Balloon Fest 1986

31m

Balloonfest '86 was a fundraising event in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, held on September 27, 1986, in which the local chapter of United Way set a world record by releasing almost 1.5 million balloons.[2] The event was intended to be a harmless publicity stunt. However, the released balloons drifted back over the city and Lake Erie and landed in the surrounding area, causing problems for traffic and a nearby airport. In consequence, the organizers faced lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages,[1] and cost overruns put the event at a net loss.[3]

Press play and read along

Runtime: 31m

Transcript

Speaker 1 Degree Advanced, the world's number one antiperspirant, provides up to 72 hours of protection against the sweat and odor that comes with life.

Speaker 1 Degree is the wake up, work out, make a fully family breakfast antiperspirant, the dashing, darting, carpool honking, get the kids off to school antiperspirant, the work from home and do the laundry, grocery shop in your lunch hour, never take a break antiperspirant.

Speaker 1 So you can do what you need to do and work how you need to work. Sweat moves you forward.
Degree is here to make sure it doesn't hold you back. Degree here for sweat.

Speaker 3 Amazon has everything for everyone on your list. Like your uncle Ricky, who ruined your wedding photos because his fly was open.

Speaker 3 Get him underpants and save up to 40% with Amazon Black Friday week starting November 20th. And wear them, Ricky.

Speaker 4 Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts.

Speaker 4 Because this is the internet, that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnik and I'll be setting the pace tonight, but I'll need some fabulous contestants.

Speaker 4 First up, two men who hold records in Guinness, but not with Guinness, Tom and E. Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 4 Actually, the two best things I found in Dublin were the Guinness tour and the roads leading out of Dublin.

Speaker 4 Okay. I know I'm supposed to yes in, but I can't stand Guinness and I enjoy Dublin.
So I don't know what to do.

Speaker 4 I think everybody's lying about loving Guinness. I think they're lying.
They're lying about loving Guinness.

Speaker 4 So many amazing beers that are not that. They're enjoying Dublin so much they don't have the heart to break it to them.

Speaker 4 And also joining us tonight, world record holder for world's best friend.

Speaker 4 I am not the world's best friend. I've been asking it to swallow the entire White House since February, and it will not do it.
It's ridiculous. That's true.

Speaker 4 Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, thank you.
Thanks to you, we continue to pursue our record for the world's most hit-and-miss podcast.

Speaker 4 Each episode is a new frontier, thanks to your funds, and for that, We are forever grateful. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show.

Speaker 4 I just want to be clear. I hope all bike people really do die.
I really did mean that. I meant that 100%.
There was no sarcasm at all in that episode. I want you to die.

Speaker 4 Hey, Eli, do you want to add anything I can cut to?

Speaker 4 I don't trust you to cut it.

Speaker 4 The

Speaker 4 thing that Heath said is real funny, and I'm worried that if I say my thing back, you'll keep them both.

Speaker 4 And then everybody's going to know how I feel about Beyoncé.

Speaker 4 I'm going to be in trouble.

Speaker 4 And with that out of the way, tell us, Cecil, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today? We're going to be talking about Balloon Fest 1986.

Speaker 4 And Tom, you've given this the round and round. Ready to tell us if this story is

Speaker 4 full of hot air?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I am possibly.

Speaker 4 He really leaned into it, didn't he? I have no idea what the round and round is. These are going to be helium balloons.
So, yeah, sure.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 4 So tell us, Tom, what was Balloon Fest 1986?

Speaker 4 I undoubtedly, now is a hard time to be excited and positive about the future.

Speaker 4 Every day, the news seems intent on reaching into the increasingly small room inside our hearts where we store our precious, shrinking shreds of hope to extinguish forever whatever dim lights might still have the pluck to fight against the darkness.

Speaker 4 And in these times, when what the world needs is hope and unity, we need

Speaker 4 we need something, some narrative thread to bind us to our neighbor.

Speaker 4 We need cohesion, something that can reach across not just miles, but generations to remind us who we are as a nation and as a tribe and as a community.

Speaker 4 Hey, Tom, we could all come together and complain about the Democrats together, right?

Speaker 4 No, see, so that was last week's episode.

Speaker 4 So knowing this, I, of course. Okay, but seriously, the Democrats Democrats are really fucking this up.
Like, I really need to, I need a better message. It didn't work last time.
Let's DL.

Speaker 4 And knowing this, I, of course, immediately took to the internet, that bastion of shared values, to find something that would remind us that every day we are engaged in the historical project of defining for ourselves what holds humanity together.

Speaker 4 Oh, Tom, you're not going to find that on the internet. You should look for child porn because there's a ton of that.

Speaker 4 That holds human together.

Speaker 4 I mean, if you ask the aliens.

Speaker 4 Amidst the chaos, rubble, debris, and detritus of the bloody remains of our self-sabotaged humanity, I think that I found it.

Speaker 4 I knew immediately what would draw us together as one to make fun of Cleveland. Cleveland sucks.
It does. And not just because it's in Ohio, but also not

Speaker 4 because it's in Ohio.

Speaker 4 And when you are a third-rate city in a second-tier state, you also know you have to take extreme measures to get some attention, to tell the world that you matter.

Speaker 4 And there is no better way to prove your timeless relevance to the world than to pursue the loftiest of all goals to win a Guinness world record.

Speaker 4 Yeah, like most consecutive lighting the same river on fire. That's true.
That's cool. We've done that a lot.

Speaker 4 It's more than 12. I know it's high.
It is more than 12.

Speaker 4 Cleveland is like like the Fort Wayne of Ohio.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 You guys are just jealous because we held on to our baseball mascot the longest against the woeful mascot

Speaker 4 while you all paved down.

Speaker 4 What are you talking about? We, how are you part of it? Family lives there. That's why I say I didn't

Speaker 4 snack the key to nonsense.

Speaker 4 Now, for those who didn't grow up like I did, buying a yearly copy of the Guinness World Record book at the Scholastic Book Fair every year, and are thus unfamiliar, the Guinness Book of World Records.

Speaker 4 Jesus, yearly copy logs. Take it easy, high roller.

Speaker 4 The Guinness.

Speaker 4 I never had any money at that time. Neither did I steal.

Speaker 4 God, yeah. Remember that? I did steal a book from there once.

Speaker 4 You have to pay for things. The Guinness Book of World Records is a glorious compendium of the greatest heroes of our world.

Speaker 4 The tallest, shortest, most least fattest, slowest, thinnest, fattest, bravest, fattest, dumbest, fattest, most reckless, and weirdest people in the world.

Speaker 4 The world has to offer, bring their carnival freak show energy and immortalize their achievements onto the printed page. Do you perchance have the world's longest fingernails?

Speaker 4 Without the Guinness Book of World Records, you're just a person who can't wipe their own ass.

Speaker 4 But with the Guinness Book, you are a gnarled-fingered god.

Speaker 4 maybe you've eaten 36 giant hissing cockroaches, but until you've documented for history, you're not the golden god you deserve to be known as.

Speaker 4 You're just a dude with antennae stuck between your teeth. Well, not for long with these 21-inch curved fingernails.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Going right out of there.

Speaker 4 There's Guinness World Records for everything. How many spoons can you fit on your body? If it's not more than 50, you're not winning your place in history.
What? That's so easy. I could crush that.

Speaker 4 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 I have 60 spoons on my body right now, just by chance. Just casual.
It's nothing. The furthest distance dragged by a horse while you're on fire?

Speaker 4 If it's less than 1,640 feet, don't even bother filming it.

Speaker 4 Okay, again, I could crack it. That's like, that's like a quarter mile, right? Like one time around the track?

Speaker 4 Are you having friends over? Perhaps you can help set up one of the 900 tents forming the largest tent-based jigsaw puzzle of a dragon. Oh,

Speaker 4 no, remember when you and your other friends raced to assemble a Mr. Potato Head while blindfolded? Well, if it took you longer than 12.11 seconds, keep trying, idiot.

Speaker 4 That record is already held by household name, Andre Orloff.

Speaker 4 Heath kind of beat me to the punch here, but I do want to point out that I wrote in my notes: if I know anything about my co-hosts, it's that both Heath and Noah are certain they can beat that time right now on their very first try.

Speaker 4 All right, with the kind of I could destroy that. Yeah, no, it's true.

Speaker 4 With the kind of deep bragging rights at stake by being in the Guinness Book of World Records, there's been some records set that, on reflection, may need to be reconsidered and retired.

Speaker 4 In 1990, the Guinness Book's gluttony-based records were all discontinued, which means that no one will ever beat Johan Ketzler's record for eating an entire roast ox entirely by himself in only 42 days.

Speaker 4 Nor will anyone ever top record.

Speaker 4 I know why they got rid of it, but I feel like I could clearly do that.

Speaker 4 You can roast it?

Speaker 4 Nor will anyone ever top Irishman Jack Key's record for drinking 576 ounces of beer in 60 minutes. And of course, the opposite end of the spectrum also had to be rethought as well.

Speaker 4 So there is no longer a voluntary fasting world record, which means the record will forever be held at 382 days.

Speaker 4 And there will be no more sleep deprivation world record held forever in stasis at 11 days and 25 minutes.

Speaker 4 This record is owned forever, by the way, by Randy Gardner, who set it as part of his science fair project when he was 17 in 1964.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he got an A on the project, but it turned into a laughing devil that told him his mom's favorite sexual position. So, you know, pros and cons, pros and cons.
Lots of overlap with the nut maxing.

Speaker 4 That also retired from the venerated book's record keeping are those records involving controversial animal sports, such as the most games of elephant polo played or the largest crowd ever to gather to watch a camel wrestling match.

Speaker 4 Now, if you are picturing some brawny dude jumping off the top ropes to bring the heat to a camel, You'd be mistaken. Camel wrestling involves

Speaker 4 camel wrestling involves pitting specially bred camels against one another in a sort of neck-based camel arm wrestling kind of thing. Boo, bring out the guy.

Speaker 4 This is a really cool home. They just call it the clutch when they do it.

Speaker 4 Sounds awesome, said over 20,000 people who set the audience record in 1994 in Turkey before the record was discontinued.

Speaker 4 All right. Well, we have a Mr.
Potato Head to buy, and he has some excuses to make. So we're going to take a little break for some apropos.
Do you think I could do 12.11? No. I'll fucking.

Speaker 4 No, I have no chance.

Speaker 4 All right, everyone. Welcome to our annual record collection day for the Guinness Book World Records.

Speaker 4 Now, as you know, there have been some naysayers who say that our records are wasteful or otherwise pointless. So let's really prove them wrong this year, guys.

Speaker 4 All right, so what do you got for me? Oh, so this year I measured the record for most $100 bills set on fire in a minute, and it was 55. Okay, I'm worried that might feed into the wasteful image.

Speaker 4 Do we have anything else? Okay, I did largest toothpick sculpture.

Speaker 4 Oh, hey, art. That sounds good.
People like it. Sorry, you didn't let me finish.
I'm set on fire in under a minute. A lot of people setting stuff on fire this year.
Okay, come on, guys.

Speaker 4 There's got to be one record here that we can all agree is for the good of the world.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 I got one, but it's an eating thing. We're not doing food ones, guys.
We've talked about that. How could that possibly be a good thing? it's for the most guinness record holders eating in a minute

Speaker 4 you know what put it in the book was anything on fire

Speaker 2 it was yes yes it was on fire there's a million things to stress about when flying overweight luggage tsa lines delays overpriced airport lunches your rental car shouldn't be one of them With Avis First, your rental comes to the personal concierge who meets you at arrivals, hands you the keys to a premium car, and refills it for you at market price when you're done.

Speaker 2 You've rented before, but trust me when I say you've never rented quite like this. Welcome to Avis First.
Visit Avis.com to learn more.

Speaker 5 Some moments in your life stay with you forever. In a special segment of On Purpose, I share a story about a book that changed my life early in my journey.

Speaker 5 and how I was able to find the exact same edition on eBay years later. There are certain books that don't just give you information, they shift the way you see the world.

Speaker 5 I remember reading one when I was younger that completely changed me. Years later, I found myself thinking about that book again.
I wanted the same edition back.

Speaker 5 Not a reprint, not a different cover, that exact one. So I started searching.
And that's when I found it on eBay. That's what I love about eBay.

Speaker 5 It's not just a marketplace, it's a place where stories live. Shop eBay for millions of finds, each with a story.

Speaker 4 eBay, things people love.

Speaker 5 Listen to on purpose on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 4 Lulu Lu, doing heat stuff. Heath stuff is my favorite stuff.
Lululu. Hey, Heath, you got a second? Oh.
Hey, guys. What's up?

Speaker 4 Yeah, we want to talk to you about planning for the future. Exactly.
The future? How so?

Speaker 4 Well, Heath, now that you're married, it's important that you start thinking about how to take care of your family when you're gone.

Speaker 4 I mean, I assume they'll distribute my cheese through a sort of like a reverse drafting process. No, Heath, we meant with money.
Which is the same as a drafting process, really. Oh, wait.

Speaker 4 How do I do that? With money? Well, you could try life insurance from Fabric. What's

Speaker 4 Fabric? Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today.

Speaker 4 Made for busy parents like you, all online, on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required.
That sounds great. It is.

Speaker 4 Fabric has flexible, high-quality policies that fit your family and your budget, like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day.

Speaker 4 But have you guys actually tried it? I sure have. Life insurance gives me peace of mind for if I'm not around.
That's why I, Tom Curry, personally endorse fabric. I am sold.
Where do I sign up?

Speaker 4 Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/slash citation.
That's meetfabric.com/slash citation.

Speaker 4 M-E-E-Tfabric.com/slash citation. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states.
Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. All right, guys.

Speaker 4 Thanks.

Speaker 4 Hey, can I have your FIFA games?

Speaker 4 Are you going to mess up my saves?

Speaker 4 I mean, I was going to play them.

Speaker 4 No, I won't play them. See? Okay, that's why Tom gets them.

Speaker 4 And we're back. When we left off, Nerry a balloon had been seen, Tom Afer.
Are you going to make with this fast or what? I will.

Speaker 4 So, by far, my favorite discontinued Guinness World Record is the simultaneous balloon release record recorded and set for the last time in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986, as part of a charity event with United Way, and also as part of an attempt to rehabilitate the fading reputation of Cleveland, which is working to be known for something other than factory closures, dangerous water pollution, mob violence, and a fleeing population.

Speaker 4 Also, balloons. See, we nailed it.

Speaker 4 The city desperately needed a feel-good story to put Cleveland on the map.

Speaker 4 And what better way to do that than to claim their spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest simultaneous balloon release? They should have mass-released air fresheners, I feel.

Speaker 4 That probably would have been a better.

Speaker 4 Okay. You guys, it's like you guys have never even had a milkshake at Tommy's.

Speaker 4 There's going to be a lot of Cleveland deep cuts in this one. Everybody, just get used to it.
I don't want to do much.

Speaker 4 You've been there like once a year for a couple days at Thanksgiving. The happiest I ever feel.
The happiest I ever feel. You don't even drink milkshakes.
I do.

Speaker 4 They have a vegan milkshake there as well.

Speaker 4 okay vegetarian rather drink that river the bar was set high in anaheim california just the year prior 1.2 million balloons were released at disney balloons now releasing such a vast number of helium-filled balloons at the same time required some expertise and cleveland knew when they needed help so they along with the United Way called in the experts in the form of one Treb Haining, owner of Balloon Art by Treb.

Speaker 4 Treb had organized. You don't need your name in your business there, man.

Speaker 4 Treb had organized not just the Disney release, but other similar large-scale releases for the Olympics and the Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 And when he heard that Cleveland was looking to dwarf last year's balloon record and release two million helium balloons at once, well, then old Treb.

Speaker 4 He heard the siren song of his latex masters. Quote, Good old Treb.
For years I talked about releasing one million balloons simultaneously, and everyone said it was impossible.

Speaker 4 It was like breaking the sound barrier. We've definitely proved it a possibility.
Hey, I want to know who told you it was impossible and what they were picturing

Speaker 4 was the impossible obstacle of that.

Speaker 4 Now, to release two million helium balloons at the same time is a logistical nightmare.

Speaker 4 The volume of helium alone would require five tanker trucks filled with 700,000 cubic feet of helium to fill the vast number of nine-inch balloons.

Speaker 4 And you would also need just a shit ton of people to fill those balloons.

Speaker 4 Thousands of volunteers from area high schools would need to work at a rate of three balloons per minute and then release those filled balloons into a special three-story tall balloon box.

Speaker 4 topped with mesh to held the newly tumescent balloons before their ecstatic release. You could just hire that guy from up for like one day.
You'd be fine.

Speaker 4 And so it was that on September the 27th, 1986, Clevelandites gathered together for their moment.

Speaker 4 The city had pulled out all the stops, throwing an enormous Americana party with Uncle Sam's wandering about on stilts, middle-American fried food stands, and teens busily assembling what they hoped would be the world's largest burrito.

Speaker 4 I mean, I'm always hoping I'm going to get the world's largest burrito, Tom. Were they putting in work? Is the question? Mimochos, am I right?

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 Do you know what Momochos is? I don't. I was going to say

Speaker 4 great Mexican place in Cleveland. If you've been there, you might know that.

Speaker 4 Cave and Rye, also a good one. Idiot.

Speaker 4 Fucking liar.

Speaker 4 The final count for Cleveland was closer to 1.5 million balloons awaiting release, a far cry from the 2 million balloon goal, but still more than enough to take the title from Anaheim.

Speaker 4 The die was cast, and soon Cleveland would be known around the world as the city having the most fun with engorged latex.

Speaker 4 A Treb could control a lot, but he could not control the weather, which was quickly turning for the worse.

Speaker 4 A cold front with rain was quickly approaching, and organizers considered postponing the event to another day.

Speaker 4 But they had already paid the Uncle Sam stilt deposits and toyed with more than a million joyous balloon knots.

Speaker 4 Organizers instead chose to race the cold front and move the balloon launch up 15 minutes in the hopes of beating the rain.

Speaker 4 At 1:50 p.m., the balloons were finally released, all 1,429,643 of them began their gentle ascent into the sky. So many balloons, it took over 30 minutes to release them all.

Speaker 4 A massive, multicolored helium mountain rising up over Ohio.

Speaker 4 Kind of. Up is doing a bit too much work in that sentence now.
Oh, no. If they go kind of diagonal, this whole thing is fucking stupid.

Speaker 4 That'd be sad. Do they go diagonal?

Speaker 4 So typically when a helium balloon is sent aloft, it rises quickly and ascends to the heavens. Sure.
Not so much when the weather turns suddenly cold and rainy. And when

Speaker 4 43 mile per hour.

Speaker 4 How did that go? You're stealing the drama.

Speaker 4 Was it great, Tom? So good. He's saying CBT for COVID right now, and it's my favorite.
So good.

Speaker 4 43.

Speaker 4 He means cock and ball torture.

Speaker 4 That's normal for Cleveland, actually. That's just a day in the life.

Speaker 4 43 mile per hour gusts of wind and rain forced the balloons to stay low, halting their rise

Speaker 4 and blanketing the city of Cleveland with nearly a million and a half, nine-inch randomly bobbing obstructions, clotting the sky and obscuring everything from view.

Speaker 4 This was more like an apocalyptic swarm of gleefully colored, distended, and disembodied floating monster bladders descending on the city as if to devour it.

Speaker 4 Gentlemen, I'm putting a few pictures here so you can get a sense of the scale of this blunder.

Speaker 4 The image that Tom put in looks like a giant plume of smoke rising, which is kind of on par for most of Ohio. So it fits right in.
No, it looks like you asked an AI to make Rainbow 9-11.

Speaker 4 Truly, you're not wrong.

Speaker 4 The 20th hijacker was Skittles, and then

Speaker 4 the ball being healed by Thanos. Taste the rainbow, motherfuckers!

Speaker 4 And AI didn't want to be incensed about 9-11, so it used cleaning.

Speaker 4 Amazing. No one will notice that.

Speaker 4 Amazing.

Speaker 4 About 31 minutes after their release, the balloons took their first casualty,

Speaker 4 closing the local airport for lack of visibility.

Speaker 4 On the streets, balloon chaos reigned supreme. Cars were forced to swerve out of the way of roving masses of balloons completely obscuring the sightline.

Speaker 4 Other cars stopped in the middle of the road so parents could grab some of the historic charity balloons for the delighted children.

Speaker 4 And on the westbound shoreway, a mass of balloons caused a massive 10-car pileup.

Speaker 4 It had been less than one hour.

Speaker 4 And if you're wondering why drivers didn't stop and wait for the balloons to clear rather than risking their lives, you

Speaker 4 have not driven through the city of Cleveland, my friend.

Speaker 4 In nearby. The food at their airport is really bad, too, on the plains in Cleveland.

Speaker 4 In nearby Georgia County, a woman was injured when one of her horses, seeing an undulating monstrosity appear from the clouds, panicked and threw or perhaps kicked the woman.

Speaker 4 It's not clear which, but the woman sued, and the parties eventually settled. But the most tragic outcome of Balloon Fest 86 happened on nearby Lake Erie.

Speaker 4 Two fishermen in a boat on the lake were caught out in the storm and they didn't return home.

Speaker 4 Their boat was found near a break wall, empty and capsized, and the Coast Guard immediately began their search for the missing men. But the balloons made any hope of a rescue impossible.

Speaker 4 Coast Guard helicopter violence described try to fly through the balloons like trying to fly through an asteroid field, and the surface of the water was dotted with countless nine-inch round shapes,

Speaker 4 making spotting a human head bobbing in water impossible. Sort of like finding a needle in a stack of goddamn needles.

Speaker 4 One of the fishermen is Kate Winslet, and he just hogs all the balloons while the other one dies slowly of exposure in the water.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, much as I'd love to blame the balloons here, I feel like we drowned and there wasn't a helicopter to save us is like way more on the water or the boat.

Speaker 4 It's funnier this way, though.

Speaker 4 Now maybe those guys were already dead.

Speaker 4 You know, maybe not. We can't know for sure, but I feel like we can definitely know for sure that the balloons weren't helpful.
The two men's bodies were found around a week later.

Speaker 4 Then there was the environmental impact. 1.4 million balloons were released, which means that at some point, 1.4 million balloons deflated or popped.

Speaker 4 And they all probably landed right in a sea turtle's fucking face somehow.

Speaker 4 Okay. Okay.
But China does like 1.5 million balloons a day. There's no point even trying to not release 1.4 million balloons into the atmosphere from the United States of America.

Speaker 4 Now, the real question, the most important question, the question that lingers in the minds and hearts of all Clevelandians, though, must be.

Speaker 4 After the dead fishermen and the frogs covered in latex debris, after the closed airport and the traffic accidents, after all of it, was it worth it?

Speaker 4 Knowing that the Guinness Book of World Records would never again recognize an official balloon release of greater magnitude, was it worth it? Probably not.

Speaker 4 Since in 1994, Disney unofficially bested the release record with a whopping 1,592,744 balloons released to promote the movie Aladdin, and all without any traffic accidents or dead anglers.

Speaker 4 Because Cleveland sucks. It does.
What the fuck does that have to do with Aladdin?

Speaker 4 And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, Tom, what would it be? Everything's a problem if there's enough of it. And are you ready for the quiz? I am indeed.
All right, Tom.

Speaker 4 Lots of places in the U.S. are famous for their unique things they release into the world.
What is the most famous analog? New York City's daily running of the pizza rats. B.

Speaker 4 Chicago's record release of nine millimeter ammunition. C,

Speaker 4 all of Indiana's unique ability to release a smell exactly like an overflowing bucket of carf cow farts, or D,

Speaker 4 the Justice Department's decision to release sex predators, crypto scammers, and insurrectionists.

Speaker 4 Yikes. There's a lot of truth here.
There's a lot of truth here, but I think the truthiest truth here is definitely Indiana's unique. It's C.
It's 100%.

Speaker 4 It smells like a big fart.

Speaker 4 All right, Tom.

Speaker 4 Your purchase of the Guinness World Records book at the Scholastic Book Fair each year might have been a passing comment, but I believe what we bought at that book fair was as deep an insight into our character and our futures as is possible.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 what did I buy at the Scholastic Book Fair every year? Jesus, all these high rollers. Oh, he's got to have more than one answer because you pay money to spell.

Speaker 4 No, look at me buying three fucking books. What are you, Jukebox? Get the fuck out of here.
A

Speaker 4 Garfield comic compendiums. I had a complete set.

Speaker 4 B. Fuck you.

Speaker 4 B

Speaker 4 fuck you and your car field privilege. Go fuck yourself.
Let's beat up the rich kid.

Speaker 4 B, chicken soup for the soul. Find you.
Come on. No.
Come on. No.

Speaker 4 Somebody beat you up for that book for sure. How'd that go?

Speaker 4 Still looking.

Speaker 4 I needed 102 stories, apparently.

Speaker 4 C,

Speaker 4 thug Shakespeare rap versions of the Bard's Greatest Beats. My God.
No.

Speaker 4 That's the most depressing. That's pretty dope, actually.
No, that's a good one. I like that one.
Poor D,

Speaker 4 all of the above. Well, because we know you're showy about the cash, it's obviously D, you spoiled.

Speaker 4 Indeed, it was.

Speaker 4 All right, I got one more for you. So Cleveland might have failed at letting go of balloons and also not setting the river on

Speaker 4 both of which are very difficult to pull off, but they have some pretty sweet nicknames for the city, which the following is not a real nickname for Cleveland. A,

Speaker 4 the C-L-E.

Speaker 1 It's the first three letters of the city, nailed it.

Speaker 4 B,

Speaker 4 the land.

Speaker 4 It's the last four letters. Also nailed it.
C,

Speaker 4 the mistake on the lake.

Speaker 4 D, what is it? The rock and water.

Speaker 4 D, the rock and roll capital. That's why they had all that late to it.
World.

Speaker 4 Rock and roll capital because they have a museum about rock city. Exactly.

Speaker 4 They have a DJ who said rock or rock and roll at some point, but pretty much nothing else about the history of the music. E,

Speaker 4 the sixth city.

Speaker 4 They were the sixth largest city city in the UK.

Speaker 4 Sixth!

Speaker 4 At one point, they are no longer as high as

Speaker 4 they at one point were the sixth largest. At that moment, they were like, we're the sixth fucking city

Speaker 4 that became a name for them. F,

Speaker 4 the plum.

Speaker 4 Because New York is the big apple, and Cleveland decided to pick a better fruit. The slogan was, New York's the big apple, but Cleveland's a plum.
What? That's they genuinely terrible.

Speaker 4 Seriously, they had a big event to roll out the plum in 1981.

Speaker 4 81? Shut the fuck up. No way.

Speaker 4 Plum mascot. This is real, or I'm making it up not clear because I'm asking a question about this.
In 1981, they did this with a plum mascot chasing around an apple mascot with a baseball bat.

Speaker 4 What a baseball bat is going to beat the battle. All I want is a poster of this.
Seriously, plum mascot with a baseball bat chasing around. Okay, I'm looking on eBay right now.

Speaker 4 Or G,

Speaker 4 Trick Weston, all of the above are actually real.

Speaker 4 Gotta be G. All of the above are real.
Fucking shit. That is.
I've got to get a shirt of that plum chasing an apple with a baseball bat. There's nothing else that matters in my life until I have that.

Speaker 4 Tom wins.

Speaker 4 Sure. All right.
I'll pick Noah. Okay.
What are we doing? Well, for Tom, Noah, Cecil, and Heath. I want Eli to read Thug Shakespeare from start to finish for us.
Oh, for patrons. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Thug Shakespeare for patrons. All right, well, for Tom, Noah, Cecil, and Heath, I'm Eli Bosnick.
Thank you for hanging out with us today.

Speaker 4 We'll be back next week, and by then, Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can donate to vulgarity for charity, apply our ire to the victim of your choice.

Speaker 4 And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash citationpod or leave us a five-star review everywhere you can.

Speaker 4 And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com.

Speaker 4 I've got a fax training updates, post seven job ads, and edit a 700-page manual today. There's a better way.

Speaker 6 Cornerstone Galaxy AI agents boost productivity by turning static content into smart conversations, personalizing learning, and handling admin tasks all in your workflow. Don't work like it's 1989.

Speaker 6 Work like it's now. Visit cornerstoneondemand.com to see how AI can help.
Cornerstone's workforce development platform lets humans do what they do best and AI do the rest.

Speaker 6 Visit cornerstoneondemand.com.

Speaker 7 Did you know you can opt out of winter? With Verbo, save up to $1,500 for booking a month-long stay. When thousands of sunny homes are waiting for you, why subject yourself to the cold?

Speaker 7 Put the snow shovel down, put the parka back in the closet, and don't you dare scrape another windshield.

Speaker 7 Slip into some flip-flops, consider a sunless tan, and use the monthly stays filter to save up to $1,500.

Speaker 7 Book your warm getaway at Verbo.com.