This week's episode of the Wild Card Podcast is brought to you by IUDs. IUDs! Wait, let me do this, Jared. IUDs.
You want to take great care when constructing an IUDs, so be sure to do it in a safe place. Are you sure you want to do this in a case? Please. Jeff, I've put a lot of effort into this.
The IUD requires a small container that can be filled. Please. Please stop. Let me do this, God!
Where was I? Yes, yes. You have to have a combustible liquid to insert into this container. Are you aware of what an IUD is?
Yes! Then you need a detonation device. Once you fill the container with nails and screws and whatever, strap, no, you can improvise. Bob, are you talking about an IUD?
No! I am so tired of you guys thinking I'm stupid. Every once in a while, I know what I'm doing. Jesus, give me some credit.
You know what? You're right. We're just trying to look out for you. We love you Ron, and we truly, we trust you.
It's just that an IUD and an IUD are very different. I know. I know. Thank you for your concern.
So you insert the device into the uterus. What? No! And three, two, one.
And there you go. No uterus. No baby. I guess he was right.
Well, I'll be damned. Welcome to the wild card podcast. I'm your host, Jared Eaton, and my co-pilot's on this journey to wherever. Are my good friends, Jeff Curtis.
Hello! And the man who single-handedly is the origin of the Doggulick Urban Legend on Blair. That's absolutely true. Do you guys know what?
It's one I struggle with. I don't remember at all. I didn't have as much as the background, so let me give you the Doggulick. Also known as the Lick Hand.
Right. That's why I was thinking it's about a hand being over a bed. A young girl is home alone. The first time, with only her dog for company.
Listening to the news, she hears of a killer on loose. Terrified. She locks all the doors in the windows. But one of the windows in the basement won't lock, so she can only shine.
She goes to bed, taking her dog to her home with her, letting it sleep under her bed, where she dog usually sleeps right next to her. She wakes in the night to hear a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. There's noiset frightens her, but she's too scared to get a bed and find out what it is. To reassure herself, she reaches her hand towards the floor for the dog, and the dog reassures her with a lick on her hand.
She lies awake, listening to the dripping sound. Each time she feels frightened, she reaches the dog and feels a comforting lick on her hand. Eventually, she falls asleep. The next morning when she wakes, she goes to the bathroom for a drink of water, only to find her dead, mutilated dog hanging in the shower, with his blood slowly dripping onto the tiles.
On the shower wall, written in the dog's blood, in other words, humans can lick too. Ah! No! The man was licking her hand.
Get it? Yeah. Do you get it? Yeah.
And Ron, you are the orator in that story. I am the orator. You are the young girl. It was the friend.
There was no one who thought I was going to say sack a bath. Right. You went the other way, but I was the little girl. That makes sense.
Speaking of Ron being a little girl. We for a... To tell you each and every week what this sweet podcast is all about. This podcast is about bringing noise into your life when the silence of loneliness has become deafening.
We are certainly noise. We are noise. That is a fashion. We can't do a company when you have nothing better to do.
Nothing else. Correct. Yes. The silence of the love.
Exactly. Just call our names and we'll be there. You've got a friend. Now, three of them.
It's true. Three dumb friends. I... We talked before about how Jeff helped me a couple of weeks ago with the favorite questions.
I was doing this for a while. So Ron had offered to do this week's favorite question. You and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. And I had confirmed with you so I had one prepared.
And Ron and I had one prepared as well. And it was the same favorite question. You're magical. So Ron, would you like to ask the people or would you like me to do it?
You better do it. You're eating food. I'm eating food right now. I'm eating another one.
The next question for the speaker is in honor of this show, the free bus of shared together. Raka. What are your favorite Sherlock, Raka on. And memories.
One of my favorite moments in the show is when you give Justin money for the drink at the beginning. Yeah. He takes it over and he puts three coins into the cash register. He comes back and gives you one coin.
And you magically separate that one coin into two different piles of coins. I'm handing him. But I assume I'm handing him a bills. I've always been like sliding the bills out of the wallet and handing those to him.
And I thought he brought back. Was Bart told me it was going to be several coins. Well, until I was pointed out to him, he was giving you one coin. Okay.
And you were separating it into two piles of what you were keeping in that way. Because I'm never looking at Justin. I'm talking to the audience. I have no idea that was happening.
There's a lot of magic in this show. Because the frickin' thing is different. Landen does a fake magic trick. Oh, he does.
It's true. I am convinced that it is incredible. It is amazing. Your reaction tells that story.
I did a spit take with no water in my mouth, but a normal amount of spit came out. Yeah. As I remember that. I know.
I'm a magical man. I have not been able to duplicate that. And I've wanted to. Yeah.
Because you weren't doing it on purpose. No. That's what I was doing when I do. And Bart came to me the next day and said, Did you know that you did a spit take with no water in your mouth?
And I said, well, Bart, you knew when you cast it. You knew when you cast it. I'm an amazing human being. And I think that's all the magic.
And then the one we mentioned the other. The whole show's met. The whole show's a very special. For such a small group of people to come together and do such a heavy intense show.
And it's been great to hear the audience feedback about it. But just to watch honestly to watch the other performers because everyone gets to shine. Yeah. There are no weekends.
To watch an A-list. To watch J-Play character after character after each one unique with their own voice and posh. J-Play. And Posh.
It's awesome. To watch Justin and Drake play his horrible unlikable characters when they are so likable. Yeah. Billy's seen with Drake near the end of the show is.
Billy's exhalation. He has his name seen a lot. His name is Eunice. He comes back to the campfire and they're gone.
Yeah. And the discovery of the grave. And one of our moments is when the light, the fire light, moves to him. And he's getting angry and angry the light of the red light of the fire moves on top of him.
And he gets fears that he's the nicest guy. Oh yeah. Billy is. No.
No. It's great to watch him transform from Billy into that. And I get to have one fleeting moment with him during the recap where he is riding on the wall and he stands up and makes eye contact. And the look in his eyes is so un-billy like.
There's a hint of theory of seething inside his eyeballs in that moment. It's really. It's wonderful to be on stage with an actor and look in their eyes and they're in the moment. And you know they're in the moment.
And then you feel a little secure as yourself as an actor. I apologize anyone to look in my eyes. Because I'm not president. I am thinking about things as I'm saying.
And that deserved me last night when I was like, you need a bit of tension. Well despite that, we've talked about this before. I mentioned this several other people. It's just your Brigham Young character.
I feel like Gregson is very wrong. Gregson is very much a wrong character, the funny dumb guy. Bart has just let me go do what I want with Gregson in a tool. But Brigham Young is not an evil man.
No. He's a man who does what he needs to protect his people and his faith. That's it. But the conversations you have with Mickey are so unsettling.
Not only because of the words you're saying but because of your incredible delivery of them. Thank you. With this friendliness. Yeah.
And it's like listen, listen friend. Yeah. That was all Bart. He said you look scary.
So you need to play it differently than a scary guy. I thought. It's all Bart that he created. That's part two of the three.
It's me. Yeah. All the little minor cell genes and all that. That's me.
When you read the script, it makes you want to, when I was reading the script, my thoughts were, OK. Well, we deliver this as I've written. That's how you read those words. That's how I read the words of rhythm.
The original music that I picked for that. And then when I came in, I was doing it with this nice guy thing. It's like, OK, well, that's actually scarier. But it doesn't know with any of the music that I...
But I think your music is added so much to this. I agree 100%. I think it's easy to go back to what Billy does in Act Two and say the music helps him. But for me, one of my favorites is Jagan Act One rances story.
Yeah. And the music you've got that. And the combination of the lights as well with it makes that moment really, really fun. I really enjoyed it.
I've gotten to enjoy that. My... One of my favorite moments on stage is my... My...
Not meltdown, but my... Whenever I feel like I've solved the crime and it doesn't make... Yeah, but you do. It's a big, huge orchestral moment.
orchestral moment. That scene wouldn't be anything without Jeff there. What addresses me more, though, than just those orchestral pieces? Because you put them there, but you didn't make them are your tidings.
So, one is like there's a cabs you with Billy. And at the end, when we step out, there's a... Well, and it's... but you do that.
It's not the music. Yeah, that's your time you've done. And then again, in Act Two, with a wrap-up. When the light...
When he wraps it up and your music changes because you're doing the changing. I really enjoy those subtle things. No, no. Thank you.
It's one of the most complex musical things I've ever done. I'm not gonna come across very cinematically very beautifully. And you know who gets a huge laughter for doing really... A few things is Moira's in the sutto.
Yeah, she's brilliant. She has so little to work with. And she has created such complex humor. And the audience notices it.
Yeah. And she's wonderful. Last night I said to Justin, at the end of the show, we're waiting for Val's Jake and Justin and I. And Moira did her last little bit of somebody's waiting for your wedding.
That's so enough. And I said, you will never work with a better person offer on stage than Moira had. She's a tremendous person off stage. She's great to go through the process with.
I would make the other with her. But I would too. He's so professional. And he's so encouraging.
Yeah. And to watch... I love his transformation from Lestraude to Fairior. It's great.
When he just takes the hat off. He becomes a totally different character as soon as that. It's true. Because Lestraude is mean and fair like it.
He's so easily. And then Fairior is so strong with himself. And for me one of the most fun things to get to watch has been Aaron in the show. Aaron Cunningham.
Yeah. She never never once done a non-musical. Right. And she has to play some of her characters.
And so she has to make everyone understand why Billy is the murderer. That's her job. Right. To be so lovable that you understand it when she's lost to Billy.
Why he transforms. She is her performance that makes Billy not a bad guy. Yeah. He's not the real villain here.
And it's largely because we're here. Although I think my favorite character in the show is Wiggins. Yeah. She found this.
I would make it. I would hate when I come on your mind. She's having so much fun as Higgins Wiggins. Yeah.
And then to work with Lando. Just to I was in a show with him once before. I was in Hunchback. But I didn't really do anything with him because he was a principal.
And I was on top of an aerial thing. The only person I spoke to that show was Tim. No. I had three different characters.
And they each only looked at Tim. Yeah. But Lando has been spectacular to work with. I love his toast eating.
It's so you know exactly what he's doing. I love every time he's eating that invisible piece of toast. And I know how much toast is left. Yeah.
And the way he does the corners of his mouth. And with the napkin. That whole thing is like you don't need a problem for that. Because I see it right.
When I'm insulting his article and his o's. I know the o's. Go. But I like one of my things that he does is when he's getting the case.
He's got these chunks of solved cases in his brain. But there's a connective dish he hasn't quite gotten yet. He sees Billy. You're the murderer.
Right. I know it's you. But I don't know why or how yet. I know he poisoned him.
But I don't know how. So when he's almost to a lick and you can see him trying when Jake and Billy is singing on Jake's shoulder and Jake goes off. There's a moment where Lando's like, you did it. But how?
And then when Justin dies and just walks off, he almost follows Justin off stage like, there's something missing something. Yeah. So when you win Stenghor's death is discovered. There's a this is the.
Yeah, I love watching that. I really enjoy those moments. I have I don't have any one favorite moment I don't think that I can choose. But I get to spend about half an hour with Jeff before the show.
Yeah. And then you and I spend the whole show together. And you and I share a squeeze right before curtain. That's one of my favorite moments.
Spinning with Aaron Taylor half an hour before the show. You start the show. And I start the show. No.
I was like, I'm the one person who's not a musical theater person in this room. Bart shows me to go. Ah. Who else can you chose if you do?
Nobody because I do better than anybody. Let's do the first person start walking down on the same point. I wouldn't be though if I didn't start the song. The best comedy that happens on the stage is how many the audience will never know about.
It's what happens during the bar scene while I'm being boring. I like the 90s. Every day I've heard of this multiple times. Ron brings drinks to Billy and Aaron.
Yeah. And each day he brings them a unique concoction. But you mean he is being very nice. That's another one of my favorite moments of the whole show.
I guess the audience doesn't know it. No, they have no idea. I think I want to take a break there. I don't know what's going on.
I just watch Jessica. Jessica's just a thing of beauty. I think I'm listening to Jared because Jared is Jared Scott. But I've seen that opening so many times.
Justin's the thing about when he's spitting in the glass and de-cleated. I have at times given them a mouse of all of string. Blood from a cat's face, which I stole from a vine, not a vine, but one of those clips many years ago off the internet. There was one night I was super depressed.
I said this is your mortality. Drink it slowly. One time you brought them all goat smoke? Except you got yak to milk?
I got yak to milk because it's better. No, you said because you were yak to us. Because I was yak to us. I was like, I probably did.
I probably did. But there's a part of it that's like if you were yak to us, it could not have the ax milk. But it's not more so well. Right.
I think they did. You should have got them all yak to us. But I had goat smoke because I'm yak to us. No, I'm thinking of this stuff on the fly.
I get really sick. So great. Yeah. So that's one of the funny things that happens on stage.
The audience doesn't get to enjoy it. No. Can I tell your channel to turn to Micah? But I gave the audience something to listen to.
I gave Aaron kind of getting cough. It was a cup of cough. I spent eight hours coughinging into a cup. And that's what I gave her at the end of the day.
You're welcome. That's my gift to you. Yeah. And then Billy got a cracked egg with blood in it.
No yolk, no egg light. Just like crack. Just like crack. It's pretty sweet.
You saved up your most ethical concoction for last. I haven't seen anything. I think it's about five minutes before I go. Excellent.
Excellent. Yeah. I'm not real smart. You know, in great spans of time when I'm pretty quick on the fly.
My favorite thing to do in the show that I get to do is an act two. It's narrating Billy's death scene. Oh, yeah. Because I don't really think of the emotional in the show.
No, that's a nice one. I can be dumbfounded and sound at a tough job. Yeah, you're the straight man. Yeah.
That's a playing off of stuff. So next to you when Billy comes out and I'm talking about how we were supposed to all go over the magistrates and do this testimony of what we saw and what he told us that it wasn't necessary and to watch him walk out slowly and stumble and the for him to hear him out. The heartbeat's going on. And to time my words with their actions so it enhances what they're doing is been that's not very anything to do with the show.
It's a beautiful show. It's a great show to have been a part of. Mickey's wife yesterday afterwards was probably the person who gave me some of the best comments about she didn't want it. It's like a specific comment which was a show that she said to her breath away.
And she was struggling to find words to tell me how much she enjoyed it. That's outstanding. Which is because she doesn't always enjoy Mickey's stuff because it takes him away from her for Shakespeare's time and she doesn't work. So she's not always a huge fan of it is so to get that from her is even bigger.
More than a moral compliment. Mickey has my favorite moment in the show where the the Mormons have come to visit him and he's like the fuck out of my house. There's two ways out of this house the window in the door. That's a line that I know you would love to deliver.
Oh I've dreamt of doing a line like that. And then he says and they say the whoever the angels of whatever they are. The avenging angels will spite you and he goes I'll start the smite. I'm like you shoot him.
Shoot him. Yeah. Well and then for him to not downstage. Yeah.
To take a lot of strength within the character you're like man I just have to walk off now. Right. So it says he more than I do. Right.
This is the last time Brother Fair here is walking off stage. He's dead now. It's sad. It's sad.
Yeah. But we're all getting dressed. We're not thinking about it. We're not thinking about it.
We're really hoping he has to work together again on more Sherlock. I want to do more Sherlock. I would love to do more Sherlock. Because they get even me years before.
They don't get a villain who's quite as sympathetic as hope. Right. But you get a much more complex case. Yeah.
Which I think I've found it to try on. And especially inside of the four where there's a conspiracy. Oh that's not. Yeah.
The four are not all evil. Yeah. But that's what leads to this mystery. And there's a lot of complex and characters and humor around.
Nice. Nice. I would love to get to try that on. Yeah.
I'll have to get to know such a famous one. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully the audience is enjoyable.
We'll bring that back to the point. Well, he's been getting more audiences for Sherlock than he usually gets for any of the classic. Well, you know that you can always gauge the success, the quality of a show, by the differences in audience between the first and the second and the second. We can audience have been vastly larger than last week.
Well, we have pretty good ones even the first weekend. Yeah. The third and the third day. The third day.
Right. Very small. But even with the weather. Yeah.
Sanner and his friends left it more better than I expected. Yeah. We did OK. We've done well.
The third day's hour was going to be your shit. It's all about because it's still working the next day and things. Right. But yeah, the last two audiences have been over 100 each time.
We'll see what I found a group. But yeah, I just want to share that one with you guys because it's one of the first things we've got to share together. It's apart from the world. Yeah.
Yeah. And when we worked on it was like two or three days that I came in and did lights. Maybe give a few notes and then it was done. It'd be something all three of us are on stage though.
That would be that's what everybody's like one part of the show and I'm like, do about some stage. Yeah. And all of the shows. Yeah.
We all and some show together. You guys are really cool with the song. He's like, yeah, I did any four-day work together. And you don't work together many times in musicals.
Yeah. Yeah. You never got to interact with him. But that's still one of our fours.
We didn't do much. I handed you a pen. Then you went on your way. Yeah.
And that was it. You had me up here. I was on a restaurant. Thank you.
I love starting on that. I guess you did something about your friends in that show. Never wanted to do that. It was Drake was talking about how he never got to work with you before and how much he's doing it.
I love working with Drake. He's a little chair. He's a Christmas miracle. He surprised me the most in Elephant Man, Daniel Northcutt.
Yeah. I didn't know he was so versatile in that he had so many. But I never worked with him before until that. I knew him, but I had never worked with him.
He really impressed me. All right. This is A.J. Redeso.
We did a scheduled break last week to do all three of us. But now we are back to A.J. Redeso. I thought that was fun.
I asked him about the Derm came to the show. Yeah. He said he really enjoyed the format. Good.
You might need to explore that sometime before. I was the only one who could get the best. I teased last week that this episode was going to be about disease. And to be honest, I had something in mind that changed.
Now I said it isn't exactly live because there's still a disease to people in this sport. But the report I intended to give was not what I'm giving now. I was going to give a report on Paris Syndrome and several other disorders and diseases that were weird if you guys ever heard of Paris Syndrome. I never know.
Paris Syndrome is a mental disorder that is a part of several other common disorders that essentially have to do with travelers. Travelers go to Paris. And it is not what they have built up in their head to be and they have a mental breakdown. Dozens of reported cases of ERP being hospitalized in Paris having anxiety attacks and hallucinations and delusions because their mind is so crushed by this not being.
They're so disappointed in what the real Paris is compared to what they thought about. Because they built up their mind to be a sanctuary of place of art and beauty. Right. And I'm sure it is to accept some of that but it can't be what they've expected today.
It's just the city. It's just about Jerusalem and some other other things as well. I've never heard of that. And I was going to do that other silly diseases but then I realized what people are suffering from these.
Yeah, it's just like we should just be making fun of people who are having mental disabilities disorders. Well, before they even get to Paris, they have a delusion product. Correct. Correct.
That's the disconnect with reality. Right. Right. Right.
So instead, I went with a different topic. OK. The name of this episode will give you this is going to give you absolutely nothing but a very proud of them. Outstanding.
The name of this episode is The Wild Cards Always Knock Thorese. Oh, it's about Joseph Mingela. It is not. I think we're in my thinking of Mandala.
Mandala. Mandala. Manalyn. No, no, no.
Question number one. Question number one. Do you believe in evil? Oh, man.
As a force or just as... I'm not giving you an answer to the question. I think even exist. I don't believe in the devil.
I don't believe there's an evil in the devil. I don't believe in the evil in the devil. That is pushing evil out there. I think there are darkness and light in all of us.
But some people are mostly darkness. I believe that evil actions exist perpetrated by people who usually think they're doing the right thing. We're talking about this. I'm pretty sure I asked this exact question before the zodiac one.
Yeah. We're not exactly talking about a serial killer today. You found out who the zodiac is. I did.
We're going to discuss it. It's scary. And God damn it. No.
Every time. But what people do you believe have had the worst impacts on our planet? Maybe like evil individuals who have the worst impacts on our planet. The Koch brothers.
When you say the planet, you're like, environment, planet. It's not necessarily. It can be. It can be.
It can be. It's like whatever you would like. Horrifying to society. I don't think like a Hitler you normally think of as evil.
Yeah. Hitler. It was pretty evil. Son was evil.
Pull pot. Pull pot. Idi Amin was evil. I told him, I was pretty evil.
Are they evil? Or is the eye-toll of comedy evil? Or is it a different perspective than I was? Well, that's another one.
That's another one. He's not a bad guy. He was just like, I don't kill our people. We're going to kill your people.
It's near the end of me. I don't think there's any parsing of it if you are killing mass numbers of people who aren't at that moment trying to kill you, you're doing an evil act. That's the thing. If you're not defending yourself or your people and you take the initiative to go out and say these people are less than us so they have to cease to exist, that's an evil thing.
It doesn't matter what you're thinking. If these people aren't trying to kill you and you're going out and you're killing them and you're doing it on a mass scale, there is no way that that's not right. There's a difference between an African tribe that has been a little bit accosted by what you would think of as civilized. Now, when these tribes would start fighting back, that's not evil.
But from the perspective of the people who invaded it, it is evil. Right. It's the effect they were thought of as evil because they were fighting back. What they did to white people, some of those acts could be considered terrible, but it was more of a, listen, leave us alone.
Right. And this is what we can do. And it wasn't any worse than what white people were doing to them. So, everybody else.
So there's a difference between that and someone who says, okay, well, this group of people shouldn't exist because they are less human than right. For whatever reason, you hate those people. It would be easy to do a report, and I'm sure we'll let more about some of these dictators and the terrible things they've done. That's not the direction this was going to go.
Jeff, you had a very astute observation when I used the word planet. Okay. Today we're going to look at an American inventor to solve two incredibly challenging problems facing the industrial sector in our economy. And we're also going to see the repercussions our planet has faced due to his inventions.
Oh, okay. Today we're talking about a man by the name of Thomas Midgley Jr. Oh, okay. Thomas Midgley Jr.
You're right. I've never heard of this guy. He was born May 1889, died November 2nd, 1944. Didn't you go to school with him?
Okay. He didn't go to college. Well, my next paragraph, I lived in a half-point output, but I got out of rehab the other night. Midgley, the son of an immigrant inventor from London, grew up in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Columbus, Ohio.
Okay. How could he grow up in all three of those places at the same time? He's very good. He's good.
He was a doctor for this name. After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1911, he worked in Dayton, Ohio, as a Travsonan and designer at the National Cash Register Company. Okay. Making cash register.
We're all in. Inocua so far. We're only a few years earlier, Charles S. Carring had developed the first electric cash register.
Okay. And then, Midgley, after working at the National Cash Register Company, began to work at his father's automobile tire factory. It makes sense. It's still in Akron, right?
Yeah. Yeah. In 1960, he went to work for Charles S. Carring, first in the research staff of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, Delco.
Oh, okay. This was before his ACW, he was just the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company. Okay. And then he went to work for the Dayton Metals Products Company.
And he stayed with that company after he became the research arm of the General Motors Corporation in 1919. Oh, wow. 1919, he was the head of the game in every way. In the research, on the problem of engine knock made him a pioneer in the study of internal combustion.
Starting his research in 1916, he quickly found that engine knock in the new high compression gasoline engines, the automobiles was caused not by the ignition system of a fuel mixture, which did not burn evenly. Are you guys familiar with engine knock? No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
No! Oh, no. No. No.
No. No. OK. No.
That's will. No. I'm trying to minimize despite this. There is a best time for this to happen.
Yeah. Everything worked perfectly. Just simplyabsoritous metal product descends dock suspicious water possibilities, mountains Audi, to happen. This is characterized by almost instantaneous explosive ignition of at least one pocket of fuel air mixture outside of what's called the normal flame front.
A local shockwave is created around this pocket and the cylinder pressure will rise sharply and possibly beyond its design limits causing damage to the engine. This is called knocking. It occurs when some combustion of this does not result from the propagation of the spark plug. But one of our pockets of air fuel mixture exploding outside the envelope of the normal combustion front.
This is meant to be not only by the spark plug and at a very precise point in the piston stroke, but knock occurs when the combustion process no longer occurs at the best moment of the four stroke cycle. The shockwave creates the characteristic metal pinging sound and the cylinder pressure increases through that. Effects of ancient knocking range from inconsequential to completely destructive. So this is a danger that these engines are facing in the early 1900s.
Finally, at our engines, we've gone, we're using the intro combustion engine as opposed to like steam or even electricity was an option. But General Motors was kind of like we need to solve this problem so they'll keep using our engine instead of coming up with a better one. While he was working for General Motors, Midgely was a part of a group that attempted to find an anti-knocking agent that the company could patent and profit from. Discovering by that chance, the liquid compound called ethyl iodide reduced knock, Midgely dedicated himself to finding an effective additive that would improve the combustion of gasoline and could be produced economically using technology in time.
However, his efforts were interrupted by research for the US war effort during World War I when he worked on developing control systems for a propeller driven aerial torpedo in on producing high performance airplane fuel. So he's working in the war effort that takes away from his time. At war's end, he resumed his search for gasoline additive systematically working his way through promising elements in the periodic table. In 1921, he and his team found that minute amounts of tetraethyl lead completely eliminated engine knock.