Halloween Special: The Mystery Show!

don't remember any of the details. Good because I was hoping I could teach you something. I'll refresh your memory here. So Roosevelt was a big fan of detective stories, and so towards the end of his first term, he held this dinner at the White House and he and his buddies picked apart their favorite mysteries. This must have been such a fun conversation to listen in on. But so one of the guests that evening was a man named Fulton or Sler, and he was an editor of a

magazine called Liberty. They published all these miss three stories. And during the dinner, he asked FDR if he'd ever considered writing a mystery, And it turned out that the President had been playing with this plot for a while, just in his head, and so here was his idea. The wealthy man named Jim Blake feels trapped in his own life. He's bored by his job, on happy in his marriage, and he thinks all people in his life

are superficial yes men. And so the story is about Jim Blake's plan to escape, which is basically to run off with five million dollars and start over with a new identity. So I don't remember any of those details, but it kind of sounds like Jim Blake is just based on Roosevelt, right, Yeah, it kind of feels like that might be the case. But the one thing that Roosevelt couldn't figure out for his story was how a well known man with five million dollars could ever disappear

without a trace. So he put the question to Oorsler that night at the White House, and the editor suggested they assemble this committee of mystery writers to solve the

problem together. And Roosevelt loved this idea, and Orsler put togethers well known mystery writers, and you know, each of them had to work on a different chapter of the story, and that fall, the first installment was published in Liberty Magazine, and before long the full story was released as a book and then as a movie, both of which were a pretty big hit with the public. I'm curious, what's

the solution to the President's mystery? Well, this is the ridiculous part of the whole thing, Like none of the writers actually managed to solve the mystery that Roosevelt had laid out. And you know, the key problem of how to disappear with five million dollars remain unaddressed in that novel, or at least it did up until nineteen sixties seven, And that's when the book was reissued with one additional chapter. And it was written by Earl Stanley Gardner. Oh yeah,

he wrote the Harry Mason books. Yep. So it kind of sounds like this book was put together kind of like those exquisite corpse drawings where you kind of like try to draw an animal and then you base your drawing on the last squiggle someone drew. Was this book any good or just popular? Because I kind of want to track it down. Well, I was looking at some of the comments I've seen it referred to as quote

one of the worst suspense novels ever written. So I'm gonna go out a limb here and say it's probably not worth the bother, or maybe that is why it's absolutely worth the bother, because it is that bad. But I do like the story behind the story, and you know, since it's right around Halloween, I thought it'd be fun to settle into a nice mystery episode from who were the pioneers of the genre to how did Agatha Christie crank out so many spooky stories? So let's dive in.

H Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer on the other side of the soundproof glass trying to tape a magnifying glass to this side of a pumpkin. It's pumpkin carving day here, mangoes. So this is this is pretty exciting. That's our producer Lull. He's been working so hard on this. I don't really know what's going on with the magnifying glass and the pumpkin.

He's trying really really hard, so hopefully he'll focus on this and I think what's going on is he may have missed the memo about us doing a mystery episode for Halloween this year, and this is kind of a last minute attempt to get with the program. But anyway, I'm excited about today's episode. Well, I do think it would probably work better if he hadn't already carved Darth

Vader's mask into the front of it. But I do appreciate the effort that Low is putting into it, because he always put so much effort in you know, I know you suggested doing the show on mysteries, and as you might remember, I was obsessed with mysteries growing up. I do remember that. And actually you dressed up as Sherlock Holmes for a few Halloween's in a row third grade,

fourth grade. And I think Ruby has also gotten the bug, because she's you know, she's six now, but she dressed up as Inspector Clusseau from Pink Panther last year and this year she went his night the grade, which is

basically the same costume without a mustache. But you know, it's it's funny because like, my mom got me this a Bridge Sherlock Holmes book in second grade, and I kind of just went on a tear, like I had already read a bunch of Hardy Boys and Cyclopedia Browns, and then I got obsessed with Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. But what's funny is I was thinking about this yesterday. I must have been so insufferable because at the time I had always like wander around the neighborhood just looking

for dumb mysteries to solve. Yeah, I think it's pretty safe that you probably were her. But what do you mean by this? Well, like, there's this kid in my neighborhood who just used to exaggerate and tell really dumb wise all the time. Like I remember him claiming he was the kid world boxing champion, Like I don't even

know what that is. But you know, instead of us being like, oh, really shows the trophies or like shows your punching bag or anything to that effect, I I remember like walking up to him with like these other kids and pointing out like, oh, well, you know, if you'd really been around the world, you'd have a tan here and here and here, just like I feel like I got that from somewhere. But yeah, that's that's impresident. I can see that same quality in Ruby. That's pretty great.

I am I'm glad that you you managed. Did you in fact crack the case on that one? Yeah, it turns out he didn't win the kid boxing cham got to the bottom of that one. All right, Well, let's get to the episode. Where where do you think you want to start today? So I actually really like that you started with FDR and I kind of want to go back to presidents for a minute, because one of the things I noticed this week is that like a

ton of US presidents were self professed mystery buffs. Calvin Coolidge was one, Herbert Hoover, jfk, Ronald Reagan, and and the list goes on. Actually, we were looking at something the other day. I think Bill Clinton was also into mysteries too, wasn't he? Yeah he was when when when he first took off, as he reportedly tried to finish two serious books for every mystery he read. But you know, as his term went on and the pressure mounted on him, like that ratio ended up being more one to one.

But it's funny because like, wow, that was great escapism for him. Then when he was in public office, he's actually still really into mysteries and he co wrote a thriller with James Patterson last year called the President is missing. Oh that's right. So if you're going to rank these, would you say Clinton was our biggest mystery fan turn President I, I mean, I guess he's near the top and uh an FDR two. But Woodrow Wilson would also make the top spot because he's actually the president who

did the most to improve the genre's reputation. Wow, So why why would you say that? Well, you know, for a long time, mystery stories were kind of viewed as disposable. They were entertaining, but they really lacked substance, or that's what people thought, and most people actually relegated them to almost like children's material or children's entertainment. But Wilson helped

change that perception. He was so open about his love for detective stories that publishers actually used his endorsements in office as ads when promoting their books. And Wilson was actually pretty instrumental in convincing the public that detective stories had merit. It's funny because in this book, critic wrote, quote, two men are largely responsible for the present vogue of mystery stories in America, Arthur and Doyle and Woodrow Wilson.

You've got the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the president. That's that's pretty crazy. It's interesting though, that all the examples we've given our twentieth century presidents, like, if you think about it, were mystery books just not that popular prior to the nineteen hundreds, or presidents just not reading them yet or what what's the scoop on that? Yeah, so the genre was still finding its footing in the eighteen hundreds, which is something we can come back to.

But a lot of people in the nineteenth century weren't sold on popular fiction in general. It was kind of thought of as on savory or frivolous. But there was at least one president who was on board the mystery train from the very very start. It's good old Abe Lincoln and uh apparently he was a huge fan of Edgar Allan pose detective stories, and he loved the work so much he could actually quote full passages from memory. And it kind of makes you wonder what the draw

was for all of these presidents. I mean, what are the odds that so many of them would be into such a niche genre, Because you know, if if we're simply talking about finding escapism, you know, why not read adventure stories or sci fi or fantasy or some of

these other genres. You know, what's funny to me is like that we keep talking about it as escapism because mysteries are the one genre that you kind of have to pay attention to every single sentence, right, Like every sentence can have a clue, So you're almost like doubling down on comprehension skills. Or maybe that's a that's a

good reason that people do escape in them. But you know, in Lincoln's case, it was supposedly the logic of the mystery stories that appeal to him, and in fact, one of his contemporaries put it, quote, the absolute and logical method of post tales appeal to his bent of mind. And I'm sure it's a similar story for other presidents who loved a good mystery. Like their job entails so much problem solving, so it kind of makes sense that they gravitate to this like form of entertainment where they

can sort of exercise that skill set. All right, Well, since we're starting to dissect the genre a little bit, I do think it would be helpful to clarify what exactly a mystery is, because so far we've been using a bunch of terms sort of interchangeably, but there are actually some pretty key differences, you know, for instance, between

mystery and a thriller. So just just to start, we should say that the kinds of stories we're talking about today all technically fall under the larger genre of suspense, so that includes mystery novels, crime novels, and thrillers. So for a mystery, the drive action of the story is the solution to a crime, like usually a murder, but sometimes a theft or a kidnapping. So the story follows some kind of detective or professional in the field as they try to determine who did the crime and why.

And so you can have what's called a cozy mystery, which are your Miss Marble stories or your Father Brown mysteries, where the action is set in a sleepy small town, making the violence of the crime, you know, all that much more shocking. And in contrast to those cozy mysteries,

you've got these hard boiled mysteries. And these are the ones where the hero is kind of a world weary cop or a private investigator, like the Sam Spade character and the National Hammett books or Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe character, you know, both of whom were played on screen by Humphrey Bogart. By the way, and as Chandler Wants explained, a hard wild hero is someone who can quote walk the main streets, but who is not himself mean, which

all makes sense. So what about a crime novel, Like, what's the difference between that and a mystery? Well, technically, in a crime novel, there really isn't much of a mystery to solve. I mean a lot of the times the identity of the criminal is known from the very beginning, so the question is more about how the lawman hero will catch them in the end. So, for example, the

movie Seven isn't really a mystery. It's a crime drama, so we know who the killer is, and the bulk of the film revolves around two detectives trying different tactics, you know, to bring him in, right, you're sort of like frustratingly watching their process and watching them figure it out. So what about thrillers, Well, maybe the biggest distinction is that ghosts, monsters, and these other supernatural elements are all fair game for a thriller, Like they aren't required features

of the genre. But You're much more likely to come a cross them in a thriller than you are and say a mystery or a crime story. So just to make sure we keep it all straight, you can think of it like this, Mystery stories are the most cerebral and least violent of the suspense genres. Crime stories are the most dramatic, and thrillers are the most I guess emotional, kind of playing up the fear and dread of the characters.

So each kind of story has shared elements, such as crimes and detectives, but they each have distinctions that kind of make them, you know, utilize their own unique things. So I I know Edgar Allan post spedly wrote like the first detective story, but were there suspense stories or

mystery novels before that? I mean, it's impossible to say for certain, but who probably make the case for Oedipus Rex being the first mystery story you know written by Sophocles and it it deals with the title character trying to solve the mystery of his origins and so to do that, he questions witnesses, interprets clues, slowly pieces together the tragic truth about his parentage. No spoilers here, and you've managed to avoid them for the last few thousand

years exactly. But it isn't the only one, Like there are examples of mysteries in early Chinese and Arabian fiction, and probably countless others that we just don't know about. But in terms of modern fiction, I think it's probably fair to say. I mean, the one that's brought up most is Edgar Allan posty one story The Murders and Rue Morgue, and this is widely believed to be the first modern story in which a character solves a mystery by analyzing the facts and following the clues. So I

am curious. Did Poe consider his mystery stories to be like a new kind of fiction, because it kind of sounds like the groundwork was already laid by these earlier authors and he just kind of reinvented it for the modern age. Is that how he saw it? Or did he feel like he just like completely invented this thing from scratch? Yeah, I mean, I think he had a

pretty level head about his role in all this. You know, Following the success of Rue Morgue, Popen further mystery stories, including the Mystery of Marie Roge and and that was in eighteen forty two, The Purloined Letter in eighteen forty four, and a couple of years later he wrote a letter to a friend explaining his take on the budding genre. So here's what he said about it. These tales owe most of their popularity to being something old in a

new key. I do not mean to say that they're not ingenious, but people think them more ingenious than they are on account of their method and air of method, you know. But what Pope probably didn't know is that he was establishing elements that would become trademarks of the genre, just for example here, but was careful to lay out the clues throughout the story so that his readers could have a crack at solving the mystery themselves, which is

part of what makes them so much fun. And that was a tactic that future writers like Agatha Christie would later use. And then another defining feature that Poe introduced was the idea of having a recurring detective, you know, appeared in multiple stories, and that of course paved the way for characters like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marble and plenty of others. Yeah, I mean, I have to say that was much more of a definitive answer that I was expecting.

It does seem like Edgar Allan Poe invented the mystery genre, is like how I was thinking about it before. I feel like maybe there's a little bit more to unravel here. But before we get into that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius, and you were talking about all the twists and turns the mystery genre has taken over the years. Okay, well, so it seems like before the break you might have duped us like you made it seemed like Poe invented mystery stories. But then

also maybe not. I don't know that duped to anybody, but I mean there are important caveats to the Poe explanation. So for starters, the mysteries that Poe wrote, they were all short stories, as you know. And if you want to know who wrote the first modern mystery novel, and the person you're probably looking for is Wilkie Collins, who wrote a brawling mystery called The Moonstone. Now this was

in eighteen sixty eight. Like post stories from a few decades prior, collins book included a ton of elements that have since come to define the mystery genre as well, what are you talking about exactly here? Well, you know, take the eccentric detective, the inept police force, some mannor house setting, and of course a reenactment of the crime to be solved. So like poets the credit for mystery shorts laying out some of the clues, and and Collins

gets the nod for mystery novels. Well, even that is a little bit murky. I know you're wanting these definitive answers. We got, we got a drill in a little bit O. For the last hundred years or so, Wilkie Collins was the go to answer. But about a decade ago that was a pretty big discovery made by a professor at Portland State University, a guy named Paul Collins, no relation to Wilkie. But it turns out that another writer's detective novel had actually made it to market before The Moonstone.

Charles Felix debuted his story The notting Hill Miss Three in eighteen sixty two, a full six years before Wilkie's novel. The story initially ran as these eight installments in a weekly magazine. Then it was published in book form a few years later, where it was met with actually pretty rave reviews. So, according to Professor Collins quote, the whole idea of a detective novel was basically new to book critics, and in fact, they almost didn't even know how to

react to it or explain it to their readers. One of the reviews that came out said this is best understood like a game of solitaire, or like a puzzle that you've been handed to figure out. Collins was also quoted saying the genre really didn't exist at that point, so they had to explain to readers that the whole idea behind this is that you've been handed a puzzle

that's pretty interesting. But you know, if Felix's mystery was such a game changer, then how come no one seems to remember it, or like even the author for that matter. I mean, that's a good question. And the answer is, Professor Collins found out, is that Charles Felix didn't actually exist. And of course the another mystery, another twist for you here, and that was a pen name coined by the author,

Charles Warren Adams. And this is something Collins discovered while he was searching through the archives of the book's defunct publisher, now The strange thing though, was that after searching through hundreds and hundreds of documents, Collins couldn't find a single word of correspondence between the author and the publisher, Like you think there would have been a submission letter or some kind of discussion of payment, but there was nothing to be found. So then the mystery became, why was

there no correspondence between the publisher and the author? And I'm guessing the answer was he was the publisher. Yeah, man, mango, you've still got it. You're getting You're getting the hang of this. Charles Warren Adams was the author and the publisher. So Adams published his own mystery under the name Felix, and you know, and then when the company went under in the eighteen seventies, the first mystery novel and the man who wrote it fell off the map. Now that

was until Collins finally cracked the case. That's pretty incredible and and not sell Wilkie Collins or Charles Felix Shure. But I do kind of want to go to bat for our old friend Edgar Allan Pope, Like he may not have written the world's first detective novel, but he did directly inspire the creation of one of the genre's most enduring characters, and that would be Sherlock Holmes. And uh Sherlock's creator was not really that shy about crediting

the inspiration either. Conan Doyle once wrote, quote, each of post detective stories is a route from which a whole literature has developed. Where was the detective story until Pope breathed the breath of life into it? Let's say it's pretty nice tribute. It is. But but you know, if you compare pose character with Sherlock, the similarities are pretty striking. They're both armchair detectives, not professionals. They're both brought in as consultants on cases that have the local police stumped.

They even both rely on on assuming sidekicks to help with their cases. There's an unnamed narrator in in the Pope book, and and uh Dr Watson for homes. But you know, all of that said, there's at least one famous detective trope for which Conan Doyle deserved soul credit, and that is the magnifying glass. So apparently Shlock Holmes is the first fictional character to ever use a magnifying glass to help solve a mystery. I don't know. Lull's shaking his head and he's mouthing Darth Vader. I think

he's putting in a different vote on this one. So I wouldn't trust Litle on this one. But I do want to mention though, that even though Post Detective was a clear model for Conan Doyle's there was actually a real life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. So before settling on a career in writing, Conan Doyle had studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and one of the professors he clerked for at a local hospital was a man named

Dr Joseph Bell. And he was this renowned doctor. I guess he had this ability to diagnose patients based on like these super minute details. The signs of wear and their clothing, or the way they walked, or the accent they spoke with, or even the kind of tattoos they had, played into the explanation for why they had some sort of afflict. And as Bell explained, quote, all careful teachers have first to show the student how to recognize accurately

the case. In fact, the student must be taught to observe. I mean it seems like basically he took that approach to medicine and just applied it to a crime scene. Right. Yeah, So you know, historians weren't even the first ones to

make this connection. Apparently Robert Louis Stevenson, who you know is also a famous author, also studied under Dr Bell at the University of Edinburgh, and uh Stevenson was so struck by the similarity between Bell and the fictional detective that he actually wrote Conan Doyle a letter asking can this be my old friend Joe Bell, which, of course it was. Well, now that we've covered some of the undisputed kings of the mystery genre, what do you say we give the Queen her do and talk a little

bit about the one and only Agatha Christie. I love that idea, But first we should take a quick break. Okay, Well, so before we get into how prolific a writer Agatha Christie was, I do have to tell you one of my all time favorite facts about her, which is that she and her first husband were among the very first British people to ever go surfing. Play is that for? You're just making that up? Is that real? Yeah? So she was actually an avid body boarder in her home country,

So when she and what's up? I said, nope, that's it's not true. So when she and her husband went on vacation to Hawaii and this is back in she was eager to try out the hot news sport. And at that point there was only one brit known to have taken up surfing before her, and that was Prince Edward. Which is funny because you know, surfing did start out as the sport of kings. So do we have any idea what Christie thought of the experience, Like, did she

have fun? Yeah, it seems like she did so. In her autobiography, she later wrote, quote, I learned to become expert at surfing, or at any rate expert from the European point of view. The moment of complete triumph was the day I kept my balance and came right into shore, standing upright on my board, which is impressive. That is pretty impressive. Although if you ask me, I feel like Christie's real claim to fame is the staggering volume of quality work she produced in her lifetime. I don't know

if you've heard much about this. All told, she wrote sixties six mystery novels and fifteen short story collections, as well as six romance novels under the name Mary West Maycott. Now, her most famous novel is probably And Then There Were None, which is typically considered to be the best selling mystery novel of all times. There's an estimated one hundred million

copies sold. Now, as for Christie herself, the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes her as the best selling novelist of all time, with an estimated four billion books sold to date. And as if all of that isn't enough, Christie is also the third most widely translated author in the world, just behind William Shakespeare and the Bible or whoever wrote the Bible. So that's right. Uh, you know, the thing that stuns me is how she actually cranked

out that many books. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's a good question. But but before we try to answer that, I do want to give a little bit of background on how Christie got into writing in the first place. Now, is the daughter of a wealthy family in late nineteenth century England. One of Christie's earliest acts was actually one of defiance, so against her mother's wishes, she actually taught herself to read and write. That that's crazy. So she's

like the best selling novelist of all time. But she didn't actually have like a formal education. Yeah, not until she was fifteen or sixteen, when she finally convinced her mother to let her attend finishing school in Paris. But her literary talent actually manifested well before that. This was in her early teens. Actually, at the age of eleven, Christie made her print debut with a poem published in

a local London newspaper. By her late teens, she had multiple poems public in the Poetry Review, and she had a few short stories under her belt too by that point where those mysteries actually they weren't. I mean, Christie never thought about writing a detective story until one day when her older sister, Margaret, basically dared her to try one out. So, according to Margaret, mystery stories required complicated plots and weaving all the pieces together would be just

too much for her little sister to handle. It feels like such an older sibling like a thing to say, But but she accepted that challenge. It seems like yes she did, and just looking around, Christie found a wealth of inspiration. I mean, they were lonely widows, small town doctors, military gentleman, plus all the local feuds and family rivalries that an avid people watcher would ever need to write

these stories. And so all of these casual observations of village drama kind of sparked these ideas for new characters, new plots, and so Christie doggedly recorded these in her hundred plus notebooks. Then later on Christie would piece together, you know, all of the these things into various plot ideas. And this was a task she often enjoyed while snacking on apples and relaxing in her huge Victorian bathtub. That's how I prepped for all of our episodes. By the

less we have that in common. I know, I I wish I could write like that. It's it's amazing. So she dreamed up all these plots in her bathtub. Well, the ones early in her career are probably the safest bet for that, And as time went on, bathtubs got smaller and smaller, until Christy finally ditched the tub for a writing desk. As she once lamented, nowadays, they don't build baths like that. I'd rather given up the practice.

It feels like a shame. It feels like between all her family money and profit from her book, she could have like afforded to get herself a bigger bathtub if she wanted. But what do we know about her actual writing process, Like, after she had all these notes assembled and the plot mapped out, how fast was she at

actually writing the books are? According to Christie's grandson Matthew Pritchard, she would spend about three months on a book at the peak of her career, and that covered everything from the first draft to the fine will edit that would be sent off to the publisher. And as impressive a turnaround as that is, it's even more impressive when you consider that Christie typically worked on at least two books at a time. And it may sound crazy, but that's the kind of pace she had to maintain in order

to meet these deadlines. So for many years of her career, Christie stuck to a schedule of two books per year, including one that was always timed for the holiday season, what the marketers called the Christie for Christmas book. And you know the reason I bring up all of this is because it perfectly teas up probably my favorite Agatha Christie quote, the time that she credited her tremendous output for being and I quote a sausage machine, a perfect

sausage machine. I like that quote. It feels like you should have saved that for the fact off, Yeah, probably should have. Well, So I don't want to make it seem like all of this came super easy for Christie. I mean, she was an incredibly disciplined writer, and it clearly took a toll on her. In fact, there was one time when a reporter asked about her writing process and her response was, quote, there is no agony like it.

You sit in a room biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling like you want to cry your head off. Oh man, So even a perfect sausage machine like breaks down every once in a while. Yeah, it kind of seems like it. Well.

I do like the way you described her books as clockwork mysteries, because the thing that always struck me about our stories is how neatly everything fits together, Like the solution to our mysteries is always straightforward and and based on these simple observations that anyone can make. So it's not like you need a fancy higher education to figure it out, which I'm sure is a huge part of the appeal. I I feel like you might look at it and think, like, Christie fooled you the first time.

But there's this promise that if you're extra observant the next time around, you might crack the case before Miss Marble or or erkal Pro or whoever. Yeah, and you know, if not, it's still fun to be fooled, I think. I mean, that's after all, why we read Miss Trees in the first place. Absolutely, But there is still one last mystery we need to get to the bottom of. Who's taking home today's fact off trophy. All right, let's

kick it off. Yeah, there's this great story about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I don't know if it's true, but apparently he was a total prankster. He supposedly once sent a telegram to twelve of his friends that said flee at once the secret is discovered, and within a day they'd all fled the country, which is something I'm sure they'd all laughed about, you know, for years to cub Yeah, those who can get back into the country.

So I'm gonna start off with an act that Christie fact It turns out one of her most famous characters, the Belgian detective Ericiell poiro was the first and so far only fictional character to receive an obituary in The New York Times, And the funny part is that Poirot's creator was far less broken up about his passing in The New York Times. Was the detective metas fate in a book called Curtains Poirot's Last Case, which was released

in the US and nineteen five. But Christie had actually written the manuscript for Pero's Last Case way back in the nineteen forties, largely because she'd grown so bored and tired of the character that she was already dreaming of killing him off. You know, I know Conan Doyle, you know, tried to kill off Sherlock at one point for the same reason. But I actually didn't know that Christie hated

Paros so much. What what what did she dislike about him? Well, she called him quote detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric, little creep. So it sounds like she pretty much disliked everything about sounds like it, alright. The next fact is one of the great unsolved mysteries that Conan Doyle left behind for us, and that's the true location of Sherlock's famous London apartment at b Baker Street. Now you might assume the address is the location, but that is sadly not the case.

Back when mysteries were written, Bake Street addresses didn't go as high as two twenty one, and con Into a flat out refused to reveal his inspiration for the apartment. So for going on a hundred years now, scholars have

been trying to track it down for themselves. You've got these dedicated fans who have scrutinized every number mentioned in the Holmes books for clues, and some of even mapped out all the backyards on Baker Street, hoping that one of them will match up these details, you know, that were mentioned in the stories. No locus of yet, but you can be sure that someone will keep trying. So here's a fun one. I found out about one of

my favorite TV detectives, and that's Inspector Gadget. So accordin to i g N, Inspector Gadget was originally meant to have a big, bushy mustache, and he actually does have one in the pilot episode. But after someone at MGM viewed that first episode, the studio called the producers and complained that Gadget looked too much like Inspector Clusseau from the Pink Panther movies. So in order to avoid a lawsuit,

Inspector Gadget shaved off mustache. All right, so weirdly actually looked up some Inspector Gadget trivia too, And one of the things I've always wondered is how did he become this halfman, half machine hybrid that we all know and love. And it's a mystery that was never addressed in the

original show. But according to an official Inspector Gadget trading card, from which, as you know, I always keep in my wallet at all times, Inspector Gadget was an average police inspector named John Brown until one fateful day when he slipped on a banana peal well right down a flight of stairs. The next day, he woke up from an operation only to find that now he had and I quote, more than thirteen hundred crime fighting gadgets attached to his body,

which is kind of a dark origin story. It is I can't wait for like Todd Phillips to direct that, But it also solves the mystery I've always wondered about and today is Halloween, so I think you win the trophy this week. Congratulations, you out gadgeted me, all right after all these years. So all right, well that's gonna do it for today's Part Time Genius from Gabe Lowell, Mango and me. Thanks so much for listening, have a happy Halloween, and we'll be back soon with another episode.

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