Guess what will? What's that mango? So I've always had this fascination with like trick houses, you know once with secret passageways and bookshelves that hide safe and whatever. And Murphy beds kind of play into that, you know, the beds that kind of just pulled down from the wall. Right. But I was chatting with Stacy about this this week and she pointed me to Murphy bats. Did you know what that was a thing? I have never heard of those. I do remember that you love the word Murphy, so
I'm not surprised that you're talking about this. But so were they? Were they popular? Yeah? I mean enough that there were a few variations. So she pointed me to this Montgomery ward catalog and it had this thing called the folding bathtub that was an a wardrobe and it could just fold out. And of course that wasn't the only one. During the same era, this company called brush
Key and Rick. You know Brushki and Rick, right, of course, right, they made this bathtub sofa combination, which I desperately want now. Like there was a water tank under the sofa, and unfortunately, a sofa is sometimes caught on fire, so it didn't last long, but it did make me think. Since National Bathtub Party Days this week, we uh, we have to talk about some bats of facts, so why don't we dive in? Heay their podcast listeners. Welcome to Part Time Genius.
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesho Ticketer and the man on the other side of the sound proof glass isn't Tristan. I don't know how our our listeners are going to handle this, but you're in luck today, guys, because Tristan might be out celebrating National Bathtub Party Day with twenty four hours in his bathtub, but we have another brilliant producer with us today. We've got Ramsey in the booth instead. He's waving back good good of course. We've got our pal
Gay up on the phone joining us as well. Good morning, Gabe, Good morning. How's it going good? Pretty well? All right? So for listeners out there, we're recording this on December five, in honor of National Bathtub Day. Now, I know what you're all thinking, isn't October seven Bathtub Day? But actually that's that's only in England if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, but even if you're in England, you can still get in the bath on other days. I think I think
that's the case. But all right, well, let's get to the bathtub facts. A mango. You kicked us off with a Murphy bath fact, and it's a pretty good one, and I'm proud of you for being able to get the word Murphy in again. So, Gabe, what do you have for us? First? I'm gonna tell you a little bit about rubber ducky. The concept of a rubber duck actually goes back over two hundred years. And those early duck models they were solid cast rubber, which meant they
were way too heavy to actually float. And this is because they weren't originally meant to be tough toys. They were two toys, um. And so the ones that we know of that actually floats, those are made of vine and they didn't come along until the forties. An artist named Peter Denine. He's credited with making the first floating
rubber duck. He was an artist who made animal sculptures, but they weren't selling so well, so to create some cash flow, he later maturized some of his pieces and had the meat into toys, and obviously the most popular one was the rubber duck, and more than fifty million of them have been sold to date. I liked the idea of being known as the guy that started the floating rubber duck. I mean, you know what, like, after you've finished your life, that just feels like something. So
that's a good first fact. Gave good job on that one. Now, speaking of being known for things, I want to talk about a family that's known for something very different today than what they started out doing, and that's the Jacuzzi brothers. So I don't know if you knew this, but they actually started out by making airplanes. They had opened up a shop in the Bay Area and invented things like the Jacuzy toothpick propeller and also created the first airplane
that was designed with an enclosed cabin. Now, sadly, after an airplane crash in one of their test flights, they decided to shift directions and started creating things very different from that had other inventions, including water pumps, and that's actually what led to the invention that we know of today.
They developed this hydrotherapy system that was actually meant to help one of their relatives who had juvenile arthritis, and they started mass marketing this product and then got a big break in the sixties when their product was featured on the TV game show Queen for a Day. And so that's why we know the Jacuzzi brothers for what they've done. All right, Mango, let's go onto the second round. What do you have for us? So? Have you heard
about these oil bats and Azerbaijan? Apparently they're like this age old tradition there and you can go to a health spa and soak in a unique grate of warm crude oil. Supposedly the oil helps quote heal more than seventy diseases, including neurological diseases, skin conditions, and impotence. And I'm not sure why, but impotence is always thrown on this list of things that you can cure, what nonsense remedies, but so many things cure it. Yeah, that's pretty great.
I can't say that I have heard of these oil baths and as Azerbaijan, but I can't say that I can even say Azerbaijan correctly. Apparently, but that's pretty good. All right. Well, I've got another one here, speaking of baths and cures for things, Apparently obesity might be one
of these things. So actually some studies have shown that taking a hot bath might be almost as good for you as exercising, and there have been several studies to look at this, and so they were looking at blood sugar control and blood sugar levels as well as calories burned. One of the studies compared an hour long bath versus an hour of cycling, which may seem ridiculous, and of
course an hour of cycling did result in more calories burned. However, an hour long bath resulted in about as many calories burned as about you know, maybe like a half hour walk. It was a hundred and forty calories. And then when they compared the blood sugar levels after after the hour of cycling and then eating versus taking a bath and then eating later, they actually found that the peak blood sugar levels was a little bit lower in those that
just took the hot bath. And so this has led to a lot more research in this area of what's called passive heating, you know, rather than the type of exercise and active sweating that you think of with uh, with other ways of either losing weight or exercising. So it's interesting to see what's going on in this area. So I'm I'm planning to incorporate this into my exercise routine going forward. I like that. All right, Gay, what do you have for your next fact? Well, so I
actually have more to tell you about rubber ducks. Oh good, Yeah, it's the time that they helped scientists understand water current So thousand rubber ducks were dumped into the North Pacific Ocean. This is when a cargo ship accidentally dropped the container that they were in, and the ducks spent more than a decade traveling with seeds. Um that he washed up on shores from everywhere from Alaska to Hawaii to Scotland, and they were cited as late as the mid two thousands. Um.
But there was an upside of this. Researchers were able to use the ducks to study water currents and you know how long it takes for objects to travel from ocean to ocean. That's pretty great. And he gave I'm proud of you for being able to come up with two rubber ducky facts. All right, Well, my last fact of the day here, um, I do have to put one bathtub rumor to rest here. And this is a sad one because it's one we've heard many times before,
and this is about President William Howard Taft. Apparently he didn't actually get stuck in a bathtub. He did have this giant bathtub installed in the White House a couple of weeks into his presidency, and it was about seven ft long forty wide. There's actually a couple of photos of it that you can find. There's there's one with four men sitting comfortably inside the tub. So, you know, a tub of that size, even at three hundred and fifty pounds, he probably wouldn't have gotten stuck in it.
So you have to wonder, like where did this rumor get started? And it was actually started by Erwin Hoover, who was the White House butler at the time, actually the White House butler for forty two years, and in his biography, Hoover wrote that Taft would quote stick in the tub and would require assistance to get out each time. And so I think that's probably where it came from. People did have a lot of fun reporting on this bathtub, but they're real really no reports of him actually getting
lodged in the tub. Sadly, that is said, alright, mango, what's your last fact of the day. So I don't want game to have the last word on rubber Duckies. And Will knows I love Ernie and Sesame Street and I particularly love that song You gotta put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone. You know they made on two videos that NonStop. Yeah, they made
two different videos for it. But did you know that the original rubber Ducky song that Ernie sang rubber Ducky Year, the one was done in nineteen seventy and it actually hit number sixteen on the Billboard charts. Isn't that insane? And uh, that is unbelievable. Also, in the original video, it wasn't done with a blue background, like a bath in front of a blue background. It was actually Ernie in the middle of his living room. And I guess he moved the bathtip to the bathroom after some home
renovations in the second season of Sesame Street. But but that's just something to think about. Wow, alright, well you got to say the name Murphy and talk about this song that you've always loved. So it's gonna be tough to top. A Gabe, you get to go last. You get one more fact. You got something. I'm hoping this one's probably unrelated to rubber duckies. Well, actually, at the risk of seeming a little obsessed, I'm going to go ahead and take the final word on rubber ducks here.
I just have to tell you about the world's largest rubber duck. Um. This was. This was from two thousand seven when a toy loving Dutch artist named Florentine Hoffman. He created a hundred foot tall rubber ducks for an art installation and then you kind of released it into the wild, and it's actually been floating all around the world ever since. Um. It's strapped to a giant pontoon
and guided by the computer in its head. And this this massive duck, it just fails from port to ports, spreading gear and probably a little bit of confusion to wherever it goes. And the artist behind the duck, he says, it's meant to remind us that quote, when we are living on one planet, all global water has become your bafta. Wow. So this almost turned into an episode on Nine Things about rubber ducks. I'm not sure how I didn't get the memo on this, but but gave just for the
courage and sharing three facts on rubber ducks. I feel like maybe you deserve the trophy, Mango, what do you think? Yeah, that was a bold move game, but I'm gonna give it to you as long as it's a rubber duck. So that's it for today's episode. Now, we've heard from so many listeners with ideas for future nine Things episodes, and we love hearing from you, so if you want to reach out to us with any ideas for those, you can always email us. That's part time genius at
how stuff works dot com. You can also call our seven Fact hot line that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening.