The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 455 - The Frog Man

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Albert Broel.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You're listening to the dollop on the All Things Comedy Network. This is a

bilingual American History podcast where each week I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Now why don't you know? Or why you're yelling. Because that's just part of the ruse that's how it played out. You don't tell me anything I don't know anything. We go in locked and loaded. Is that really what it is? Or do you work off a page of notes with chokes all over them? I get one page. You give me the script and then I write a lot of this stuff. And now everyone should realize how much

funnier it should be because it's fully scripted. That's right. Now it is Gareth writing it but we send it to Jay Leno's old writers. This whole staff takes a break. And we rehearse. What we do is when we get the pages and then you and I take about a week each script. We treat it like a TV show. We rehearse it. We find the rhythms. We find the jokes. We find the spots for me. And sometimes we go, is this too good? And we go, it is. People aren't going to think it's made up and we've cut some jokes. Yeah. We do a realism pass. Yeah. And I think that, you know, all the work that goes into it makes it appear fresh. It makes it appear

exciting. We are basically, we are running a scam. The work that it takes to make it seem fresh. Yeah. After the amount of rehearsals. Because we, by the time we get to air, we've done maybe 45 rehearsals. And it's not funny to us anymore. That's what it's for you guys. We've done our work. We've worked on it. We don't, we're, it's dead to us. Yeah. We just hope you guys like it. It's dead to us. We are at this point sad. We're angry. We're confused. Yeah. We're just in a state of despair. I don't even, yep. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Exactly. And it's been like this the whole time. Never anything but from the very beginning. Yep. I feel

like we, which was made the, which made the first episode, the Cleveland Bundy one, such a, we are in was, we wrote that one very interesting, the pilot. That's right. We wrote the pilot very interesting. We did, you know, because I knew some of the stuff. But then when we got picked up to series, we said, let's just keep me fully in the dark. That's right. That's right. And again, we want to thank ABC for picking us up and for ABC family. Yeah. ABC family for always being there for us. You guys are just a always being there. Our rocks. Yeah. Our rocks. Completely. Yeah. Completely. We call them ABC fam. That's what we call. You know what,

Dave, cut this out. I don't think I want to tell people this part yet. Cut it out. Okay. If I remember and called it quote is jam pads. Jam pads. I'm the fucking hippo guy. Okay. My name is Gary. My name's Gary. Wait, is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickle you. Okay. This is like an a five part coefficient. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. Actually. We have an upcoming live show. It is on November 19th at 6 p.m. Pacific. We're going to do another one. People really enjoyed the last one. Some people said it was the greatest thing that ever happened to them. One woman said, this is better than the birth of my

children. Every single one. And she's right. She's right. She's very right. Yeah. She had a litter. It was a dog. She had a dog. Yeah, I didn't mention that. Yeah. So we're going to do another one. So come come check it out. We had the link up on the dollop tour page so you can buy it's looped.com. So you can go there and sign up. Yeah. It's all good. We should also mention that there is a meet and greet thing. But if you do the meet and greet thing, it's very quick. So if you're like, this is going to be my time to pitch the screenplay to the fellas. That's not a good time. We'll do that at a live show. Because we have to do them one on one and there's a lot, they just go very quick. So

just so you know, if you're like, yeah, I think they're like, they're like 90 seconds or something. So, you know, if you're like, this is important, then we'll feel like shit. But anyway, come on out to the show. Stay at home for the show. Gareth. Yes. 1929. Yeah. Just the year. Year of our Lord Jesus Christ. After a decade of rapid economic expansion in which America's wealth doubled, production started to decline and unemployment rose. Well, here we go. I mean, normally, normally this is where you tell me about a child who was born and how their siblings passed away. But we're just getting right into the economic

brevity, the situation. Stocks were soon priced much higher than their value. Wages were low. Americans' debt was piling up. Farmers were hit hard due to drought and dropping food prices. Banks had tons of loans that could not be liquidated. Still, stock prices went up. But people were buying anything. So good started piling up. And then on October 24, 1929, investors started selling their shares. And then all investors started selling their shares. 2.9 million shares were traded. It became known as Black Thursday. Five days later, well, that was Black Tuesday. 16 million shares were traded. Millions of shares of stock were completely

worthless. Was the weekend Black or was the weekend just sort of whatever? Weekend was like a beige, kind of a beigey situation. And then Tuesday went back to Black. So all this stock is now worthless. People who had their savings, now it's just gone. So consumer confidence oddly plummets after that. Spending drops. Factories start slowing production and then they start firing workers. Wages are cut for those who still have a job. Repossessions and foreclosures spiked. Severe droughts in the plains and agricultural practices led to a dust bowl hitting, causing a huge migration crisis.

Okay. I think we get it. I mean, I don't know how many more details you have, but it's good. It's good. It's dark. It's a bad time. It's good. Things are not good. The president was saying the economy is great. It's wonderful. It's never been this good. You've never seen a better economy. Nobody's had a Black of Tuesday than I have. Okay? This is the Blackest Tuesday. Some people are saying this is as Black as a Tuesday could possibly get. Okay? Oh, that was a yummy drink that I just had.

Yeah, I could have kept the bit going for a little bit, but I wanted everyone to see how unprofessionally you are. So right. So there's a run on the banks and then they had to liquidate loans because they didn't have enough cash and then thousands of bank clothes. There's bread lines. There's soup kitchens everywhere. More and more homeless people. Were any of the banks too big to fail, Dave? No, it turns out, no, I guess not. Oh, weird. Okay. So there's bread lines.

More and more homeless every day. Right. They had harvest their crops. They're leaving them rotting in the fields while people are starving. It's just, it's just, it's a bad situation. Right. Now, Albert Broell said he was born into Polish nobility known as Count Albert Broell Platter. Before he was, before he was born, his mother was sick and she had a real hard time eating. Here we go. So here we're getting into the childhood depression.

Yeah, I just, I just want to set the scene. Yeah, that's nice. Thank you. So her physician, she's not being able to, in her physician quote, her physician struck meat from her diet. However, experimentally, she was permitted to eat a little frog meat to test its reaction. So her doctor thought that she shouldn't have anything meat wise, but a little bit of frog is probably a good idea. That's right.

Touch a frog. Touch a, because you don't want to have like a chicken situation. You want to, no, no, you just want to, you know what they say about frogs are hopping chickens, hopping chickens. Also chickens of the sea. It's a little tiny and land, it's a little tiny leg you're eating, right? Yep. Just baby bite a frog, small frog, tadpole really. Or she was eating a whole, like a whole baby little frog. Yep. Or she was just, yeah, she had two tadpoles. Or she had a little frog meat, which is a

normal thing for a doctor. Yeah, yeah. Most, that's not a, there's no point at that point in being like, is this guy good? You know he's good. He's got frog rex. Yeah. Oh no. When I, the last time, I'm what they call a frogter. So let me write you a prescription for two small pieces of frog. Okay.

There you go. And then you take that to his pharmacy. I have a broken leg. Yep. Yeah, you're going to want to eat a couple pieces of frog over the next two to three days. Like it's a, it's a broken leg. Like it's, the bone is just completely broken out in half. Yeah. It's out. Yeah. It's sticking out of my. Yep. No, it's out. I see what you're saying. All right. Maybe take, do this, take two little

pieces of frog each day. Take them with food, not on an empty stomach. Don't think because you're eating meat that you should, that you can, that that counts as food. I want you to eat the frog with some food, not on an empty stomach. Otherwise it'll be harping around in you and you'd feel very crazy. Okay. And I see you're looking at me. Which one of us is the, the frokter here? You know, you're definitely, I think I know what I'm talking about. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. So just take two little pieces of frog, not on an empty stomach. Should be feeling right

as rain real soon. Okay. This morning, I went to a salad doctor and this is sort of that guy's a quack, but he's a quack. So the salamander is not going to, no, but that's not going to do anything. That's not going to, let me ask you this. What do you think some eating some salamander is going to do for your present condition? Well, I have a bone sticking out of my leg. So Exactly. That's why it sounds so absurd to me as well. So you'd eat a bunch of frog,

but slowly, incrementally. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, thank, thank you. I don't have to pay. I don't have to pay for this, right? How are you sleeping? Well, there's a bone sticking out of my leg. So I'm going to write you also prescription for ambium amphibian. It's a frog sleep narcotic. Right. It's based on, it's based in frog science.

It's ambium amphibian. Okay. Can I use your toilet? Yeah, go ahead. I, something is not agreeing with me. I don't know what it is, but okay, I'm going to go, do you have a downstairs one or just this one up here? There's a pond. Okay. Okay. Well, you can make, you can cut out the pharmacist if you like, but I'll go out there. Don't look though. If something is just not sitting right. So it turns out that she could eat frog's legs. Like that was the one kind of meat she

could take. And Sure. Eating. So the man we just mocked for three minutes is accurate. So eating frog meat gets her by until she's able to get her strength back and start eating other food, eating chicken, eating beef again. And

Oh, she's really going for it. After some time, she's back to health and then she's just that Fogo to Chow like, Hey, my man. More. I flipped it over. I'm still hungry. Oh my God. I went there once years ago and I'd never been sicker. Oh yeah, you go to Fogo to Chow. That's basically for anyone who doesn't know what Fogo to Chow is. That's where you, you, they have, it's just meat, just a meat orgy. Yeah. Where the guys will just walk around with skewers and just slice off whatever kind of meat

you want. And you just meet, it's just meat, meat, meat. Yeah, it's really bad. And it does, it does. Yeah, it's not good. So she gets healthier again. And then that's when she gets pregnant and she has Albert. The family still eats frog all the time now. Now it's like a thing. They start to actually, they start to keep them in the yard so they can, you know, go out and grab one if they want to have dinner.

Cool. Yeah. But friend it, eat it. I've always found that normal. Yeah. They, they tried at one point to raise them to sell to other people where they just couldn't figure out how to, how to pull that off. But for the rest of her life, Albert's mom believed frogs had saved her life and would always say to him, quote, son, if you want to make a success in life, raise frogs. Hey mom, could I get some more inspirational words instead of those? Yes.

If you want to be all you can be, do it with frogs. I guess what I'm looking for is maybe a departure from the frog advice. Like what is the key to life? Frogs. Okay. Let's say, and I completely understand the message. Let's say that frog, I understand what would be the second thing to do kind of outside of the hippity hop, hippity hop until you don't stop. That feels frog adjacent.

Well, yes, it's a frog lifestyle. How can I meet a woman? Oh, that's very easy. Frogs, you find a woman who is as into frogs as you are. I just, that's kind of why I want the advice to take me in another direction because I do sort of feel like, I don't know if that's the right approach. Well, we're frog people. I think I'd like to meet a non frog. We're frog, we're frog people.

Maybe that's who we, that's who we don't date outside of our frog circles. We just don't, we never have this, not who we are. We're frog people. I mean, all the frog girls I've seen, Larry, I'm not, Larry, we are frog people. Can you not shout that right now? Sorry. Trying to like have a real. We are frog people.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. This is good. You, you came out of a pond. That's not what I was told. Yes. I mean, you came out of the big vagina at the bottom of a pond where all of our family

members come from. What are you? What? Is it attached to a woman? I don't know. Nobody knows. Okay. I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have been digging for any more answers.

I'm good. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll eat frogs and try to find a frog person. Thank you, mother. I'll never forget this. Hey, where's that, uh, where's that pangine? You're dead.

I feel like maybe we could eliminate the middleman. Your father is right now busy with it. Oh, oh my God. Dad's screwing the pond. So Albert's father owned six, Albert's father owned 6,000 acres of land and he operated a huge pottery factory near Warsaw. But then, then the Germans invaded as Germans do. And all this.

Hello, it's our time. We've got some plans. Nobody's into them. We're back. Uh-huh. So they lost everything at that point. His father died soon after and Albert fled to Russia. There he joined the Russian cavalry and fought the Germans.

He became a lieutenant, but then he was taken prisoner. He escaped. He made his way to the U.S. Uh, he said his mother died after that on the bombardment of Paris and his sister died on a U-boat on her way to America. Now this was that, that part's all his personal account. It's all Albert in 1917. The Lansing state journal reported he was in Fort Sheridan, Illinois and threatening that the Germans would pay many times for killing 30,000 of his fellow Poles.

So he's just in Illinois shouting about that. Yeah. He's being interviewed for a paper and I couldn't really figure out why I just read the article. Okay. But, uh, he's, he's basically just sitting there threatening Germany and saying Germany will pay. And they're like, well, this guy's great.

Look at him go. They're like, you realize you're in Champaign, Illinois. That's where we get them. Yeah. Uh, he showed a reporter a scar. Here we are. Hello. Look out Chicago Cubs.

You're next. He showed a reporter a scar down his back and said that was from a sword fight with the German. He was also missing part of a finger on his right hand from fighting in the war. Hmm. So, uh, the next time he pops up in the papers in 1920, the Southwest Mail newspaper had a headline quote war orphan of Poland is heir to big fortune. Let's just call him the war.

The war fin according to local papers, Albert was getting a one million, uh, getting $1 million from the Polish government within a couple of years. Okay. Now, at the time of the story, he was actually just living in a YMCA and working on an invention which was quote a farm tractor, which he hopes to perfect and carry back to the people of Russia and Poland. Okay. He's in.

Okay. He's going to get a million dollars because of what has happened to him. Cause he's a, he's a count cause he's a count while, which is a perfect thing to take. Yeah. Okay. And then so this count, meanwhile is staying at the local YMCA working on some sort of combine harvester.

That's correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So is that a good area to be prototyping farm equipment? Cause when I've gone to the Y, there's not a lot of, uh, okay. So it's common to be, no, that's, that's where John Deere got his start working on you. That's right.

That makes sense. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Okay. All right. I just wanted to dip in and check. No, no, it's totally normal.

There's a lot. If you go to the YMCA, especially around this time, there's a lot of counts. There's a lot of barons. Uh, there's a, just a whole dukes. It's really a cool place. Most of them are working on inventions. That was where you got help with your inventions. Right.

Okay. Okay. Excuse me, Duke. I'm working on a salmon cannon. Okay. This is the racquetball court just so you know. I don't care. Shut that door.

So Albert, uh, after this, he studied holistic medicine in Detroit, Michigan. He got a degree in napropathy, which is the manipulation of- The art of napping. Yes. Oh, go ahead. No, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah.

That's how you put people to bed. That's right. For small increments. Daytime. Yep. Siastas. Uh, it's the manipulation of joints, muscles, ligaments, uh, to stimulate the natural healing process.

So he's a masseuse. I don't know why you gotta, it's like when someone's like, I am a, uh, envelope entrepreneur. You hand out mail. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. A little bit like that. He opened his own, uh, napropathy practice. He got married, uh, had children and then like a year into the marriage, she was like,

so wait, you're just a masseuse. That's right. Yeah. Sucker. Uh, but eventually he made enough money to buy an apartment building. Now Albert was apparently not on the up and up when it came to medicine. Okay. Because the Windsor Star reported in May 1923 that Albert's richly furnished office had

been raided. And there the police found that he had seven diplomas from different medical schools, but no license to practice medicine. So, so I mean, these are, these are, uh, defomas, fake diplomas. They have to be. These are defofomas because he's, he's, he's the Jason Bourne of doc, being a doctor. Yeah. I mean, cause if you had an actual medical license, then you would just, if you had

a match, actual medical diploma, then you would actually just go get a medical license. But you wouldn't keep getting medical diplomas. Right. Right. Right. Right. Uh, so he was charged and then he, he just left town. At this point, he needed a new way to make a living and he decided to follow his mother's

advice, Dave, Dave, Dave, no, no, no, no, no, what? So after he's, after his fake medical life has been blown up, he's just like, yeah, mom was right. It's a frog time. That's right. Okay. Okay. So he moves, uh, moves the family near Ohio, to Ohio near Toledo.

Uh, he buys a hundred acre farm and the plan is to start breeding frogs. Sure. Sure. Sure. Uh, company is called American Bullfrog Industries. Okay. Sure. That wasn't taken.

Uh, no, no. Interesting. Amazing. It was. I know. Yeah. Shocking. Yeah.

You're telling me all nine of my options are available? Yeah. Not a lot of people jumping into the bullfrog world. So he begins experimenting with canning frog meat and learning the best way to pack frog meat. Oh my God. What the fuck? Did you just say slap your own face for that?

What? So he's just got a farm of fucking frogs and he's trying to just sell canned frog meat like it's tuna. Yes. He would like to, uh, open up America to canned frogs, which are the world of canned frog meat. Well, how could there not be a market? Oh, that's it.

That's a softball. Uh, so his first, you know, there was some French guy who saw that who was like, honey, look at this. Huh? Exclaimant. Oh, we finally, huh? We've arrived. Yes.

This is the place I told you we would have a sign someday. Look at that. Beautiful. Uh, chicken of the hop. Oh, that's nice. Oh, that's gonna be good. Uh huh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, it's happening again

honey. Call the doctor. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, put the stick in my mouse. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, give me a cigarette. Gileon. Okay. Give me a. What?

Ajitah, you fool! Give me Ajitah! I'm having... Ajitah? It's a cigarette, you fool! So the first attempt at canning was done in a Chicago factory. How'd the frogs take it? The news messenger wrote, Albert, quote, it is the first time that any attempt has been

made to can the delicious meat of the frog, either in America or abroad. And it is proving to be a tremendous success. Sure, sure, sure. Things are booming here at Frog Industries. Each can contained three hams, which are the upper part of the frog leg. Is that the only part they're using? I know. Well, if you...

Or that's just amongst other pieces, probably. I've never eaten frog, but you only hear... What are you, crazy? You only hear about people eating frog legs. So I think that's the only place... I think the other place where there's meat is probably the arm and the legs. I just picture them inside being a lot of, like, jello. I bet there's some rib meat.

Yeah, yeah. There's probably a little frog rib meat. And then here's more of a description. Quote, in each can is a gelatin-like substance. Juices of the... Oh, Dave, I'm sold. Juices of the meat and... Oh, yum.

And the seasoned water, which the experimental factory has found, can be used for splendid salad and 1,000 island dressings. Hey, can of frog, go fuck yourself. How's that? Would you like some delicious can of frog juice on your lettuce? What am I, crazy? Of course. Dump it all over.

No need to drizzle. I love this stuff. I used to like 1,000 island. Now I like 1,000 leg. And Albert opened a frog canning... That's insane. So basically he made frog sardines, essentially. Yeah, I mean, essentially.

I mean, it's like any other canned meat. Frog tuna. I literally, I don't think I've ever eaten canned meat in my life, but you see it all the time. Never eaten tuna? Yeah, tuna. I've had tuna, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

I've had that. But, you know, we're talking about, you know, I'm not talking about, like, there's canned chicken and stuff. Like, it's a piece. It's a cooked piece of meat, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're right.

I'm hungry. I'm hungry. Now it's successful. So he opens a frog canning factory closer to his farm in Fremont, Ohio. Sure. Sure. Sure. Proving again that Americans will literally do anything.

That's right. The cannery didn't just pack meat into a can. Soon it was cranking out giant frog gumbo, frog soup, and frog a la king, all in cans. They're making frumbo, frog gumbo. I mean, the truth is that, like, when it comes to, like, a stew or something like that, you probably, you know, I mean, it is what it is. It's not as, if it's chewy and flavored, it's good. But still, the fact that this industry is booming.

So he's in business for a couple of years. It's somewhere between two and five years, I couldn't figure it out, but he picks up a lot of frog knowledge, as you would. Sure. At this point, he was only one of, I think, three frog businesses in the country. Well, Dave, I'm shocked to hear it was that competitive. He bred enough frogs that he started supplying some others, providing enough for another large bullfrog farm to be established near Tampa, Florida.

But he's not just breeding them, he's also catching them. He's been marrying them, so he's, okay. So these frog operations, it's also people just going out and grabbing them where they can. Right. Sure. Now, the bullfrog is from Wisconsin, as you know. Hell yeah.

Another frog company in Wisconsin, Stein Hilber and company in Oshkosh, they actually sent frogs to Japan in 1927, and Sports Illustrated said the frogs thrived there. Yes, I said Sports Illustrated. Well, there's a lot of questions. And were frogs, were these just Wisconsin frogs, or this was the first frog that Japan had seen? First bullfrogs. So Japan.

First bullfrogs. Okay. So it's the first giant frog. And then they just, they take to Japan. I like how our frogs are like our Americans. Just big, meaty, loud frogs. Just walking around. Frogs who are just like walking around like, what's the Wi-Fi?

Where's the Wi-Fi? I don't want to stereotype people from Wisconsin here, but. Hey, we're, oh, you got a problem with our frog? This is genetic asshole. Just in Japan, can we get some sushi? These bullfrogs are bold. Well, so in Japan, they would just throw them in the rice fields. So they would eat bugs in the rice fields until they were ready to be.

Much better existence. Harvested. And then they, you know. Oh, then they would eat them. Okay. Sure. So people in America were eating frogs mostly because they're easy to catch and the depression is on.

It's an easy food source. Oh, okay. So this does line up with the depra- Okay, right. So people are just looking for cheap protein, essentially. Yeah. I mean, people had to, people were starving. So frogs are a thing you can eat. So you're saying you and I will probably be eating frogs in the next year, likely.

That's right. Okay. Now, people also really seem to enjoy the flavor of a frog. Restaurants actually would not put them on the menu because they'd never had enough in stock. They hop right off. They hop right off the menu. Well, they couldn't, they couldn't keep up with customer demand like they have on the

menu and then they sell out immediately. So. You guys are out of frogs? Well, what kind of dressing do you have? We still have the frog dressing. Oh, thank God. Can I just get a cup of frog juice? Absolutely.

I'll take a whiskey and frog juice. All right, my man. The Ashbury Park Press quote, waiters instead whispered to favored customers that delicious frog legs could be ordered. By the way, they should be waiters. Just wearing waiting boots. Yeah, no, I got it. Yeah.

I'm a waiting waiter. Hey, welcome to waiters. Hey. Hi. We're going out of business. Yeah. I can see why. It's really, everything is terrible.

It's a bad concept. Yeah. No, it's really bad. It's wet in here. A lot of people slip. Yeah. People slip and they sue us. Yeah.

It's dumb idea. Also, I just came in here for some chicken and like french fries. I don't need it to be wet. Yeah. And now the whole thing is we don't serve chicken here. So it's sort of just, and we're out of frog. Okay. Can I get a salamander?

You want to, do you want a salad mander? That's what we have. No, I want a salamander. I want a baked salamander with. Well, let me pitch on the salad mander. Okay. I don't want a salad. This is a sap.

Can I at least tell you what it is, guy? Before you come in here and start objecting to things that you might enjoy. Do you fear change? Can I talk for a second? Good Lord. What are the specials? It's called the salad mander. Okay.

Now what we've basically done here is we've taken a traditional Caesar salad, but in lieu of the sardines, we have a salamander. And the name of the dish is a salad mander. That's obvious from the fucking name. Do you want to hear what the dressing options are? No. I just want a baked salamander. However, I get it.

I don't fucking care. If it's on a salad, that's fine. I just want some, I came in here to get a little amphibian. If you didn't have any chicken, I was like, well, then I'll get amphibian. I just want an amphibian. Can you give me one? So you want a salad mander? Yes.

Okay. All right. Well, okay. I think we're getting somewhere, okay? We started off a little hot, but now we're getting somewhere. All right. So you're going to have a salad mander. Great.

Thank you. Do you want anything to drink? No. No, boy. Bullfrogs take about three to four years of growing before they're ready to be food. Harvested? What do you say? Harvested?

I guess it would be harvested. Well, the whole way you're framing it is just terrible. It's like three or four years of growing. It's like the frogs they're living. They're like, hey, I have a life. Yeah. I mean, frogs are my favorite animal. So at that point, that can't be true.

You know, I love frogs. I always have loved frogs. Ever since I was a kid. Fucking love them. Really? Yeah. Weird little insight. They're the best.

Why? Wait, wait, wait. Why? What do you love? Well, when I was growing up, they were all over the place. There was a creek near our house and they would just be jumping around, hopping around. I just love them. They just fucking hop around and they eat bugs.

And would you grab some frogs? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of frog grabbing. Pat them? Pat them. Bring them home. Have you ever smoked toad?

No, I've never smoked toad. Thank you for asking. It's supposed to be pretty gnarly, bro. So to be ready to be a food item, a bullfrog would have to weigh three quarters of a pound. So over the years, frogs hook up with different frogs, so they don't stay with one mate. So Albert, quote, a bullfrog sticks to his bride for one year and after hibernation looks around for a new heart stimulator. If there are two males and one female, a fight follows.

The bulls try to scratch one another's ears, a fatal wound. So there's a lot going on there with the frogs. So they just, whenever they wake up, they wake up single? Yes. That's correct. Right. It's like a, that's a fun movie plot. Okay, so, okay, so there's no monogamy, but there's no mafrogamy.

So Albert makes money and he decides he needs a better climate for raising frogs than Ohio. And he does a search and he decides Louisiana has the best frog climate in America. So in 1933, Albert and his family moved there. Louisiana, also a home to a large bullfrog population, the preferred, which is the preferred frog meat for frogs. You want to get a bullfrog. You don't want a leopard frog or a green frog. Sure.

Bullfrogs are the one. Nice and meaty. It's the brand. Yeah. It's partially the brand too. According to Albert, who called them giants, they weigh between one and three pounds. These things are giants. They weigh between one and three pounds with, quote, high legs as large as those of a chicken.

Wow. What? They weigh in there. They are like eight inches. I guess stretched out. Yeah. When they're when they're fully stretched out. Yeah.

Okay. Wow. So he buys tall acres of land near New Orleans and quickly began building frog ponds and tadpole ponds. Tadpoles have to be kept separate because the bullfrogs would eat them. So basically the frogs have sex. They lay like 10,000 eggs and then they turn into tadpoles and then like supper and then you have to get the tadpoles out of the frog pond before all the dads or moms eat them.

So it's potentially that frogs just have extremely short like memories so that they just they come out and they're like, honey, what the hell is that? It's a miracle. We have a bunch of kids. I know. Can you believe it? Hey, what are those? I don't know.

Let's eat it. Okay. Great. You also have to have, this is all according to Albert, you also have to have, you have to feed them fish, but if the fish get too big, they can eat the frogs and frogs only eat live food, which is extremely problematic. Sure. So all this.

And pretty, by the way, pretty pompous. Yeah. Seriously. And frog farming, this all makes it extremely difficult. Also frogs are cannibalistic. So you have to separate different sized frogs because the bigger ones eat the littler ones. And then there's a lot you have to go through and then tons of other animals just fucking loved to eat frogs, snakes, birds, lizards, fish, even the little hedgehog likes them.

They're just a meal. They're a tasty meal. Sure. Everybody likes the legs. And then most frogs would die before they reach food size. Okay. So it's full grown. Full grown.

Well, food size. Sure. Also fungus. Well, a big way to have fungus kill thousands of frogs, like it would just get into a farm and wipe them all out. Okay. You have to feed each frog around a pound of food to grow them until they can be harvest for a third a pound of meat.

So overall, it's not, I mean, there's some math issues. There are definitely some math issues. So you have to feed, you have to, for every three frogs, you're making up one feeding. That's yes. Okay. It's a good business model. So basically, because everything has to be alive, basically just feeding frogs is like a full time job if you're trying to have a farm, just feeding them alone.

So you got to have a, you got to have a big staff to deal with everything. Sure. Sure. Yeah. You got to have a frog staff. Yep. A fraff. A fraff.

Thank you. So Albert tries to buy a thousand acres of swamp that would act as a frog reservation. Basically that's a place where he can, he or his hunters or wherever he has can go out and get frogs besides just the ones he's growing in the ponds or whatever. Sure. Sure. So a thousand, his goal is to have a thousand acres of bullfrogs. That's right.

Okay. So he opened a frog processing plant there in Louisiana and there's one picture of it and he's in front of it with his wife and kids. She's taller than him and they pose between two giant white frog statues and the white frog statues had eyes that lit up red and blinked at night. Cool. So that's a cool energy to give off and let me tell you what you don't have to worry about is the factory getting robbed while you have zombie frogs, albino zombie frogs.

So he tells Central Press quote bullfrogs are so good that everything wants to eat them otherwise the swamps would be overrun with them. So everybody loves, he's always selling, everybody loves frogs. Everything eats them. Sure. He soon claims to be raising 300,000 frogs at a time. Jesus Christ. He has a sign in front of his office that reads we buy frogs so anybody can just come

through and give you any of the road frog a bag, no, a live a bag of like a live frogs and get money. Yeah, but still someone could just, okay. So this dude has a thousand acres of frogs is like, I'll also take your frogs. That's right. Yeah, all frogs on deck. And people brought them in, you know, we're talking about the depression. So people would need money.

His suppliers are mostly frog hunters, men who waded through the Louisiana swamp and could catch 100 frogs in hours. Oh, my God. Like I said, the depression's on. So you could make a decent amount of money catching and selling frogs. Okay. Carl Richter is a guy I found out about he was in Wisconsin. He would catch frogs and sell them to a local fish dealer in Pensaki.

Hey, you're looking to buy some fish. I'm actually looking for a cop's around here looking for a little bit of the F fish. I guess. No, no, no. The other. Flounder. No, no, no, shut the fuck up. This cop's looking for some org.

Hold on. I'm going to do a bump of salmon. Oh, that shit swims up your nose. I want some fucking I want some fucking frog, man. Frog. What do I look like? I'm just a fish dealer, man. I don't deal frog anymore.

You see what that stuff does to teenagers. They're crazy for that stuff. You got frog. I know you got frog. Suppose I can get you a little frog, huh? Get you a cop. You look like a cop. No, I'm a fucking guy.

What do you work for? I'm a guy who likes fucking frogs. That's it. I haven't had a taste in a while. I haven't had a taste in a while, motherfucker. I just want to taste some sweet frog. All right, Jack. Let me go.

Jeez. I can tell you the real deal. You want a gram of leg? Yeah. Two grams. You want an eight ball? If you got one, I'm buying. All right, here you go.

There you go, kid. Holy shit. Good luck. I'm going to frog down tonight. Don't do it around here. And if anyone asks, you didn't get it from me. You got a fish, man. I'm fine.

I'm dealing. Call me Dr. Fish. Okay, Dr. Fish. Thank you. Now move along. I want people to see. I'm hopping out of here. All right, I'll swim away.

Sometimes, sometimes Richter would sell them to a frog company in Oshkosh. He sold them for around 35 cents a dozen, and he could grab 40, he could grab 40 frogs a day. So it's good money during the depression. Sure. Five bucks is about a hundred bucks. So once that's pretty good. One really just studly frog hunter was Bernard Roa, who was said to have caught 400 frogs

in one day near Pashtigo Harbor because an offshore wind blew the frogs into a big pile. What? So he just, I mean, like Poseidon was on his side, he just stood next to a bounty of frog bots. The motherlode came in. Oh, Lord, I do believe in you. Thank you, Lord, you've answered my prayers. So Albert had many froggers out in Louisiana swamps catching frogs.

Another reason they were hunted instead of just farmed is because frog farms are actually almost impossible to turn a profit with. I would also think it's hard to contain your frogs. The whole thing, everything I've read. They're frogs. It's a fucking nightmare. Yeah. Well, particularly back then when they don't have any technology or anything, they're just

Yeah. I mean, you're just like, all right, boys, you stay on this property honor system. Don't eat each other. Yeah. And the friend, yeah, and everything's trying to eat them and they need like live fish fed to them. So for one thing, like I said, it took years for the meat to get ready until they're meat sized.

They're also difficult to feed. They have a really tough time actually living in captivity. You got to have a lot of water. You have to keep them separated, as we said. You need tons of workers to keep it going. And then you really don't turn a profit because you have so many workers. Sure. So it's a dream.

And the frogs take forever to because the frogs take forever to grow, then you're just waiting forever until you can make like a chicken. You grow the chickens. It's pretty quick. Were there any, were there any problems? No. Okay. But Albert tells people his plant is killing him.

He just says there's so much business quote. My own frog farm and the supply of wild frogs brought in by hunters could not possibly keep the plant in operation because he needs, he basically needs a bigger supply. He needs such a huge supply to turn a profit because it's so expensive. So you have to have a massive amount of frogs coming in and a massive amount of frogs going out. Right. Okay.

So he decides to become a frog middleman to get people to raise. What? Those bullfrogs around the country. So now he's going to franchise the concept. He's going to franchise frog farming. So he wants to, he wants to set people up with frog farms and have them sell him the frogs and then he will turn them into frog meat. Okay.

Right. So basically doing away with the most annoying part, which is maintaining a frog farm. That's right. So the way he sells it to other people is like, you should start a frog farm. So I don't have to. You'll love it. It's awesome. It's really easy to contain and they'll eat anything.

You go for it. You don't need to worry about anything. The fish can be dead. So he published a book called Frog Raising for Pleasure and Profit. Did he have an editor? He had a different, the book was later titled something different. It was later titled, when all else fails, it's time to try frog raising a little more straightforward.

I like that title back. Well, that goes more to the people that are having a hard time during the depression. Right. Yeah. That hits at the heart of the problem. Yeah. Immediately upon opening the book, you'd see a photo of a female new font giant, which is a bullfrog.

The frogs nose and tail are off the edges of the book under it. It says actual size. So it's like an eight. I think it was an eight inch book. Right. So right away, they get to the, the sexy picture. Yeah. You're like, okay.

You're a guy living out in Idaho. You open that up. You're like, man, these frogs are big. Oh, man. Uh-oh. I bet it's tough to see those frogs when there's no one around. Well, when there's no one around, there's no one around. All right.

Okay. I'm right now. I'm here. So. Hey, hey, Doug. I didn't know you're there. Yeah. Have you seen this book?

I'm fucking frogs. No. It's not about fucking frogs, man. That's, that's just a book. It is. Look at this one. Look at this one. That ain't a centerfold.

That's just a picture of a frog you can eat. Hell yeah. It is. Hell yeah. I could eat that. Hell yeah. I'd eat that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right, man. Have myself a little, become a dad pole. What the hell's the matter with you? I want to be a dad pole. Yeah. No, I heard you. Papa, Papa to a bunch of little baby frogs.

That's why I asked you what the hell's wrong with you. This is a book on how to bang a frog you check it. No, no it isn't. It's a book about how to raise frogs. Not fuck. I'm just saying a fucking frog book. Well, why the hell are you going to raise them if you ain't going to court them? Well, Jesus, you eat them, man, you eat them.

What the fuck's wrong with you? You can't tell me eat frogs. You don't fuck frogs. You don't have to see a frog if you try to fuck it. That mother, that just explodes unless you got a lot of duct tape. I think I'll just blow up. I'm glad we did this partner. You're lucky I'm your older brother down here to teach you.

Yeah. And you're lucky that I'm willing to listen to you on what to bang and not to bang. All right, go ahead and just zip it. Let's just keep watching TV or whatever we have at this time period. Right. You mean a book? Let's keep watching. Let's keep watching.

Stop it. Let's just keep reading for this fuck frog. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and leave you alone. Where does it show the genitalia? So his goal is to convince people to raise and sell frogs. He's basically trying to cut out the part of his business that costs him money, which is labor.

Right. So he's basically the Uber of frogs. He's he's fruber. Right. Okay. The book said that frog farms had been started in every state. Quote, it is expected that the development of the industry will be rapid. The first chapter started really, really basic.

It was called getting acquainted with frogs. Quote, a frog is not a fish. Whoa. This book's a page turner. What else is in it? He explained frogs breed through their nostrils. He described what kind of situation a frog farm needed. Quote.

I thought you said breed through their nostrils. And I was like, okay, that makes a lot more sense. Quote, there is no special soil required for frog ponds. You can dig a pond and it holds water. That is the main essential. Dynamite is useful in excavating large ponds. Great. Okay.

So you are just going to blow up your property into pond areas for frogs. That's right. Great. So the sections of the book, toads do not cause warts. How many frogs can you raise in a backyard? How bullfrogs act in an improper pond? Which is funny. You know what, that's like when you click on a website and you click help and you see

the frequently asked questions that don't help you, that's what those would be. But he just said, he just said, just blow up a hole in the ground and then you have your pond and now he's like, well, there are improper ponds. Right. Now that I've got you to chapter nine, let's be honest, the dynamite pond thing isn't, it's not marketable. So he said without a proper pond, a frog would stop eating and then slowly lose strength. If that happened, you'd have to take the frog out and force feed the frog and put it back

where it would hop around and be happy again. I'm sure it's real happy. He had another section called home-like surroundings will not cure an injured frog. Okay. That's very specific to a problem he's coming to contact with. He's like, now don't try to turn your living room into a frog haven. Frogs will see right through it. And then you just got a bunch of algae on your pillows.

Yeah, he's clearly, the clearly people have at some point taken an injured frog inside their house thinking that would help and it actually, it turns out frogs are not home animals. Roger, dress like a frog. It'll make him feel like he's at home. You got it. But this was a book intent on selling people on making frog farms and Albert explained that frogs were not just for food, but also research, jumping contests and even for display display

ornamental frogs, mounted frogs, quote, can you imagine how many more people would stop to look at a window full of giant bullfrogs? But not because, but yeah, because they'd be like, why did they do this? So you have a, say you have a pizza place and not a lot of people are coming by and then you just put a bunch of bullfrogs in your window and now customers. Hey, come on in. You like it? What do you see?

Come on in. That has a no relation to what we're doing inside. Okay. Oh, that's a frog. That's not what we sell. Please. Please. We got a spicy meatball.

Oh, no. The frog eat the spicy meatball frog. I tell you, they take so much of maintenance to display in the window. It's almost impractical. It's just they eat only specific things they like and then you turn your pizza place into a place with a bunch of big rocks and moss on the rocks and water only for someone to tell you in chapter 11 of the book that it doesn't matter what do you do when they try to make a frog a surround and it's useless that the frog and they don't care.

I tell you, I wanted two times. I looked inside of the eyes of a frog and they are not, they don't have soul. They are soulless being the frog is frog is merely mechanical money sucker is here to bring you a bad luck and the curse of your establishment. Do you think I put six frogs in my window that is going to help? Well next thing you know, Deborah left. She's gone and she's not coming back because she's with some guy who also agrees all the frogs in your display window is a kind of weird.

And then here you are on a mound of receipts and a home full of bills and you got nothing to show for except for five of the bullfrogs that are completely unrelated to your business. Yes, I just want to slice with olives. Uh huh. Well, let me tell you what we're out of. We're out of olives and we're out of cheese, okay? But what I kind of do is give you a dough ball and beg you to pay. I have nothing.

I have nothing. The frogs that they take everything from me, okay? You see my boy Giuseppe in the back there, huh? He's dying. We're dying in here, okay? We put everything in the direction of the frog and we lost it all, okay? I said, I said amphibious frog or you be on my north star and then the sky went black and I've been aimless.

So here's what I'll do. I'll give you this ball of dough and I'll play with your balls, okay? Okay, that's fair. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. And there's a little tip of jar right here if you're so inclined, if the business is good for you, okay? All right, I got to get a plug, don't have my computer plugged in, okay?

He did not discourage making them pets or as he called it, quote, companionship, huh? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. All of our customers have been surprised at how tame giant frogs become sometimes. So he's just literally like anything you need a frog for, it works. Everything.

All frog uses are on the table. Every frog use. Could it bring a ring in for my wedding? Absolutely it can, ma'am. If you just tape a little something to its head, it'll be a ring bearer. So he gave shipping advice for when people started selling frogs. He told them to put a crawfish or tadpole in every frog's mouth so it would have extra strength during the journey.

Uh, what? That's just certainly, what? Yeah, you pop, not how it works, you pop a, you pop a crawfish in a frog's mouth when you put it in the box. There you go, buddy. For your journey. That's right. A crawfish will just like eat through the frog.

He told people they would have many tadpoles and tubs and that he had so many frogs he would give them to children or release them into a lake that was close just because there were so many. There's so many. It's too many. I've got too many. I've got a real frog issue. There's so many.

Anyway, I don't want to do this part anymore for some reason, unbeknownst to us. The book also included frog recipes, country style bullfrog pot pie, baked apples stuffed with frog meat, bullfrog salad, bullfrog chop suey and bullfrog fondue. Oh, absolutely. Who wouldn't want to be just dipping frog pieces into a bubbling cheese bowl? Albert placed ads and papers and magazines all over the country. So that had big bold letters on top, raised giant frogs. And then the ad proclaimed people could sell them for up to five bucks a dozen.

And it was a new industry that people should jump on, quote, millions used yearly. Jump on it. Yeah, I get it. I do. More recipes, giant frog gumbo, American giant bullfrog pie, barbecued cheese. Why do I feel like this guy should be on a bus with Forrest Gump right now? But frog, frog pie, got frog apples, got frog gumbo, got frog soup, chicken, frog pie, frog pizza, got frog gitty, that's spaghetti with frog.

Giant frogs on ya. Giant bullfrog omelet. Giant bullfrog omelet. That's a good one. Giant. I love mixing with eggs. Giant bullfrog pineapple salad. God damn it.

What? Stop. I don't need any more dishes. Frog pineapple salad. So he's also telling people that his company, he's not just telling people to start setting up frog farms, he's saying he will be the buyer of frogs. So he's saying, raise the frog, sell him to me. Yeah, so people think it's an automatic moneymaker, quote, as the originators of the canned frog

legs, we are developing one of the world's largest frog markets. In addition to other markets, frog razors can also ship to us. The ad said the book was free, future frog farmers just had to write and request one. He said frog farming was, quote, perhaps America's most needed yet least developed industry. He was partly. That's part of that's true. He was partly doing this because the wild frog population was dwindling in places like Louisiana where Albert had set up his plant, which caused more people to become frog hunters

to go out and get frogs and to sell. Wait, walk me through that again, please. So he has set up his frog plant in Louisiana, but really, yes, he's unable to farm frogs because it's just too difficult. So what's happening is his frog pant Louisiana is just causing the local frog population to massively diminish. Right. So he has now taken what, so now, right.

So essentially now off of his land and his business, other people can get rich. Yeah. So all these people are making money selling him frogs. His frogs. Or not even his frogs, just frogs they find in Louisiana. Right. And it's dwindling the supply, but he needs a constant supply because he has a frog plant. Right.

And by the way, that's called the lily pad. He said that the current frog demand was greater than the frog supply. So he is, he is, he's the, he's frog Enron. Yeah, he's frog Enron. So he tells people with just six pairs to start, you could, it would explode into 10,000 tadpoles, which would turn into hundreds of frogs, which would turn into piles of money. It was the way out of the depression. And so people, people jump on it.

They get a free book and then they pay for a con correspondence course about frog learning. The New Yorker, the New Yorker would call it quote, the frog farm craze of the thirties. The course was called by the way, we will return to some version of this without question. Once climate change starts hitting, it'll, whatever it's going to be, it's like, there's already like a fairly large like cricket and grasshopper industry like we'll, we'll get there. Yeah. So the course was called frogs, how to breed them and it cost $4750 in cash or $5 down

and $5 a month up to 5750, which is actually a lot of money. Now we're talking about a hundred bucks a month. That's so much $5. Yeah. Right. To be in the frog club. So they would buy the setup. Some use barrels, some use ponds, depending on what their property would allow.

Newspapers all over the country were receiving letters, tons of letters from people who were wanting to know how to get into frog raising. So people were just writing newspapers and asking them to tell them how to get into raising frogs. Dear Wall Street Journal, how can I get frogs from Ted? The papers began writing about frogs in turn because there was such an interest in frogs and they would do stories on people who were getting into the new frog business, which included some society women in Tennessee, a Japanese immigrant who fled LA, just people all over

the place. So Florida also had a frog farming operation like Albert's, it was called Southern Industries Incorporated. It sold shares to investors to get in on the frog rush. But Albert is king of the frog business. So the essential press called him the largest producer of frog legs in the US. The paper also noted that he was a really genius promoter. But the reality of raising frogs is obviously different.

So people bought them and set up their farms and learned how easy it was to not succeed at frog farming. Some papers started to become skeptical of what was being called the growing frog business. The LA Times called it somewhat ephemeral. A newspaper in the Midwest said it was similar to rabbit farming, which had become also a get rich quick scheme that was pushing the idea of smaller animals for food and also failed. Right.

Aren't you people, you learned your lesson from the rabbit situation? Haven't you had a, just because it doesn't have fur, it's still a hopping nightmare. But still many people go for it because people are desperate for to make money, right? But in 1933, the USDA released a warning about frog farming, quote, the Bureau has received thousands of inquiries concerning frog raising. But to the present time, it has heard of only about three persons or institutions claiming any degree of success. Yeah.

I mean, it's one, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, it's sort of pyramid scheme-ish, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just basically like, it's like, yeah, it's like herbal life, but frogs. Yeah. And it's just like, those are always the best. I always remember those like infomercials when I was a kid too, like seeing those infomercials where it's like, I made $125,000 last month. And then you actually, when you break down the system, it's like, well, the way you make

money is by me ordering the thing you're advertising. That's right. What the fuck kind of business is this, you know? Another government pamphlet warned about how hard it is to take care of frogs, quote, production of live feed becomes a full-time activity in any frog farming operation. So now at a point where the government is having to go out and tell people, do not get involved in frog farming. This is a fucking disaster.

And there's just multiple households now that just have angry, aggravated, missing frogs. Just they're living in frog nightmares. Yeah. Frogmare. Thank you. So frog hunting became so big that the number of wild frogs, obviously, like I said, it was dropping quite a bit. The state of Louisiana now had to step in and pass a law to a strict frog hunting during

frog season, which is a pet, which is a frog season. It's like you can't shop for Christmas. What are you talking about? Frog season is apparently April through May. You don't need to tell me what frog season is. I forgot you're from Wisconsin. I apologize. Yeah.

Good Lord. The Lord suddenly no longer had a frog pipeline into his plant from the outside and he was forced to shut down. Well, then the saddest part was he turned off the lights in the factory and it was like boom. And then he just sees four blinking frog eyes and he just shuts that switch off too. But he keeps selling them as breeders to people all over the country. So he's going against the will of society and he's continuing to pyramid scheme as frogs.

His daughter, quote, we knew if there were brown bags in the fridge, there were frogs in there. I couldn't take a bath. There were frogs in the bathtub and he would be feeding them live goldfish. Oh, my God, you imagine that's your dad. Can I take a bath? No, not now. Dad's feeding the frogs the live goldfish in the tub.

Oh, okay. It's just been a couple of days. Yeah. Well, you know how hard it is to feed them? Well, he doesn't say that. Don't worry about what he says. What he says and what he does are different things. Now leave him alone up there.

It's really hard to feed all these frogs live goldfish at the same time. Look, your father didn't want to be up there raising a bunch of tadpoles into frogs by giving them live goldfish and ending up under a mountain of debt caused by the hopping business. It's how it shook out. So in the mid 1930s, I think 36. Yeah. So they start sniffing around the fed starts sniffing around. Albert is in is working with another guy.

And they've apparently been doing this since Ohio, which is sending out frogs to people and saying they can make a lot of money. They had cashed $15,000 in checks for from excited future frog farmers, which that's like $300,000 today. Right. Okay. He, he, he, he gets arrested. Wow.

Okay. I mean, that's. Indicted for mail, mail fraud, from, for mail fraud, fraud, fraud, for mail fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud. There it is. He got indicted for mail fraud, fraud. Go ahead. Yeah.

Thank you. Albert's claims are ridiculous. In one ad, he said he could make 300 and you, he said some could make $360 billion growing frogs. Okay. This is, I mean, you know, things are bad when Donald Trump is like, pump the brakes, nobody will buy it. First Albert denied making the statement.

And then he said it wasn't supposed to be factual quote. It was simply published as I publish all other things of interest to people engage in the frog business. I think you will agree with me that such a statement is so ridiculous upon his face that it could not seriously influence the judgment of anyone deliberating as to whether or not he should engage in frog raising. Yes, obviously people during the Great Depression are going to take your words as hyperbole without question.

But people did believe it. He wasn't the only one. Southern Industries was now being sued by investors after they were promised big returns, but after a year still had not seen a dime. They want to know quote why they had received no dividends on their investment in pairs of frogs. A way to man to know why we're not. This is bullshit.

I did I say not supply you with 20 pairs of frogs. Where is my billion dollars? This is bullfrog shit. So June 17th, 1936, the Orlando Sentinel reported quote, two men were arrested on mail fraud charges yesterday accused of grossly overestimating the facundity of frogs, sure, the suited facundity. Albert had a younger accomplice the whole time. They were both arrested.

Frog boy. Frog. His tadpole. They're both arrested because they claimed from just one pair of frogs a person could make $360 billion in 13 years. But have we can we prove that to be false? I think we can. Okay.

I think that's really easy to actually prove. Okay. Like really easy. All right. Like really easy to prove. Okay. All right. Look, just do the math.

Just do the math of how many frogs if you're going to sell 12 frogs for 35 cents, how many frogs does it take for $360 billion? Again, I'm just an attorney. I'm not an accountant. I would say roughly 65 frogs close. My calculator won't go up that high. That's actually a good deal of math for that's amazing that for what he's promising an iPhone calculator in the future.

I can't crunch the numbers. I can't. Albert, I'm unable. So Albert said he was being set up by jealous frog farmer competitors. This is big pod coming after me again. And the claim was supposed to be funny, quote, all we did was send out ads quoting a story by some reporter who speculated on the prolific, prolificness of frogs. The pamphlets also claimed you could make $100,000 in six months and retire with just

two frogs as a start. So he's telling people. Yeah. I mean, it's at it's incredibly hard time. Yeah. He is saying you've got a golden ticket. Yeah. So what actually happened was Albert is accomplished made about, like I said, 15,000 in four months.

I couldn't find any for them, but, but even them, even they aren't making what they promised. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't find any information about what happened to Albert after he was arraigned, but he was definitely out of the frog business at that point. Okay. He did have enough money to buy a very large Victorian mansion in New Orleans that his daughter still owns today and rents out for weddings and events.

Part of the second floor has an exhibit dedicated to frog farming. It has some cans of frog legs that were made in Albert's plant and other quote frog themed items. Years later in the seventies and eighties, the back to the land movement started another movement of people who want to be frog farmers. Missouri's slob hot frog farms Leonard who owns that said quote supermarket chains and wholesale outlets buying an enormous quality is big rent straws want them shipped out on ice.

People come by here and pick them up the buckets full why this market is growing continuously all the time. So it went back to the same sort of, but everything I read, it's still the same. So people do love eating frogs by 2010, the worldwide frog market was making $40 million. They took off in Europe, Brazil, Southeast Asia, farming did some of the techniques have improved. They have mechanical items that swish dead bugs around so they can eat them to make them look alive.

I love how frogs how like frog standards of bugs. So high. Yeah, huge. But most frog meat still comes from the wild frog populations are dropping at alarming rates. In 1980 France had to ban commercial harvesting. Then wild frog hunting moved to India and Bangladesh, which caused a plummeted frog populations and then they put in new regulations in Indonesia then became the supplier for

the world. And of course populations there went into freefall. About a billion frogs are removed from the wild each year. It's not just for eating. There's also research and you know, there were pregnancy tests. I don't know if they still do that, but pregnancy tests for a while. This all causes bug populations to increase, which leads to disease and infection spreading more.

Biologist Ian Warkenton, quote, if you look at frogs as a commodity, their dollar value is pretty small. But if you look at the ecological role they are playing to financially replace all those creatures that are eating insects, it has value that's way beyond the commercial potential. Yeah, so they're like spiders of the pond. Yeah, I mean, again, if you if you put a dollar value on everything on earth, it's not going to work out. No, no, but Dave, but I mean, counterpoint, look at us, um, wow, that's crazy.

It's so again, this is one of those ones where it's so crazy because it's so plausible now, like the ability to coerce people into believing, get rich quick schemes because of how little people are taken care of. If there's no if there's no social safety net, you you you get things like people decimating frog populations, yeah, because they're desperate. Yeah, yes, because we will. But the truth is that that is like, I mean, that sort of harvesting takes place all over. Like when you look at like the like the amount of like what we have as far as tuna goes or

salmon goes, the problem is that not only is it over harvested, but people used to when they would catch a tuna, they would if it was like a middle medium sized tuna, like they'd say throw it back, it'll get bigger. That that practice is completely gone. Now whatever it is, you take it right now because you got to keep the bottom line going and growing. And that is really how and how you actually stabilize those situations is you just have you just basically have to allow areas to regrow, to regenerate like the the species

in there. And then you can go back and then you can start to in a controlled way, you know, yeah, I mean, that that's what's so frustrating about the the world we live in. I thought I thought this would be a happy one and then I got to the end and I was like, Oh, well, it's funny. It's just it's so appropriate of the time again, because it's like we are, you know, when we talk about controlling species and, you know, we have all this science as to how we can control them.

Like there's one species that we never talk about trying to get under control. And don't you say it's because it's us. Don't I think you're going to say horses, horses, they're out of hand. No, but, but yeah, I mean, like we're we're on the brink. Well, I mean, we're in a depression, but we're on the brink of maybe an even greater depression because, you know, we're about to go through a time when again, the government, I mean, who knows what's going on. But I mean, looking back now, and even in that moment, the idea that the government did not

pass any stimulus for this time period is not good. So sources, an article in Alice Obscura, the giant frog farms of the 1930s were a giant failure by Sarah Luskow. The frogs of spring are springing for their lives, Port Illustrated, Barbara Haleman, and Eli Waldron, a carnival of frogs in the New Yorker, and then other tons of newspapers. While we're going through publications, I just want to let everyone know I just got a text. I'm mentioned in the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine.

This frog has arrived. Join us November 19th live show. Okay, I'm ending it. Oh, that's you ending it. This episode. Yeah. This episode is now. Frog out.

Done. Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool.