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Deep Cuts

Boy Geniuswww.deepcutspod.com
Hosts Dave Baker and Andrew Price walk you through the ins, outs, and the nitty gritty of an astonishing story from pop culture or history that you won't believe you've never heard before.
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Episodes

The Church That Worships Machine Guns | Case File #73

They started off as a religious cult in the 1980s, but turned into a smaller cult that literally worships guns. In the 1980s, The Moonies were a very popular hyper-religious cult. Now, the son of the leader of that cult, Sean Moon, has started his own smaller offshoot. And they worship guns. On this episode of Deep Cuts, we delve into the bizarre and terrifying world of the Church of Guns. -- Pick up some Deep Cuts T-Shirts and other merch! https://bit.ly/deepcutsmerch -- Get the official Deep C...

Jul 07, 20211 hr 27 min

Man Who Killed 19 Aliens With a Katana | Case File #72

He claims to fight extraterrestrials on his ranch in Arizona on a daily basis, and to have killed 19 of them with a sword. John Edmonds and his wife bought Stardust Ranch in the late 90s so they could retire on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. However, quickly after moving in they discovered that the place was swarming with aliens from another world. Or so they claim. Edmonds says that dozens of these aliens warp in from their spaceships and attack him on a daily basis, and he defends himself ...

Jun 30, 20211 hr 18 min

Forest Ray Colson, the Man From Mars | Case File #71

In the 1950s, he dressed up like an apocalyptic storm trooper and robbed banks. Nobody remembers him. Forest Ray Colson was ex-military and an ex-cop. He'd gone on tour during World War II without ever seeing combat, and he was fired from two different police stations for improper conduct. But he wanted power and he wanted to be respected. And so, in the early 1950s, he started dressing up in a terrifying apocalyptic costume and robbing banks in Southern California. He ravaged the area for 10 mo...

Jun 23, 20211 hr 7 min

Unmaking of Shane Carruth Pt. 2 | Case File #70

He created some of the most inventive films in history, but his continued struggles with Hollywood would lead to a dark, self-destructive spiral. In the early 2000s, a software engineer from Texas decided to spend $7,000 making an independent film about time travel called 'Primer.' The movie would go on to win at the Sundance film festival and become a huge cult hit. He would go on to spend the next 20 years struggling to get more of his films made - with increasing frustrations with the Hollywo...

Jun 16, 20214 hr 25 min

Unmaking of Shane Carruth Pt. 1 | Case File #69

He created some of the most inventive films in history, but his continued struggles with Hollywood would lead to a dark, self-destructive spiral. In the early 2000s, a software engineer from Texas decided to spend $7,000 making an independent film about time travel called 'Primer.' The movie would go on to win at the Sundance film festival and become a huge cult hit. He would go on to spend the next 20 years struggling to get more of his films made - with increasing frustrations with the Hollywo...

Jun 09, 20214 hr 6 min

The Man Who Got Boobs on a Bet | Case File #68

In the late 90s he got breast implants to win a $100k bet. 20 years later he still has them. In 1996, Brian Zembic, a somewhat eccentric gambling addict, entered into a wager with a fellow gambling friend that he would get breast implants for an entire year for $100,000. He did it, but then after that year he kept the breasts, and has basically crafted his entire life and personality around having them. The weird transphobia at play in this decades-long publicity stunt is troubling and fascinati...

Jun 02, 20211 hr 14 min

How Konami Screwed Hideo Kojima | Case File #67

He created the Metal Gear franchise and became one of the world's only mega-famous video game designers. And then his company tried to erase his legacy. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Hideo Kojima crafted some of the most interesting, as well as most successful video games in the world. He created the Metal Gear franchise, which experienced massive critical and commercial success over the last three decades. However, in the 2010s there started to be a sea change in the video game world. Things were...

May 26, 20213 hr

Issei Sagawa, Cannibal Celebrity | Case File #66

He murdered and ate someone, but was set free and became a Japanese national celebrity. Throughout his childhood growing up in the 70s and 80s, Iseei Sagawa harbored a dark secret. He craved human flesh. While in college in France, this dark desire finally resulted in him murdering and eating a fellow classmate. However, due to weird legal technicalities, he wasn't put in prison for his heinous crime. He was deported back to Japan where he was a free man. But that was only the beginning of the w...

May 19, 20211 hr 16 min

Buckaroo Banzai w/Dan Berger | Case File #65

It's one of the most truly strange films ever made, and we are going to delve into how it came to be. Throughout the late 70s, an idea was cooking in the minds of writer and musician Earl Mac Rauch and writer/director W.D. Richter. It was for an episodic multi-film adventure franchise about a half American/half Japanese scientist/rockstar/race car driver fighting a legion of evil aliens across multiple dimensions. And, while this idea eventually only resulted in one single film in 1984 - The Adv...

May 12, 20211 hr 57 min

Ultraman In Thailand | Case File #64

A Thai production company licensed Ultraman for one movie, but they'd try and illegally build a bootleg empire with it. In the 1970s, a production company in Thailand was given permission to produce a single film utilizing characters from the popular Japanese series, Ultraman. However, instead of just doing the one movie, the company decided to just act as if they'd been given partial ownership of the franchise. They started producing their own original movies and tv shows using Ultraman charact...

May 05, 20211 hr 7 min

Slender Man | Case File #63

He was a meme created for an Internet photoshop contest. A few short years later he would drive two young girls to stab their friend 19 times. In the early 2000s, Slender Man popped up as a ubiquitous Internet meme on platforms such as YouTube and the various forums that power the underbelly of the Internet. Much lore was created about the origins of the mysterious tall man in a black suit with no face, bu in reality he was created as part of a Photoshop contest in which the goal was to create t...

Apr 28, 20211 hr 26 min

North Korea Kidnapped a Famous Director | Case File #62

Shin Sang-Ok was the most famous film director in South Korea in the 1970s, until he was kidnapped by North Korea and forced to make a Godzilla ripoff. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Shin Sang-Ok created a massive reputation for himself making highly successful films in South Korea. However, in the late 70s his ex-wife went missing - seemingly kidnapped by the North Korean government. Sang-Ok went looking for her and ended up being kidnapped himself. Thus begun his over a decade long tenure as a pr...

Apr 21, 20211 hr 17 min

John McAfee Is a F!#$ing Maniac | Case File #61

The creator of McAfee Antivirus attempted to overthrow the Belizean government with his own private army and likely brutally murdered two men. In the early 90s, John McAfee launched the company responsible for the McAfee Antivirus software that was basically preinstalled on every computer throughout the 90s and 2000s. But he quickly sold his company and used his massive wealth to live a life of seclusion and shady business dealings. He eventually fled the United States and started living like a ...

Apr 14, 20213 hr 14 min

Winsor McCay, Inventor of Animation | Case File #60

He was a brilliant illustrator who basically invented comics AND animation. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Winsor McCay was one of the most prolific artists and illustrators in the world. He drew lavish editorial illustrations for the biggest newspapers in the country, had several ongoing comic strips where he defined a lot of the rules of the entire comics medium, and he was one of the first people to think of ways to utilize multiple illustrations to create a moving image - which would eventu...

Apr 07, 202144 min

Mothman | Case File #59

A mysterious bird-like creature that is able to predict future tragedies has lived in the peripheries of our imaginations for decades. What is it? In the mid-60s, four people ran into a mysterious flying creature with glowing eyes while driving through the woods in the middle of the night. They reported the encounter to the media, and from that point on, any time a tragedy would occur, somebody would claim to spot this alleged "Mothman" lurking nearby. On this episode of Deep Cuts we dive into t...

Mar 31, 20211 hr 20 min

The Bizarre Empire of The Wiggles | Case File #58

You've heard of this children's group, but did you know about their crazy rise to power? The Wiggles formed in the early 90s and had a meteoric rise to fame that is more fascinating than you'd ever imagine - with triumph, tragedy, pain, death, and illness. And they've risen above it all to be one of the most strangely enduring music group for preschoolers in history. -- Get the official Deep Cuts shoulder patch! http://bit.ly/deepcuts_patch -- Listen to our new album, a 9 song rock opera about t...

Mar 24, 20211 hr 33 min

Disney World Has Its Own Government | Case File #57

Disney World was originally supposed to be a futuristic city, but it still has its own creepy corporate government. In the mid-1960s, Walt Disney was bored with his animation studio and frustrated and dissatisfied with the creative freedom he had with the 160 acre Disneyland theme park he had just built a few years prior. So he set his sights on something bigger. He was going to buy up a massive plot of land in Central Florida and build a private, corporately-owned city of the future called EPCO...

Mar 17, 20211 hr 41 min

How the WEIRD SATANIST GUY Went Viral w/Andrew Bowser | Case File #56

He appeared on the Internet talking about his love for Satan, and then he became a household name. In the mid-2010s, videos started popping up on social media featuring a strange man dressed in an outfit that looked like it was purchased off the mannequin at a Hot Topic in 2005. He would appear around the country at various events captured on the news, and he always had an incredibly unique, hilarious, perplexing, and often-Satan-themed take on whatever was going on. He soon became a huge viral ...

Mar 10, 20212 hr 25 min

Captain Marvel's Racist Secret | Case File #55

The creator of Captain Marvel/Shazam! is a singular talent with a dark legacy of racism. In the late 1930s, the legendary comic character, Captain Marvel, who would later become known as Shazam! because of copyright issues, was created by writer Bill Parker and illustrator C.C. Beck. He went on to become more popular than Superman for a long period of time, adapted into multiple movies and tv shows, and just another piece of pop culture history for comic fans. However, the early inception of Cap...

Mar 03, 20211 hr 12 min

Juggalos | Case File #54

A deep dive into the bizarre history of this fascinating but massive subculture. In the late 80s, a rap duo formed called the Insane Clown Posse - comprised of two men nicknamed Violent J and Shaggy 2Dope. They would go on to become massively successful for a time, but more importantly found a massive community of people all over the country called Juggalos. They're a tight-knit community of likeminded weirdos who wear clown face paint, listen to ICP, and...at one point were classified as a gang...

Feb 24, 20212 hr 59 min

1918 Pandemic, AKA Spanish Flu | Case File #53

The 1918 global pandemic is almost note-for-note identical to what is happening today. In 1918, a severe case of influenza ravaged the entire planet - killing around 50 Million people worldwide in the span of a few years. The way we handled with it, the misinformation, the denial, the politicization, and everything else surrounding the Spanish Flu was oddly similar to what has happened in the last year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet we didn't seem to learn anything from it because, for whatev...

Feb 17, 20211 hr 10 min

Woman Who Co-Wrote Novels With a Ghost | Case File #52

Pearl Curran wrote several novels in her lifetime, but she claims they were all actually written by a ghost. In the early 1900s, Pearl Curran became famous because she was a published novelist who claimed to have written all of her books by communicating with a spirit through a Ouija board. The ghost would communicate the words to her, and she would write them down. Was this true? Was Pearl insane? Or was she a con artist? We dive into the odd and fascinating story of Pearl Curran on this episod...

Feb 10, 202145 min

How Gamestop Bankrupted Wall Street | Case File #51

An exhaustive breakdown of how Reddit bankrupted Wall Street using Gamestop stock. In late January 2020, a bunch of amateur stock traders in the subreddit /r/WallStreetBets decided that they would hatch a plan to drive up the value of stock shares in the ailing video game retailer, Gamestop. They bought up tons of the stock and within a few days the shares went up from $12 to over $400. Because a bunch of hedge funds had been majorly betting against Gamestop's stock improving, this move literall...

Feb 03, 20211 hr 53 min

Dan Bilzerian, Social Media Fraud | Case File #50

He projected a lifestyle of riches, fame, women, cars, and guns...but it was all a lie. Dan Bilzerian started as a professional poker player that came from a rich - albeit controversial - family. Then, at some point in the 2010s he transitioned into being this ubiquitous Internet influencer - posting pictures of his wild parties, surrounded by beautiful models, in giant mansions, brandishing huge guns, and just generally showing off an aspirational lifestyle that garnered him a ton of attention....

Jan 27, 202151 min

The Warrens, Ghost Grifters & Secret Pedophiles? | Case File #49

The Conjuring was based on them, they were world famous ghost hunters, but they had two very dark secrets. Throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all the way up to their deaths in the late 2000s, Ed and Lorraine Warren were world famous for hunting ghosts, spirits, and other supernatural entities. They were a fiercely religious married couple who claimed to be demonologists and mediums. The Amityville Horror was based on one of their cases. They were the owners of the Annabelle doll. They are the ch...

Jan 20, 20211 hr 2 min

Helen Keller Doesn't Exist? | Case File #48

A movement of millions of teenagers on Tik Tok now believe Helen Keller is a hoax. Why? At some point during this hells cape we called 2020, what started off as possibly a joke turned into a movement of millions of Gen Z kids on Tik Tok who collectively developed an elaborate conspiracy theory about how Helen Keller wasn't a real person. Some people believe she never existed. Some believe she was a scam artist. Some believe she was faking at least one of her disabilities. But either way, it's a ...

Jan 13, 20211 hr 38 min

Hobby Horsing, Competitive Fake Horse Riding | Case File #47

In Finland, thousands of little girls compete in national competitions where they do tricks on fake horses. Around 2004, a bizarre trend popped up in Finland among preteen girls - Hobby Horsing. Where little girls trains laboriously to compete in Olympics-style competitions where they take one of those horse heads on a wooden stick and ride it around doing intricate tricks and jumping over hurdles. The competitions are judged like an actual horse show, and the girls take their dedication to the ...

Jan 06, 20211 hr 2 min

Rise and Fall of Napster | Case File #46

Napster came out of nowhere, was the biggest thing in the world, and then disappeared just as quickly. What really happened? In the late 90s, the music industry was on the verge of change. Many were concerned about the growing popularity of the Internet, and how digital files could be easily shared from home to home. Could this have some kind of lasting effect on sales of albums somewhere down the line? But all that changed when a new program popped out seemingly out of nowhere: Napster. And it ...

Dec 30, 20201 hr 49 min

Hillsmer's Holiday Special | Case File #45

Join Dave, Andrew, and Hillsmer on a very special Holiday episode of Deep Cuts. 00110000 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 28, 202021 min

Phantom Patriot, Deep State Superhero | Case File #44

He was a masked vigilante who stormed a private club for the wealthy elite in hopes of uncovering a deep state trafficking ring. In the early 2000s, Richard McCaslin had become obsessed with the idea of the Deep State and the New World Order, and the fact that Reptilian overlords were controlling humanity from behind the scenes. Specifically, he had hear from Alex Jones that there was a private club in Northern California called Bohemian Grove where some of the richest, most powerful celebrities...

Dec 23, 20202 hr 55 min
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