they took with them that were primarily just for display. I know you like that little song. Little ditt.
I do like that little ditty. Yeah. But it's not about Jack and Diane. No.
Unfortunately. You know, he was trying to fill her up at the Dairy Queen. Does that follow you at all? No.
He had his hand between her knees. He was trying to fill her up. And I said to Tasty Freeze. I don't know about Dairy Queen.
Give me a break. Same difference. Oh, no. Tasty Freeze and a Dairy Queen are the same damn thing.
They are not. They're not. They're not. They're not.
They're not. They're not. I like those little ice cream wheels. You know what I mean?
The little chocolate. Ice cream sandwiches? Yeah, like sandwiches. I like those.
Like a dilly bar? Yeah, yeah. You are a dilly bar. Anyway, the animals were mainly for just display purposes.
So people could see wild animals. They were kept in small cages and spectators paid to take a look at them up close. That sounds so far so good. No.
Noah would enjoy that. Who knows what Noah would enjoy. I think he would enjoy the circus. He'd do it for a minute and then he'd go, this is a turd zoo.
This is stupid. I don't know why I have to do this. You don't know my life. But once the first lion tamer fearlessly stepped into the ring with a big cat brandy, lion taming became the most popular act at the circus.
That's what it should. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to step in a cage with a lion. You know, I feel like that's an unnecessary risk that you're taking with your life. It's kind of like walking.
It's running with the bulls. And then you're all shocked when you get gored or you fall down and skin your knee or something. Nothing worse than being gored. I've been gored and it's not pleasant.
Dude, have you seen the picture of the bullfighter? He got gored, but I mean, it went right, the horn went right in his rectum. Yeah, that made me very uncomfortable. I'm sure it made him very uncomfortable.
Well, it's his fault. He got in there and started. You have an expectation that when you are a bullfighter, there's certain things, there's certain risks involved. But one of them is not having being gored any anus.
I'm sorry. He got torn a new asshole. I don't think that he ran that risk. I don't think.
I don't think he calculated his risks very well. So one time I was in Mexico and they had a bullfight. Sure. And I thought, oh, I'll go see that.
I thought it was like a touristy thing. No, no, no. No, they're awful. They're awful.
Oh my God, it was bloody. Anyway, back to the Liontanger. Liontangers, dressed in fancy costumes, Randy. Because they're fancy pants.
Yes. Put on daring theatrical shows displaying their mastery, the mastery of man over beast. What about that, Randy? Oh, yeah, just try to be married.
The methods and acts evolved over the years. There's something, I guess, you know, you quit putting your arm down the lion's throat once you lose one or two of them and then one or two arms. Well, then you have to quit. Well, that's why it evolved.
Yeah, okay. You know, it evolved over the years as our perceptions of animal treatment also evolved. So, you know, there's things that they did that would today be considered cruel and people would not stand for it. A lion is a wild animal, Randy.
Oh, shit. With three-inch claws and a mouth that opens wider than your head. Yes. It's long.
It's one foot. One foot of its jaws can crush a bull's spine. No. Not something you take, you know, you don't mess with.
Serious business, Randy. Well, yeah. You better have a whip a la Indiana Jones. And a stool.
Yeah, I never really got that. A stool? I don't know that that's one of those things that you really, you think to yourself, you know what, I'm going to need a TV timeout. You sit down.
You sit down. This is exhausting. Yes. And everybody just sits down and smokes.
I don't think that's how that works. Well, you got to make sure it's a wooden stool and not actually stool, you know. Yes, yes, thank you. That can be confusing if you just read it in a manual or something.
I don't think it can be confusing. If you could be sitting there with a lion, a whip, and a big old turd in your hand. I don't think that's confusing at all. It could be.
You don't know. I do know. You fucking freak. In 1819, Randy, a French circus performer named Andre Martin, not Henry, Andre, entered a cage with a tiger, shocking the audience when he emerged without a scratch, Randy.
I don't think about that. He was a retired, Martin, Andre, not Henry, Andre, was a retired horse trainer. He soon taught the tiger to obey a series of simple commands. Well, sure.
Like dial 911, you know, sit, say, roll over, play dead, put some popcorn in the microwave, give me a beer. Yeah. Okay. He eventually incorporated lions into his act as well, becoming the first lion tamer.
What about tigers and bears? No, he did mostly lions. He earned a big cat's trust, but you can't say that 10 times real fast. Big cat's trust?
Yes. Okay. By introducing himself into the cage little by little over time. So, you know, he stepped a foot in and he got the cat used to his presence.
Anyway, eventually, the first American lion tamer, the first American lion tamer was Isaac Van Omburg, Randy. Van Omburg? Yes. Isaac.
Isaac. Okay. That's a cool name, Isaac. I always think of Isaac.
What's his name? Yeah, Isaac Hayes. He's cool. And he didn't have any hair on his head.
He did not. It's cool. And he sang the theme for Shaft. Yes.
Damn straight. Anybody sang that song? That's a good song. You should get it on the iTunes.
Yeah. They have that on the World Wide Web. They probably do have it on the World Wide Web. Well, check that out.
Well, you should. Anyway, Van Ombre is the first man to put his head in a lion's mouth. Again, stupid. The first one who actually lived afterwards.
Yeah, you got one shot. One shot. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.
It's like whoever invented that sport of ski jumping. You know, you have to do that. You have to be the first one. Somebody has to be the first.
Those people are never remembered. Those that gave their lives are never remembered like that. I know. They should be, though.
They should. For their sacrifice. But anyway, many historians credit Van Ombre for being the first one to put his head in a lion's mouth. It seems like historians have more important things to do than try to, you know, verify the first person to put their own.
No, if you're a circus historian. Are these circus historians? There is such a thing. All right.
Now, Ombre, he would beat the lion into submission, Brandy. Oh, that's not cool. And his show highlight was forcing the lion to lick his boots as the ultimate... Oh, that's not where I thought you were going with that.
That would be a bigger highlight. Not where I thought you were going. He was forcing the lion to lick his boots as the ultimate sign of his conquest. Which is, that's a pretty, you know, you get, you know, if you get a lion to lick your boots, you're pretty badass.
That was an asswipe. Yeah. In August of 1838, Brandy. That was a great year.
Yeah. There was a newspaper called The Age. They reported that there have already been several cases in which lions have snapped off the heads of persons who were persistently in their foolish attempt to put their head inside a lion's mouth. So there are some people who did it.
It was unsuccessful. Well, it depends on how you define success. It was successful for the lion. Well, sure.
It's not for the person. It's not for the person. Yeah. Now, wouldn't you hate that they'd have to be the one to take that corpse home and explain it to the little missus?
Oh, yeah. Well, what had happened was a little Tom Ford going on. Yeah. He wanted to be the first.
He wanted to be like Van Ombarg. And he was for a minute. Van Ombarg, however, was the one of only a few lion tamers to die in his own bed. So a lot of them, you know, unfortunately, there were other lion tamers, but unfortunately, a lot of them met their fate and the lion's cage.
Not almost unlike what's-her-name in Las Vegas. It was Pinnant, not Pinnant Keller, but who was the... Oh, Sigfried Roy. Sigfried Roy, yeah.
He was attacked, of course. One of them were attacked. Sigfried and or Roy. I can't remember.
I think it was Roy. Yeah. That was about 10 years ago. Yeah, he lived, though.
Yeah, but he was messed up. Yes, he was messed up. That was a tiger, wasn't it? Yes.
On November 29, 1865, the year of our civil war had already ended, at the age of 54, Isaac von Ombarg suffered a fatal heart attack in Philadelphia. So he did not die in the lion cage. He died from a heart attack. He was a very wealthy man.
He was very popular back in his day because he was called one of the bravest men alive. He would put his head into a lion's mouth. That takes a little moxie, Brandy. Well, it takes something.
But perhaps, Brandy, the most famous lion tamer to ever live, was a woman. Of course it was. And her name was Mabel Stark. Of the Stark clan.
Mabel Stark was the first female lion tamer ever to perform in a circus. Now, there may have been other female lion tamers running around, but she was the first one. Really? Yes, yes.
They may have been, I don't know, maybe they was running around at the laundromat. At the laundromat. Yeah, taming lions or whatever. But she was the first one to do it in a circus.
She worked with, by the way, I don't like the laundromat. It's a boring place. All true. They need to have, you know, like the Rockettes or some sort of entertainment while you're at the laundromat because it's very boring.
The Rockettes? It's something going on. Well, the Rockettes do not perform at the club and fold. It's going to be the real Rockettes.
I'm just saying, they could liven up the laundromat a little bit. Have you ever been to the laundromat? It's a pretty boring place. They are.
And they smell like... Fabric softener. Yes, exactly. Well, and that's a bitch of it all.
It could smell like ass. It could, but I'm just saying, if I ever opened a laundromat, there would be live entertainment. Well, thank God. All right, so maybe...
So wait a minute, so you're going to have a stripper laundromat? Well, no, it'd be family friendly. Yeah, I'm going to have jugglers, perhaps. Jugglers.
Well, people like jugglers. Mm-hmm. Okay. Perhaps I had someone doing card tricks.
You don't know. I don't. You're right. I do not know.
Take a card, any card. By the time you run through a few card tricks, your clothes are already in the, you know, the cycle, the drying cycle. So, I mean, you know. Hmm.
Yeah. I don't like the rules associated with laundry. I think I mentioned this before. You don't like the rules associated with...
I don't go by none of those rules. You fucking rebel. Like, you know, you can't put... You can't...
Like, to me, a load of laundry is how much you can cram in the washer. That is... That's a load. Okay.
I don't believe in all this nonsense about cold and... Oh, you don't separate your clothes? Oh, never. Never.
That's a discrimination, and I won't be a part of it. Well, I don't blame you. Shall we? Could we, please?
So, Mabel worked with animals, mostly lions, tigers, bears. Oh, my. From 1911 until 1968. She had a nice long life for a land tamer.
She did. Yeah, over 50 years. She was mauled, Brandy, many times. But she kept coming back for more, even into her old age.
Let me tell you about her life, shall I? Mabel. Come on, Mabel. Mabel Stark's real name, Brandy.
That was a stage name. Oh. Her real name was Mary Haney. Haney?
Mary Haney. Okay. I like Mabel Stark much better. Well, yeah.
It's got more of a ring to it. It really does. I like that Haney on Green Acres. Mr.
Haney, remember him? No. I didn't know you're too young. Mary Haney was born on December 10th, Brandy, 1889, in Princeton, Kentucky.
Right before Christmas. In Princeton. Where is that? I don't know.
Well, I mean, it's in Kentucky, clearly. I bet it's somewhere over in, like, western Kentucky where there's just nothing but, I don't know, fields of pot and barefooted people. Wow. Barefooted and shirtless people with tattoos.
Isn't that what you said when you went down to get a tattoo with Casey? No. Not what I said at all. That's what I recall.
You recall falsely. Which would have been a problem on December 10th. The shirt was cold. People running around with no shirts on.
Who does that? So I don't think spending was an official holiday until the 40s, so she might not have been, although I'm sure someone's been cracking on it. Her parents were poor farmers, Brandy, but Mabel loved them. I'm going to call her Mabel just so we don't confuse people.
Mabel loved growing up on a farm because she loved animals, Brandy. Oh, cool. Usually when we bring up a person's love for animals on this show, it's not a good thing. But in this case, it's okay.
And then we have to talk about Rudy for an hour and a half. Rudy, and then, you know, that leads to, you know, something else. Eventually we end up talking about bestiality, which we're not going to do today. No.
Because the kernel is suspended indefinitely. Indefinitely. Yes. Now, Mary had an older brother and sister.
Did you have a lamb? What? Did you have a little lamb? I've got to call her Mabel.
Mabel had an older brother and sister, and they were very close. Well, you know, they lived in a small house. They were both choices, really. Mabel believed that she could control animals, wild animals, by using her mind, Brandy.
I can control the doors at Target using my mind. Really? Yes. You can open and close them?
I can. I have to see that sometime. It's fairly amazing. I want to see that sometime.
That is the work of the devil. Well, I don't think that we need to pass judgment. I think you are messing with things that's left alone. And you are a judger.
Mabel, so she liked animals, okay? She could control them, or she thought she could control them, by using her mind. She thought she was like an animal whisperer, Brandy. Yes.
Mabel contends, as a young girl, she taught chickens to follow her in a single line. Well, that's a nightmare. Well, it's a lot more... So, how did she make a little rope as they went behind her?
I don't know, but that's a lot. I don't think that's a nightmare. I think that's very... It's a nightmare.
It's a very... I think it's very organized. Is it? Yeah.
That's the word I'm looking for. Is it? Is that the word you're looking for? Yeah.
Because otherwise, you've got chickens to the left of you, chickens to the right of you. There you are, stuck in the middle. There you are, herding chickens. You're a chicken herder.
Exactly. But where do you go from there? I wonder if she lined them up according to their size, because that would be cool. Maybe.
Or maybe she did an alphabetical order, based on her name. Maybe. Anyway, by age. We'll never know.
Did she leave them to the slaughterhouse? No. She loved animals. But that doesn't mean she didn't eat them.
Mabel's parents owned a bull, Brandy, by the name of Terror. Terror? Yeah. Like Holy Terror?
Yes. Okay. Right. Because it was a very aggressive and angry bull.
And Mabel used to feed it by hand, despite the warnings from her father that the bull was dangerous. When Mabel was nine years old, Terror, the bull, charged Mabel, who stood in front of the bull defiantly. Instead of running, Mabel stood her ground, glared into the bull's eyes, pointed her finger at the bull, and ordered the bull to stop. Mabel spent the most of that winter in a wheelchair, Brandy.
There you go. Good job, Mabel. The bull trampled Mabel, for I trained her legs in five pieces. Good God.
Way to go, Mabel. Way to go. Well, she tried. Mm-hmm.
You know. This was a negative experience for her. I can see how it might be. But it did not dissuade her.
It did not deter her in her desire to work with animals. When she was 11, a traveling circus arrived in the neighboring town, and Mabel earned $5 by boxing a kangaroo for 10 minutes. No, kangaroos are bad ass. For $5?
Yeah, which was a lot of money back then. I mean, this is when she was 11. So she's boxing a kangaroo. This was like 1900.
She's boxing a kangaroo. Boxing a kangaroo at age 11. She boxed it for 10 minutes. After being punched on the head by the kangaroo several times, Mabel became engaged and enraged and landed a punch that knocked the kangaroo off his feet.
The crowd – she sucker punched a kangaroo – gave young Mabel one of their boxing. It's not sucker punching if you're boxing. She just defended herself. The crowd gave young Mabel a standing ovation.
Now, Mabel claimed that she could have fought longer, but she didn't want to hurt the kangaroo. Mabel's father collected snakes, Brandy. And Mabel would often sneak the snakes, sneak the snakes. See, that's a tough one, too.
She would have to sneak the snakes out of their cages to sleep with them at night. What? She loved animals. Shut the front door.
Mary did well in school, but her teacher was hard on her out of what Mabel described as jealousy, Brandy, because Mabel developed early, Brandy. So Mabel had boobies, and her teacher was jealous. By the age of 13, she was attracting men from all over the state of Kentucky. Of course she was.
Most of them were relatives. I'm going to be doing this podcast by myself next time. I can tell. Mabel did well in school.
Oh, I said it. That didn't I? Mabel's parents died within two years of each other, Brandy. I'm sorry to say.
Oh, that's sad. So that by the age of 17, Mabel and her siblings were orphans. She spent a short period of time with her aunt in Princeton, Kentucky. But her aunt was supportive, but she was drunk and passed out most of the time.
Then it's perfect. Mabel decided to move to Louisville and become a nurse at St. Mary's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Oh, okay.
So now she's in the big city. Oh, yeah. Mabel did not like nursing, Brandy, and suffered from depression. The only thing that seemed to make her happy was spending time at the zoo, Louisville Zoo, with animals.
Mabel claimed that she went straight from nursing school to the G. Barnes Circus in 1911 to become an animal trainer. But here's the thing. No one just starts out as an animal trainer.
No. But she got some job with the circus. Originally, she was assigned to riding horses, which she hated because she thought she could do so much more, because she had this rapport, Brandy, with animals. Yeah.
Mabel has quite the opinion of herself, doesn't she? She was a very, very confident young lady. Mary, Mabel, would bother the owner of the circus and demand that she be allowed to work with tigers. The Most Dangerous Animal in the Circus.
Why didn't she just flash it? Well, Mabel approached the circus head animal trainer of Hungarian named Louis Roth, and she trained under him and even was married to him for a short time. Of course she was. Well, that's what happens when you get boobies.
Guys want to touch them. But what was she, 14, 15? Yeah, no, she's a little older. 1911, so she's 21 here.
Oh, well, okay. Yeah. Let me make sure of that. Let me double check my facts.
No, she would be 1911, 22, 22 years old at this point. All right. So now he's married to Mabel, Louis Roth, the Hungarian head animal trainer. And so, you know, she's nagging now to let her train the tigers.
He would have preferred Mabel Stark with lions and not tigers, because I said tigers apparently are more dangerous than lions. I didn't know that, but, you know, I know so little about lion taming. It's one of the few things I don't know. I think that's your fault.
You just read a whole story about it. Roth advocated or hasn't advocated training big cats by rewarding them with meat to brandy. So he was like on the, he was the cutting hedge of the lion tamer business at the time. She married him.
He was a big deal. Okay. And he advocated, so he kind of advocated, he was using like behavioral science, like, you know, rewarding their behavior. Yeah, exactly.
So he would use red meat as a reward, as opposed to beating them into submission like other trainers. So he was in positive reinforcement. I wonder if he did the same with Mabel. Probably.
Gave her meat. Wow. Too bad. Too bad the colonel was under suspense.
That's a softball. That's 10 minutes conversation. He just threw a softball at me. I know, I know.
All right. Anyway, so, in other words, so he used the carrot to the stick. But gender roles at the time prohibited Mabel from working as a lion tamer. It's probably difficult to be a lion tamer in a skirt.
Yeah, and I don't, you know, yeah. So at first, the circus had her working in a balloon act in which she had riding a lion on a platform and then pressing a pedal to release fireworks at some point in the act. But by 1916, she was presenting the major tiger act. So she soon, they recognized her talent with animals, that riding the tiger or lion was no longer a big deal.
She recognized her own talent. Yeah. Okay. It was soon clear to the circus management that, I wonder if you can go, can you study circus management?
Is there schools where you can study that? I don't know. I would like to study. Maybe there was.
I would like to study circus management. Let me tell you something. Getting that up, setting all that shit up, taking it down, and moving it. That's an ordeal.
Yeah. I mean, a big top. You can't play in a big top. It's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work. I would like to be part of the big top. I'd like to be under the big top. I would like to be in the center ring.
I bet you would. I would like to wear one of those big hats. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and say this.
You would like neither one of those things. You would like neither one of those things at all. I always fancy myself in the center ring. Well, Maple fancied herself like a doolittle, too, but you know what?
It's not happening. I would like to have a megaphone in one hand, a big hat, and what do they have a whip? They have a whip. A whip, a megaphone, and a big hat, and be in the center ring.
That is why I go in a life. Doing what? Well, you know, you're introducing the axe. You're bantering with the clowns.
No, you're bantering with the clowns. When a little car comes out and all the clowns get out. No bantering with the clowns. You can banter.
That is why I would be cutting ants because I would make bantering a part of my show. Well, that would be well-received, would you? With your hat and my hat, my whip, and my megaphone. How are you going to hold your chair?
Because what if you get tired? We just have it sitting in your box. Okay. I have to think of everything.
Yeah, you do. All right. So back to Mabel. Let's see.
Mabel was riding in on the tigers now. Yes, riding tigers. She became. She's the eye of the tiger.
Okay. So she started working with her husband on this theory of conditioning, right? Working with exotic animals. You know, it's the whole, as we said, the whole B.F.
Skinner behavioral psychology stuff. Positive reinforcement. Look at you with your B.F. Skinner.
Which is a funny name. Yeah. So she would train animals and connect the behavior with a cue, like a signal, and reward them for acting, their correct behavior. Whenever the animal behaved in the desired way, or even close to the desired way, the trainers offered them positive reinforcements, usually in the form of food or a gift card.
Sure. To radio check. Maybe the appleies. You don't know.
So anyway, the idea is that the positive reinforcement. We get that, right? Yes. All kinds of positive reinforcement.
Like Psych 101. We got this. All kinds of it. BJ Skinner is just in our, yeah.
Okay. So Mabel's first big cat performance was with two lions and two tigers. No bears. No bears.
No bears. He has 18 tigers at once. Jeez. That's a lot of tigers.
A lot of fucking tigers. You know what I mean? I don't even know how you can get them all in the same ring. Why do you need that many fucking tigers?
Well, she's a, you know, she's... You don't need that many goddamn tigers on a train, traveling through the countryside setting that shit up. She's a prop. You don't need that many...
She's not, or she would have been trampled by a motherfucking bowl. Her performances were not without risk, Randy. You think? In 1914, while in Detroit, Michigan, up there near our friend Nina and Sid, from Already Gone Podcast, she was attacked by leopards.
I think these were the... Where the fuck were the leopards? Where did they come from? These were not the people whose skins were falling off.
These were, like, not leopards. Right, leopards. It was during a parade. And what?
During the winter in 1915, she was mangled. Oh, yeah, during a parade, some leopards got loose and they attacked her. The next year, the winter of 1915, they were jealous they wanted to be in the act. In 1915, she was mangled by a lion in Venice, California.