D'oh! Operation Flagship

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 13 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too.
And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Freeze Edition.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you know what the edition this is? This is the

Speaker 4 law enforcement sometimes thinks they're so cute and clever edition.

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 4 Man, I can't wait to point out how many cutesy little names and acronyms pop up in this story.

Speaker 4 And this, and a lesson.

Speaker 4 If you're a criminal and you ever think something might be shady and it might be a sting operation, just look at any name that they've given you and read it backwards or see if it spells an acronym that says like,

Speaker 4 we nabbed you, buddy, or something like that. Like, that's how cutesy they got

Speaker 4 And you'll see. I'll just throw that out there and we'll talk about them as they pop up.

Speaker 13 Yeah. And there's our daily assistance in helping criminals evade capture by law enforcement.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Was that what I was doing?

Speaker 4 I certainly was. All right.

Speaker 13 Moving on. So, so we're talking about one specific operation, Operation Flagship, which was conducted by the U.S.
Marshal Service back in, I think, 1985.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 13 it's just kind of mind-boggling. Where'd you hear about this? Did somebody write in or did you already know about it, being an NFL fan?

Speaker 4 Yeah. You know what? I'm not sure.
Now that I think of it, this may have been a listener request. And I'm going to look that up real quick because I hate not shouting people out.
Yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 4 When that happens.

Speaker 13 Well, how about I keep talking while you

Speaker 13 look.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 13 So the U.S. Marshal Service, they're one of the first American law enforcement agencies.
They were founded back in 1789.

Speaker 13 Dave helped us with this. It's Dave Week, by the way.

Speaker 13 As Dave put it, in the time of George Washington. So they've been around quite a bit.
And over the course of this history, like they've done a lot of different really kind of great stuff.

Speaker 13 They escorted students into the first segregated schools, black students to segregated schools. They protected them.

Speaker 13 They enforced prohibition, which I guess depending on your views on prohibition, it was great or not.

Speaker 13 They operated the U.S. Census, which seems like they were at the time just really looking for busy work for the Marshal Service.

Speaker 4 Just give them a bunch of pencils.

Speaker 13 And then turn them loose. And then famously, Chuck, anytime you hear somebody call like a Wild West law enforcement guy Marshal,

Speaker 13 they were a U.S. Marshal.
That was one of the roles they played. They served as the long arm of the law in the Wild West era of American history.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So they did a lot of things.

Speaker 4 They found a lot of busy work for them to do over the years.

Speaker 4 These days, did you mention witness protection?

Speaker 13 Not yet.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I mean, basically these days, they take care of witness, the witness, they run the witness security program, aka witness protection.

Speaker 4 If you see prisoners being transported,

Speaker 4 like to court or something, those are marshals doing that.

Speaker 4 And they're, since 79, they've been in charge of fugitive investigations, which is to say, basically, anybody with an outstanding warrant is a fugitive. You don't have to have like escaped prison.

Speaker 4 If you're charged with a crime or have been summoned to testify or something like that, and you jump bail, you don't appear in court, if you escape from custody, then you're a fugitive. And the U.S.

Speaker 4 marshals are going to try and find you and either put you back in jail or put you in jail for your very first time. Yeah.

Speaker 13 And Tommy Lee Jones doesn't care if you're innocent. His job is to get you and bring you back to jail.
No, not. You kill my wife.

Speaker 13 I don't care.

Speaker 4 That's so great, man. One of the great lines in movie history.

Speaker 13 So, yeah, you can be a fugitive all sorts of ways, and regardless of how it is, the U.S. Marshals are out there to get you.

Speaker 13 And for the most part, when they get you, it's because they've tracked you down.

Speaker 13 Maybe they got a tip. Maybe they just started looking for you and they found that you're actually at your last known address.

Speaker 13 And they arrest people quite frequently. I think I saw that they rounded up like 75,000 fugitives in 2023 or 24.
Okay. They arrest a lot of people.

Speaker 13 But for some reason, during the early to mid-80s, the U.S. Marshal Service went on what can only be described as a cutesy streak.

Speaker 4 Yeah. They said, hey, guys, let's have a little fun with this.

Speaker 13 They clearly did. I mean, like, these things, this whole thing was hatched hours into an office Christmas party in 1979.
That's the only explanation for this.

Speaker 4 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4 We'll start with our first Cutesy acronym. In 1981, they launched a program called the Fugitive Investigative Strike Team,

Speaker 4 aka Fist,

Speaker 4 because they're going to use their FIST to get you.

Speaker 13 Right up your bone. That's right.

Speaker 4 And their goal was to do fugitive investigations,

Speaker 4 not just like one person at a time, but like, let's see if we can get a lot of these people at one time, high concentrations of these fugitives, and round them up and bring them in.

Speaker 4 And how are we going to do that? We're going to do that with these really kind of wacky sting operations,

Speaker 4 which, you know, it's not like

Speaker 4 they were just out to have fun. There's a lot of merit to doing something this way.
They're generally cheaper than just one at a time going after somebody resource-wise.

Speaker 4 They're safer because usually when you launch something like this, they're going to be unaware.

Speaker 4 They're not going to have a weapon on them like they might, you know, behind the door of their own home that they barely crack open.

Speaker 4 So, you know, it's cheaper. It's generally a little safer.
We're going to talk about a few examples of these before we get to flagship. One very successful one was a program called Mr.
Zip.

Speaker 4 And this is just very lo-fi. They would have marshals dressed up as U.S.
mail carriers, and they would just knock on your door and say, I got a package for Mr.

Speaker 7 Homer Simpson.

Speaker 4 And they would produce their ID and sign their name, and they would say, thank you. You're under arrest.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 It is you. I think that was actually in the fugitive, too.

Speaker 13 Yeah, that sounds familiar. Yeah, I mean, it's been in a lot of different movies, but.

Speaker 4 Like, Here are your roses, that kind of thing.

Speaker 13 Uh-huh, exactly. Yeah.
So I don't know if this is actually the origin of it or not, but it certainly seems to be because I don't get the impression that they did a lot of this stuff before this era.

Speaker 4 Yeah, what about Puño Airlines?

Speaker 13 That was pretty fun.

Speaker 13 So, Puno means fist in Spanish.

Speaker 4 Sorry, it's just it's also like it's almost like they wanted people to figure it out.

Speaker 13 Yes, that is inherently the problem behind this whole thing is a lot of this, I was about to say steps, but I'm just going to say missteps that happen to work out in their favor were just basically like, hey, criminals, do you speak Spanish?

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 13 Do you think anybody would ever name their airline Fist Airline? Well, they want to give you a free weekend of the Bahamas. That's right.
That was the Puños Airlines thing. And I love it.

Speaker 13 Like, I think it's cool, like, in retrospect, but when you stop and actually think of it from a law enforcement perspective,

Speaker 13 you just end up pinching the bridge of your nose. But it actually worked.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it did. They mailed these fake letters saying they had won that trip plus $350 in spending money.
14 fugitives fell for it. And they send a limo to your house.

Speaker 4 It's like a big sweepstakes, basically.

Speaker 4 And most of them were arrested in the limo. Like the limo driver is a cop, and they just pull over and say you're under arrest.

Speaker 4 One guy did make it to the airport at Miami International, and they did have a fake Puno Airlines ticket counter.

Speaker 4 So they saw it through.

Speaker 13 i'll give them that much yeah for sure um i think it was right next to air haty right no for real oh was it okay i never know when you're joking anymore so so i know i'm sorry i've really messed with reality um that was 1985 there was another one the year before fist seven yeah

Speaker 13 right but they would spell it with roman numerals to make it look super cool it's so funny because i think this is yeah this is the era of the rocky sequels yeah roman numerals were everywhere yeah um That one was enormous.

Speaker 13 It was a multi-state, multi-agency sting operation.

Speaker 13 There were 113 marshals involved, five ATF agents, 105 police officers, all from across eight different states.

Speaker 13 And it involved a bunch of different scams that really all together were part of this one big sweep that was just coordinated by the Marshal Service.

Speaker 13 There was one pretty straightforward in Buffalo Buffalo where they wrote letters to fugitives and said, Hey,

Speaker 13 you don't know this,

Speaker 13 but you won $10,000 in the lottery. You know, that lottery you may or may not have ever played.
Well, you won $10,000,

Speaker 13 but we can't give you the money unless you come to the Lotto office and show us your ID, and then you can claim your prize.

Speaker 4 That's right. That was one of them.
One was a job scam. It was called the Prior Offenders Employment Opportunity

Speaker 4 Program, where they would say like hey are you a prior offender like i know it's hard for you to get a job we can get you a job 15 bucks an hour just call our number and tell us who you are and where you are and we'll set you right up that one actually seems like the most effective one because it it almost has like a scam sense to it like outwardly like overtly it may be the meanest too i think so too i thought the same thing Because you might think it's mean to say you've won tickets to the Bahamas, but it's really mean for someone to be like, I really want to start my life over and get a regular job.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 13 And focus a number.

Speaker 13 Have we got an opportunity for you? Yeah.

Speaker 13 I agree with you.

Speaker 13 In New York part of FIST 7, their sting was called the Brooklyn Bridge Delivery Service. Not to be confused with New York's finest taxi service, but it's basically the same thing.

Speaker 13 Their motto was, don't mess with the rest, come to the best. And it was essentially the same thing as Mr.
Zip as far as the scam goes, but they would just leave

Speaker 13 like we missed you slips on their door saying, you have a package that you need to come pick up. And there was a guy involved in this.

Speaker 13 I can't remember his name, but oh, Robert Leshorn. He was one of the chief or deputy chief marshals.
And

Speaker 13 this was his scam. And so part of it was the criminal would call to find out where to pick up their package.

Speaker 13 And depending depending on what they were wanted for he would tailor what was supposedly in the package so he said like if you were uh wanted for robbery or theft or something it would be like a brand new stereo or something so he would tailor it which made sense and apparently that worked to a certain extent but all of these all of them pale in comparison to the one that they ran in hartford connecticut oh man i thought you were going on the flagship i was like are you not going to mention no

Speaker 13 not a chance as a matter of fact we should probably just stop after this one no scam in the history of law enforcement has ever been greater than this one.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this is part of FIST 7 in Hartford, Connecticut. This was, hey, let's do a fake TV station giveaway where you can win two tickets to a concert plus dinner and a limo ride.
And hey, it's 1984.

Speaker 4 You're going to see Van Halen on their big, huge rock tour?

Speaker 13 No, no, no.

Speaker 4 Boy, George.

Speaker 13 And Culture Club.

Speaker 4 You have won tickets to see Culture Club Club in 1984, and it worked.

Speaker 4 I don't know why they chose. I don't know if it was geographical, if Boy George was just like, sure, I'll take part in this.
He probably didn't know anything about it.

Speaker 4 Or if they did some research, did a little re and found out that these dudes

Speaker 13 love Culture Club.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I have no idea, but that's who it was.

Speaker 13 I saw that part of the package that they won was also a photo shoot. I saw that in a couple of places.

Speaker 4 With the Culture Club?

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 And then one of the marshals who

Speaker 13 headed up the Hartford, Connecticut Boy George scam,

Speaker 13 said it was just like one of the other ones where when you went to get picked up by this limo, right, when you got in the limo, they arrested you.

Speaker 13 He said all these people that they got with this were all dressed up to go to the Culture Club concert. Oh, God.
Can you imagine what they looked like when they arrived in jail?

Speaker 13 Like those feathers that you clipped to your ear? Yeah, yeah. Like glitter war paint on your cheeks, like the whole, the whole shebang.

Speaker 4 I wonder if they said bad karma chameleon for you, my friend.

Speaker 4 I love all the extras too. It wasn't just like tickets to a concert.

Speaker 13 It was always like, and dinner, and a photo shoot.

Speaker 4 Like, I guess they really thought they needed to make it something someone couldn't refuse, I guess.

Speaker 13 Right. How can you refuse a photo shoot with boy George?

Speaker 4 Yeah, but but we laugh. Fist 7

Speaker 4 netted 3,300 arrests and is the largest fugitive roundup in American history still to this day.

Speaker 13 Yeah, 3,200 of them came from the Boy George scandal.

Speaker 4 That feels like we have to take a break right there, right?

Speaker 13 I think we would be violating some sort of unwritten rule if we didn't right now.

Speaker 4 All right, we're going to come back and talk about one that netted fewer arrests, but was definitely fun in Operation Flagship right after this.

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Speaker 13 Okay, Chuck, so we're back and we're finally talking about the titular

Speaker 13 scam, Operation Flagship.

Speaker 4 That's right. How do you like that? That's pretty good.
I love the word titular.

Speaker 13 Thank you. It's arousing.
I can't think of another word for it, but let's just say arousing.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. This was thought up.
It was a brainchild of a guy named Howard Safir.

Speaker 4 He was head of enforcement operations at the time. FISS 7 was a big success.
And he's like, at the Christmas party, he was a little toasty and said, what has everybody got?

Speaker 4 He had too much of Grandma's Christmas breath. And he said, what's everyone got? I need some fun ideas.

Speaker 4 And Robert Leshorn, the guy, the Brooklyn Bridge Delivery Service guy, still basking in the glow of those Taylor-made

Speaker 4 packages to the criminals,

Speaker 4 he apparently came up with this idea.

Speaker 4 And it was was football tickets.

Speaker 4 One of the hottest tickets in football at the time in 1985 was there at RFK Stadium for what was then the Washington Redskins, now the Washington Commanders, since the name change.

Speaker 4 But they were the Redskins then. They had won the Super Bowl, beat the Dolphins in 83, lost to the Raiders in the Super Bowl in 84,

Speaker 4 in 85.

Speaker 4 Expectations were high.

Speaker 4 Season tickets, 25-year waiting list for season tickets. Every game is sold out at RFK.

Speaker 4 And so offering up free tickets to criminals in the D.C. area seemed like a no-brainer.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 This particular game versus the Bengals on December 15th, 1985,

Speaker 13 whoever won was going to win a wild card playoff berth,

Speaker 13 which has significance. So it was an important game.

Speaker 4 I feel like...

Speaker 13 I don't know.

Speaker 4 You should get a little gold star for your football

Speaker 4 knowledge right there.

Speaker 13 Thank you. Also, not to mention, too, I mean, even looking back, you're like, wow, these guys were great.
But at the time, these two were at the peak of their careers.

Speaker 13 It was Theisman versus Osiasin, as far as the quarterbacks went.

Speaker 4 Thiesman.

Speaker 13 Is it really Thiesman?

Speaker 4 Yeah, the story goes, it was Joe Thiesman, and in college, he changed it to Theisman to rhyme with Heisman.

Speaker 13 Oh, really?

Speaker 4 That's what they say. Huh?

Speaker 13 I'm not smart. Have you been the Heisman? I mean, the Heisman?

Speaker 4 Oh, you know,

Speaker 4 I'm actually not sure if he did or not, but his leg got snapped on national TV. I was watching that game.
It was horrific.

Speaker 13 Wasn't that a Super Bowl?

Speaker 4 No. Oh, it was a.
No, no, no, it wasn't a Super Bowl.

Speaker 13 Yeah, that was horrific. I mean, it was a compound fracture that came out of his thigh, right?

Speaker 4 I don't think it was his thigh. I think it was the lower leg, but I just, I remember it was, that was the first horrific injury that I saw on TV that,

Speaker 4 even though I didn't know it at the time, activated my mirror neurons in a way that was quite striking.

Speaker 13 One of the ones that got me, there was a Miami Hurricanes player in

Speaker 13 early 2000s, and he was like running down the sideline, and somebody dove to knock him out of,

Speaker 13 well, out of

Speaker 13 bounce. And

Speaker 13 they got him right in his knee.

Speaker 13 And his knee

Speaker 13 turned into like his whole his whole leg, but the apex was his knee, just turned into a rubber band that went really far to the left.

Speaker 4 It's always so disturbing.

Speaker 13 It was, they kept showing, like, this was, this is the, the zeitgeist at the time. They showed that injury in slow motion 15 times

Speaker 13 while the dude was laying on the field. They didn't cut to anything.
They just kept showing it over and over like it was a new volume of Faces of Death or something like that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they did that for up until not too, too long ago, and then they stopped.

Speaker 13 Anytime there's a serious injury like that, they're like, we're not, you know, we don't show the replays replays of these things anymore but we probably shouldn't feed the bloodlust yeah exactly but yeah so anyway that was that was it's forever burned into my brain that that image and i don't think he broke anything he just apparently has like the most flexible resilient leg of anybody's so he was fine yeah I don't know if he was fine.

Speaker 13 I don't remember that. I just remember, like, I don't think he was like, anything broke.
It just went.

Speaker 4 Oh, was that old Rubber Knee Richards?

Speaker 13 Yeah,

Speaker 13 yeah. But ironically, I think he had that nickname before that because he could play the rubber bands on his knee.

Speaker 4 This has gotten so off the rails.

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah, we're talking about the cops and the yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 All right, so we're back to Robert Leshorn. He's the one that came up with this idea to give away these tickets.

Speaker 4 Um, he said, uh, here's what we'll do: we'll create a fake uh TV station, like a rock music TV station, like a local MTV basically, uh, W-R-O-C video. And that's going to head up this whole thing.

Speaker 4 And this is where they get cute again. The prize letters that they sent out were signed by station manager IM Detna.

Speaker 4 If you spell that backwards, it is I am wanted.

Speaker 13 Get it? Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then the guy who they said you had to call in or whatever,

Speaker 4 the business manager that took the phone call, his name was Marcus Cran,

Speaker 4 C-R-A-N, spelled backwards as NARC.

Speaker 13 No,

Speaker 4 yes, and supposedly, and I did not verify this, but there was one source that said the whole music when you called was I Fought the Law and the Law One by Bobby Fuller.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was like, come on, see, like, really?

Speaker 13 Right. So, even if, even taking that one out, it is 100% confirmed that they signed it, I am wanted, backwards, I am Detina.
Yeah. The Cran thing, is that pretty much 100%?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. I mean, it's in the NFL films documentary.
You see the guy typing that name in a computer.

Speaker 13 Yeah. So, like, this is like, these are the things that they're doing to just make it like a whole THE He thing.
Right. Right?

Speaker 13 Yeah. To where, if you, again, it's not going to come back.
No reason, but to amuse themselves. Like, there's no reason.

Speaker 13 As we'll see, I'm sure part of the reason also is for the media blitz that they knew was coming after they pulled this off. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 But not only is there really no reason for it, you're actually sacrificing potential captures because there's

Speaker 13 some of these people have wives. All you had to do was show your wife that letter and say, it says wanted backwards, you know.

Speaker 4 Hey, you dummy.

Speaker 13 Yeah, how many of these people were like fell through the dragnet because they saw that detonal is wanted backwards? And they're like, I think this is not legitimate. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 They mailed out 3,000 of these letters to fugitives for a total of

Speaker 4 5,117 outstanding warrants between those 3,000

Speaker 4 said, you won this thing. Plus, a grand prize drawing for Super Bowl tickets that year.

Speaker 4 The flagship international sports television was the fake station, Fist.

Speaker 4 So they did it again.

Speaker 4 About half the letters came back, returned to sender. The others, again, were told to call Marcus Kran

Speaker 4 to confirm their attendance. And a few of the people that called in were like, wait a minute, this is the cops.

Speaker 4 But out of the 3,000, it's not very many, apparently about 160 people RSVP'd, which would still be a pretty good take, I guess. Sure.

Speaker 4 And they said, all right, come on down to the Washington Convention Center at 9 a.m. on game day.
We're going to have a big brunch and a big party and then shuttle you over to the game.

Speaker 13 Yes. And I thought something you mentioned is worth emphasizing that being entered in a grand prize drawing for tickets to Super Bowl 20 in New Orleans.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 That actually struck me as a really nice touch because now you've moved the focus a little further out and you're diluting the focus that's being paid to this most immediate thing.

Speaker 13 So they're thinking about something else as well. It's really, I thought that really was a good touch.
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 13 So to get prepared for this whole thing, they held three different dress rehearsals.

Speaker 13 That's dedicated for sure because this was a big production. And it was smart that they held three different different dress rehearsals.
Because, again, there's a lot of moving parts.

Speaker 13 There's a ton of different cops. I think 166 different agents were involved.
They were all cops.

Speaker 4 Everyone there was a cop. Like the busboy was a cop.
The

Speaker 4 person serving your drink was a cop.

Speaker 13 Yeah, the janitors were cops. Everybody was cops.
Like when you walked into the Washington Convention Center that day,

Speaker 13 there was no one who wasn't a cop, a wanted fugitive, or the plus one of the wanted fugitive who

Speaker 13 had the haplessness of being brought along to this whole

Speaker 13 victims. Yeah.

Speaker 13 So, um, so they rehearsed it many, many times.

Speaker 13 And one of the things I saw of these 166 law enforcement agents that were part of this, um, a lot of them were brought in from out of state because they didn't want to risk some of these fugitives from recognizing

Speaker 13 the marshals who say like were in the courtroom with them when they were first brought to trial or um had escorted them from jail to prison before they escaped or something like that.

Speaker 13 So they brought in a lot of ringers from around the country. So there was a lot of cops working from a lot of different offices all for this one huge scam, Operation Flagship.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they had to shave a lot of about half of their mustaches.

Speaker 4 Yeah. If you watch, I mean, you can see this whole thing.
There's a, it's, it's only like 12 minutes long, an NFL films documentary on this. on YouTube or wherever.

Speaker 4 And you can watch the whole thing play out. It's incredible.

Speaker 4 But they look, it looks like a room staffed with 166 cops dressed up as different things.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I made it through up to, I think, minute three. I was like, I cannot watch law enforcement try to play it tongue-in-cheek.
It's just, I can't do it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Even the cheerleaders who were not dressed as cheerleaders, they were dressed in tuxedos. Like everyone there was wearing a tux, which was hysterical.
Right.

Speaker 4 Because, you know, it was 1985. That's the epitome of class.

Speaker 4 But they were all cops. And one of the women

Speaker 4 that was interviewed, she was like, I didn't want to do a cheerleader. She was like, I was in this.
I was a U.S. Marshal.
I was rough and tumble.

Speaker 4 And I wanted to, you know, throw some guys on the ground and put the cuffs on them. But they were like, no, we need you to be a cheerleader.

Speaker 4 And you're actually the first line of defense because what they did was they hugged these guys upon greeting like, hey, we're cheerleaders. Hug, hug, hug.

Speaker 4 And they're sort of patting them down and feeling for weapons. Right.

Speaker 13 Which is amazing. What was that? There was some movie where they do that to great comedic effect.
Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 13 I can't remember, but they're like hugging people while patting them down, but like just clearly patting them down. Man, this kind of drives me crazy.

Speaker 13 You'll think of it later. Or somebody will email me, and I'll bet at least one person does.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 So, yeah, like we said, everybody there who was in this building was a cop, including the San Diego chicken. Yeah.
Was armed, was an armed cop.

Speaker 13 That just goes to show you how big the San Diego chicken was in the early to mid 80s, that they were like, bring the San Diego chicken in for this Washington

Speaker 13 Cincinnati football game on the other side of the country. Make sure the San Diego chicken's there.
Just to legitimize things.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because that was the chicken was for the Padres, not the Chargers even at the time.

Speaker 4 The only explanation I saw in the video was

Speaker 4 they said something about Santa Claus was going to be there. And I don't know why.
This is the part that has no explanation. He said, oh, we were like, we we can't have Santa Claus.

Speaker 4 So let's get the San Diego chicken. And I was like,

Speaker 4 he said that as if that was the most reasonable statement he could make. Really?

Speaker 13 That's hilarious. It's very funny.

Speaker 13 That shows a little heart.

Speaker 4 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 13 I should also say I poked fun at law enforcement trying to be funny. So I looked up to see if there's any cops turned comedians.
And there are.

Speaker 4 Sure. I bet there are.
And I bet that's their whole act.

Speaker 13 I don't know if it is or not, but I can just tell you to go out and check these guys out. There's Kevin Jordan, Chad Ridgely, who went on to be a groundbling, Jim Perry,

Speaker 13 Alfie Moore, and I defy you to find the one Brit out of those.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I bet it's not Alfie.

Speaker 13 All right, so I'm a Bobby, right?

Speaker 13 Wow, that was a great Alfie Moore impression.

Speaker 4 He's the kind of guy that talks like that, I think.

Speaker 13 Anyway, I just wanted to toss that out there because very nice.

Speaker 22 Thanks.

Speaker 4 Leshhorn, as for his part,

Speaker 4 he's in the video. He's saying, like, nobody can act like a cop here.
We got to smile.

Speaker 4 And he says in this, in the NFL film scene, he goes, I know we're not used to smiling at bandits, but today we need to.

Speaker 13 I was like, bandits?

Speaker 4 What is happening in 1985?

Speaker 13 That's right. Yeah, he said, no one can act like a cop.
Kill them with smiles. Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, not

Speaker 4 with a planted gun.

Speaker 13 Right. Right.

Speaker 13 Oh, my gosh. So, like I said, there's a lot of moving parts in a scene where you're trying to nab 160 or so criminals all at once.

Speaker 13 Again, they rehearsed it three different times, but there's still tons of X factors that can crop up that you just can't plan for. And

Speaker 13 one of the reasons why they were really kind of on edge is some of these criminals who they'd invited

Speaker 13 were pretty hardcore. They were like armed robbers,

Speaker 13 rapists. There was one murderer in particular who had escaped from prison.
He and two other guys had dressed up as security, or not security guards, prison guards.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 13 from what I was reading, they have no idea where they got these prison guard uniforms, but they managed to escape. The other two guys got caught.

Speaker 13 The other guy, Charles Watkins, again, who was in on murder, he had become a fugitive and was wanted as a top 10 fugitive in the DC area. So he was a big fish that they were trying to reel in.

Speaker 13 But at the same time, this guy's a murderer on the run. You have no idea what he's going to do.
So they really had to kind of keep it it tight as much as possible.

Speaker 13 I say that before we get to the actual day, December 15th, 1985,

Speaker 13 we take another break.

Speaker 4 All right, let's do it.

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Speaker 4 All righty, we are back. It is

Speaker 4 not Christmas, but it certainly feels like it in 1985. It's December 15th.
The Washington Convention Center is decked out.

Speaker 4 There's a big TV playing highlights of the Redskin season thus far. There's music playing.
Everyone's in those tuxes.

Speaker 4 They've got red and gold balloons they're handing out. It's really fun to watch this thing play out.

Speaker 4 You've got these cheerleaders hugging and patting

Speaker 4 these guys down. One guy is like leaning in trying to kiss one of the women and she's just like pulling her face away.

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 And still has her arm around it. In fact, she actually, Stacia Hilton, she was the U.S.
Marshal,

Speaker 4 the cheerleader that they interviewed, or fake cheerleader. And later on, she had gotten out and was brought back into the service as an appointment as director of U.S.

Speaker 4 Marshal Service by President Obama.

Speaker 13 Yeah, but so to this day, she's a Redskins cheerleader.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 13 So

Speaker 13 what they would do is the cheerleaders would hug you as you were coming in, would not accept kisses, it turns out, but they would hug you, pat you down.

Speaker 13 Although you weren't supposed to know that you were being patted down, they would direct you toward a table. She's a good hugger, right? Exactly, very thorough.

Speaker 13 Um, so they would point you to this table where you would check in. And to claim your prize, to make sure you were you, you had to show positive ID.

Speaker 13 And then, when they, when they verified that you were on the list, meaning that you were a wanted fugitive who just showed up to claim your two free tickets to the um the Washington Redskins football game, they would give you a name tag, and the name tag would say confirmed winner.

Speaker 13 And then if you were a dangerous criminal,

Speaker 13 they would give you a name tag that said double winner. And I could not find anywhere how they would explain why somebody was a double winner and not just a confirmed winner.

Speaker 13 Like, hey, what does that mean? Right, exactly. Like, why, why me?

Speaker 13 I have no idea what they said. Surely they had to say something, but I could not find it.
It's lost to history.

Speaker 4 He said, you're dangerously close to winning the Super Bowl tickets, too.

Speaker 13 That was great.

Speaker 4 That's how they do it in the movie, at least.

Speaker 4 So one person came that was not expected. It was an attorney from a local TV station that had the local broadcast rights to the games.

Speaker 4 He heard about this flagship international sports television, a.k.a. Fist, and he was like, wait a minute, they can't do this.

Speaker 13 I'm going to do this. So he shows up with this.
He's going to go to my mind.

Speaker 4 Exactly. He shows up with a cease and desist letter, and the cops got him out of there.
They were like, Here, why don't you go have a talk with these two cheerleaders?

Speaker 13 They're like, Buddy, you're going to blow our cover here. Yeah, they shot him in the leg.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He hobbled out of there.

Speaker 13 No, they took him outside. They had to keep it under wraps.
So, okay, you want to talk about unexpected guests? Sure. Do you want to know the definition of a scumbag?

Speaker 13 Sure. A fugitive who gets caught up in the dragnet of a scam carried out by the U.S.
Marshal Service in 1985 and shows up without bothering the RSVP?

Speaker 13 There were 15 of them.

Speaker 4 That's funny.

Speaker 4 They just came. Yep.

Speaker 13 They just showed up. Didn't even bother the RSVP.
It just got under my skin when I saw that.

Speaker 4 This is bad manners.

Speaker 13 For sure.

Speaker 13 So there was a decent amount of people

Speaker 13 in this convention center. I mean, 100 and something,

Speaker 13 150 cops, I think, 160,

Speaker 13 a little over one cop to one fugitive. And then most of these fugitives had a plus one, if not all of them.
So there is hundreds of people in this convention center.

Speaker 13 And like you said, it was a big party atmosphere, but right under the surface, there's a bunch of people with guns ready to like take you to jail.

Speaker 13 But the problem is, you can't just round everybody up all at once, right? No.

Speaker 13 So what they did was pretty clever.

Speaker 13 They would take 15 to 20 winners at a time uh to one of like the separate conference rooms in this convention center which really it made me nostalgic chuck because we played a show or two in the in the conference room of a convention center you know yeah australia loves australia yeah yeah yeah um

Speaker 13 and they would sit them down and and they would present them with some i guess spiel to start as they shut the doors and everybody was settling into their chairs yeah this is uh louis mckinney he's on a stage uh and then again this is just like hey this is the party room where you're going to get your actual tickets.

Speaker 4 And he's the MC. He's the master of ceremonies.
He's wearing a top hat, a literal black top hat. And he doesn't just go up there and say, you're all under arrest.
He settles everyone down.

Speaker 4 He said he wanted everyone to kind of get settled in and calm. So he's just doing a bit.
He's doing stage work about how excited everyone is and getting everyone like pumped up.

Speaker 4 And then, and you can literally watch this happen. He says, on behalf of Flagship International, we have a big surprise for you this morning.
Everybody's under arrest.

Speaker 4 And you see behind the doors, you see all these like SWAT cops. It's their version of the SWAT, their SOG, Special Operations Group.
That doesn't spell anything clever.

Speaker 4 They're like literally have literal shotguns, and they're just like,

Speaker 13 they're right on the door.

Speaker 13 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 They rappel in through the windows, you know, break through the windows. No, they just, they literally just like kick in the door and go running in with shotguns.

Speaker 4 And you see these guys that like about a third of them like immediately sort of put their hands on their heads as they were being directed to and get on the ground.

Speaker 4 And about a third of them are like, what's happening here?

Speaker 13 Is this part of the problem?

Speaker 4 Yeah, they didn't know what was going on, but you know, soon enough they had them, you know, face down on the floor arresting violently. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 15 people at a time, then escorting them out a different door and just, you know, keep doing that over and over until they got everybody.

Speaker 13 I have to say something really quick while I was researching this.

Speaker 13 I had a great little brush with coincidence that I was reading, I got to that part where McKinney says, Everybody's under arrest.

Speaker 13 And I just happened to be listening to the Beach Boys Smile album at the time. Oh, yeah.
It's not something I listened to a lot.

Speaker 13 I just happened to decide to listen to that while I was researching this. And within seconds of reading that part, it reaches the part in the Beach Boys album where they say, You're under arrest.
Wow.

Speaker 13 And that it's worth, I mean, that's something, right? I mean, that's not your everyday coincidence.

Speaker 4 No, I love stuff like that.

Speaker 13 I do too. So, anyway, back to the story.
Um, Dave, like I said, helped us with this, and he wondered something that I did as well. What happened to all the

Speaker 13 guests who are like the crowd of plus ones are getting left behind in larger and larger droves as this party room is like, you know, set and reset, and people get taken out of the back door to jail.

Speaker 13 Yeah, and no one knows. I mean, no, at least no one ever covered what happened.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, I imagine it was, I've got some bad news and some more bad news. Right.
Like, there is no good news.

Speaker 4 It's like your friend has been arrested and you're also not going to this football game. And you also have to find your way home somehow.
Exactly.

Speaker 4 Surely they gave a ride home at least.

Speaker 13 Oh, I don't know about that.

Speaker 13 I don't know about that.

Speaker 4 I mean, I was laughing about they're their victims, but they really are.

Speaker 13 I mean, what a bummer. For sure.
Especially those wives that found out that their husbands didn't let them read the letter. Right.
From I am

Speaker 13 Detnall.

Speaker 4 And didn't want to go to the game to begin with.

Speaker 13 Right. Yeah.
Oh, my God. There are definitely plus ones like that.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Oh, man.

Speaker 13 So when this whole thing was pulled off, the reason why the NFL films

Speaker 13 little mini documentary is so thorough is the media was there. And it would make sense the media was there because this is supposed to be some big deal celebration.

Speaker 13 So you you see people who are like fugitives about to be arrested coming into the convention center like party, like into the cameras

Speaker 13 that are really like there to film their arrest, but they think they're there to film this big celebration because they won these tickets.

Speaker 13 The LA Times was there, CBS News was there, Washington Post was there. They were like journalists were allowed to go basically everywhere.
They were allowed to interview all of the

Speaker 13 all of the higher-ups conducting this thing.

Speaker 13 I guess they were just required to basically play it straight and pretend like they didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 13 But as a result of this direct involvement of the media, there was a huge national like celebration for how great the U.S.

Speaker 13 Marshal Service was and how well they pulled off this amazing sting with not a single shot fired. And aside from violently throwing some of these people to the floor,

Speaker 13 totally non-violent roundup of 100 plus perps.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, that's the

Speaker 4 that's why you do it like this. Oh, for the, for the safety and for the money savings, or the efficiency, rather, I guess, financially.
But the, the PR aspect of this should not be overlooked.

Speaker 4 Like, they wanted them to film this. They wanted them to know all the cutesy stuff.

Speaker 4 So one day NFL Films would release a mini doc and future podcasters would talk about it and sort of make fun of it, but also bring them, you know, some attention.

Speaker 4 So the PR part of it was a very purposeful big deal.

Speaker 4 The guy, i've seen lots of different numbers bandied about by how many people they actually got um i think uh 144 arrests is what dave saw but in the documentary the guy whose brainchild it was said it was 101.

Speaker 4 really but if you do the math on 101 arrest it cost them 22 100 to pull this off That breaks down to just $218

Speaker 4 if they got 101 arrests.

Speaker 4 And the average cost of just a per fugitive cost of nabbing a single fugitive was about almost 1,300 bucks. So that's a, you know, that's a big, efficient haul if you really look at it that way.

Speaker 13 Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's super efficient.
And again, not a single shot fired.

Speaker 13 And don't forget, they nabbed Charles Watkins, the big fish they were trying to reel in, the murderer who had escaped from prison, dressed as a prison guard, which really, if you're going to escape from prison, that's a real black eye to that particular prison, dressing up as one of their own guards and escaping.

Speaker 13 um so it was a big deal that they caught this guy uh and stanley morris who was the head of the marshal service at the time was quoted in the la times saying it's a safe clean and creative way to get these people off the streets there's no safer way to make an arrest than away from the home environment yeah i mean he's probably right uh as far as charles watkins goes and

Speaker 4 And Dave got some of this, by the way. You want to shout out the podcast criminal?

Speaker 13 Huge shout out.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because they covered this, and I think they've listened to that and got a couple of these things in the end here from there.

Speaker 13 Yeah, it was a December 2024

Speaker 13 episode. So what I'm

Speaker 13 saying is that the listener wrote in after hearing the criminal episode. Maybe.
He said, I've got a great idea for your episode.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so go check that out for Criminals' point of view.
I'm sure it's pretty great because it's a great podcast.

Speaker 4 But apparently there was a producer from CBS News named Alan Goldberg who went back at the footage and was like, I think he just thought some of this stuff was a little fishier than it was made out to be as some big, huge success.

Speaker 4 And he saw footage on there of Charles Watkins, a 50-year-old man, saying like, you got the wrong guy, you got the wrong guy. And it turns out they got the wrong guy.
They got Charles Watkins Sr.

Speaker 4 Charles Watkins, the murderer that was the felon, or rather fugitive and felon, was his son.

Speaker 13 He was 20 years old they got the wrong person yeah apparently the big fish was the wrong fish yeah according to criminal like he um he finally was able to convince them by showing like some id and some other like identification saying like i'm not the guy you're looking for you're looking for my son um and huge again hat tip to criminal they did some serious digging like i was listening to it and that and alan goldberg who is a huge source for this he they're the ones that he talked to this is not like all over the place.

Speaker 13 Like they found this guy and managed to just completely turn all of the coverage of Operation Flagship.

Speaker 13 Still today, when you read contemporary stuff about Operation Flagship, it is unquestioningly written about as just this perfect success.

Speaker 13 And they found this guy who was like, this is not actually how it went at all.

Speaker 13 There's actually, in addition to getting the wrong Charles Watkins, the other big fish they were trying to get, Lloyd Golden, he was a top TED wanted fugitive for armed robbery.

Speaker 13 And this Alan Goldberg, you know, God bless him for his journalist streak. He dug into Lloyd Golden and found that he was wanted for selling some drugs, not armed robbery.

Speaker 13 He wasn't on any kind of top 10 list. So that's bad enough.

Speaker 13 But when you really start digging into it, you're like, well, this is not only a waste of money, it turns out, even though it was super efficient, it's actually

Speaker 13 legal, but pretty unethical considering who they actually did nab in the strag net.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, it was mainly misdemeanor offenders, a lot of parole violations. There were six traffic offenses in there.

Speaker 13 And remember, a lot of these people were thrown to the ground, regardless of

Speaker 13 what they were wanted for. They were a fugitive, and they were thrown to the ground violently in some cases for traffic offenses.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly. There was one guy, and you can see him in the NFL film stock.
As they're they're bringing him out, he was like, man, he's like, you know where I live. You could have come to my house.

Speaker 4 Basically, like, why did you drag me down here

Speaker 4 and make me go through all this? Just come knock on my door and arrest me.

Speaker 13 He's like, I want to speak to Mr. Dutton now.

Speaker 4 This turned out to be sort of the beginning of the end, though.

Speaker 4 It is, again, still praised as a success if you look at any U.S. Marshal stuff.

Speaker 4 But they,

Speaker 4 I think, like

Speaker 4 FIST 9 was just regular police work over a period of eight weeks. They got a bunch of more fugitives, which is great.

Speaker 13 Yeah, pretty impressive. 3,500 fugitives in eight weeks over four states and parts of Mexico.
That's with no scams whatsoever.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no scams, but they just, they don't do this stuff anymore. I guess this was sort of the golden age of that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 They're still out getting fugitives.

Speaker 4 I think last year they captured more than 3,000 violent fugitives in Operation North Star, but that did not involve culture club tickets or sweepstakes prizes or anything like that.

Speaker 13 I think the answer is that

Speaker 13 starting in 1986, they went to nothing but beer and wine at their Christmas parties.

Speaker 4 Yeah, not the rum punch.

Speaker 13 Right, right.

Speaker 13 So one of the things about Operation Flagship is that it is so... nuts that it actually happened.

Speaker 13 And when you just step back and look at it from the, you know, from the total outside and how great it was and everything, it's extremely entertaining. Cops smart, criminals stupid.

Speaker 13 Can you believe they fell for this? There's football involved. Like it has everything you could possibly want, right? So it did actually inspire some stuff.
Like we said, that whole Mr.

Speaker 13 Zip thing inspired like the, I've got some a rose delivery for you, fugitive.

Speaker 13 This specific Operation Flagship inspired apparently the opening scene in Sea of Love with Al Pacino.

Speaker 13 where Samuel Jackson is among the fugitives who were tricked into a meet the Yankees scam. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that was copped directly from this, I'm sure.

Speaker 13 There was,

Speaker 13 so have you seen the movie Trap, M. Night Shyamalan's Vehicle for His Daughter's Musical Career?

Speaker 4 Yeah, have you seen it? No. Okay, I just want to talk for one quick minute about this because I heard this movie on two different movie podcasts I listened to.
Scott Hasn't Seen.

Speaker 4 He covered this. with Mike Castle, husband to Lauren Lapkiss as the guest.

Speaker 4 And then it was also on The Flop House, one of my favorite shows that I've listened to forever on the Max Fun Network where they cover bad movies,

Speaker 4 Elliot Dan, and

Speaker 13 Stu. So Trap is bad then?

Speaker 13 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's wonderfully bad, though. Like, I heard both of these before I saw it, and I was like, I've got to watch this movie now because it's so funny bad.
Wow. And it is.
I highly recommend

Speaker 4 the M-Night Shyamalan Josh Hartnett movie Trap because it is so ridiculous and awful. And the choices that are made as a movie are just bonkers and hysterical.

Speaker 13 Okay, so I know I am a as sentient adult human being, and I know that a lot of M. Night Shyamalan's, some of his films are bad.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 Yeah. Just bad, terrible.
I hated signs. Hated signs.
Although that was largely because of Mel Gibson's acting or over.

Speaker 4 Some of them are pretty bad to me.

Speaker 4 He's got a handful of pretty good ones, but yeah.

Speaker 13 Well, that's what I was going to say. I will still watch every movie that that man puts out because they're so imaginative, so creative.
I also love the cinematography in his films.

Speaker 13 It's always so dark and moody.

Speaker 13 Yeah, they look pretty good. The Sixth Sense is one of the greatest films of all time.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 13 even it like you can give up on him and then come back years later and watch the stuff that you missed. And you're like, man, I love this stuff.

Speaker 13 It's such a great thing to watch on like a Saturday afternoon or something like that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I like the Unbreakable movie and the

Speaker 4 Split, whatever. There was like a trilogy and then that world.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I thought all those were pretty good.

Speaker 4 But yeah, a lot of his movies are really bad, but still well-made enough to

Speaker 4 be worthwhile, even if it's just sort of like a cringe fun watch. And Trap is one of them.
And, you know, whenever he pops up in his own movies, it's always so bad and dumb and obvious.

Speaker 13 And he does so in the funniest, worst way in trap okay good i gotta see this it's really a fun a fun bad movie watch i highly recommend it have you seen a knock at the cabin door i have not seen that one that's good i don't see them all have you ever seen servant the show he made uh-uh

Speaker 13 good bad no it's really good it's a really good show like he does a great job he's a confounding filmmaker yeah you know just just watch servant i think you'll like it i haven't seen all of the seasons i might have seen the first three and then I stopped, but I can tell you the first three are definitely worth watching.

Speaker 13 I think you'll get sucked in pretty quick.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We cannot finish, though, even though I did mention Homer Simpson earlier.

Speaker 4 One of the great, great Simpsons episodes. They had a sting operation where they were giving away a boat, right?

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Yes. I'm sorry.
I've watched it

Speaker 13 yesterday. I guess I was watching it.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 13 I noticed something that I'd never noticed before. What was it? At the head head of the scene, at the beginning,

Speaker 13 as they're pulling up to the police station,

Speaker 13 Homer's falling for a scam like Operation Flagship, but instead of Redskins tickets, it's a free motorboat.

Speaker 13 So he's all ready for this. He's wearing a captain's hat, driving the family up to the police station to claim his free motorboat.
And at the beginning of the scene, as they're pulling up,

Speaker 13 Lou, one of the cops, has the door kind of like slightly ajar and is peeking out. Right when he sees Homer pull up, he like closes the door real quick.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 Oh my God, you have to see it. Like, I can't do it justice.
It's just this extra quick little thing that did not need to be added at all, but makes that whole scene so just perfect.

Speaker 4 Oh, just the heyday of that show.

Speaker 13 Yeah, season nine. It was and the whole episode, by the way, too, Lisa the Skeptic is like one of the more heartfelt episodes around, too.
So good.

Speaker 4 Hello, where are the pretty ones always insane?

Speaker 4 Favorites. Favorites.

Speaker 4 Also, a little nugget on the end if you're ever in Port Smith, Arkansas, and why else would you be there? But going to the U.S.

Speaker 4 Marshall Museum, you can see Louis McKinney's MCE black top hat on display.

Speaker 13 Very nice.

Speaker 13 That was a nice little nugget. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Thanks, Dave, for that nugget.

Speaker 13 Yeah. Thank you, Dave.
That was great. We appreciate the assist on this one and on Harry Belafonte.
It's Dave Week, everybody. That's right.

Speaker 13 And since I said it's Dave Week again, that unlocked listener mail.

Speaker 4 Hey guys, love the show. I just started listening around 2018.
I'm now realizing that was seven years ago.

Speaker 4 My commute to work is about 15 minutes in each direction, so your release schedule is perfect to listen to a fresh SYSK episode all the time.

Speaker 13 So fresh.

Speaker 4 I was listening to Automats and hearing Chuck weirded out about pie for breakfast is so funny to me because I'm a chef.

Speaker 4 And I will never understand why pie, sweetened, thickened, fruit, and a pastry, is dessert, but a Danish or jelly donut, sweetened, thickened fruit, and a pastry, are breakfast.

Speaker 4 And by the way, this totally vindicates you because when you were like, pie for breakfast, and I was like, that sounds so crazy.

Speaker 4 I was, and you said most breakfast foods are dessert, and I was like, what are you talking about? You're completely right. I wasn't thinking about all this stuff.

Speaker 13 Okay, I love it when you say stuff like that.

Speaker 4 I was thinking about eggs and bacon, but I forgot about the sweet side of breakfast, and all that stuff is dessert.

Speaker 4 Same goes for cake and pancakes, flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder with a sweet condiment.

Speaker 4 French toast is plain white bread dipped in a sweet cinnamon custard griddled, and then you drizzle sugar syrup on top of it.

Speaker 13 I love that stuff.

Speaker 4 So guys, Josh is right. Lots of breakfast foods are pretty much dessert.
And I say, if it makes you happy, there's no reason to keep away from dessert foods at breakfast.

Speaker 4 Your stomach doesn't know what time of day it is.

Speaker 4 Thanks for all the amazing information. I've learned so much from you guys and always have a great time listening.
That is from Aaron.

Speaker 4 Brittingham. And Aaron, thanks for proving me wrong.
I forgot about all this sweet breakfast stuff.

Speaker 13 Thanks for proving me right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and not to even mention cereal. I mean, what is Captain Crunch besides a bowl of dessert?

Speaker 13 That's right. I like to have a balanced breakfast.
I like the dessert part with a bunch of pancakes or French toast and syrup. Then I also like the eggs and the bacon part, too.

Speaker 4 Breakfast is my favorite meal that I never eat, but when I do, by God, I love it.

Speaker 13 Well, yeah, I'm the same way. I don't typically eat breakfast, so if I'm going to eat breakfast, breakfast, like, it's going to be something like that.

Speaker 4 Agreed.

Speaker 13 I gave up cereal, and

Speaker 13 I'm the better off for it, I just have to admit.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't eat that stuff anymore, but

Speaker 4 if I'm on vacation and there's a good breakfast place, I'm going to party down and then I'll skip lunch.

Speaker 13 That's right. Nice work, Charles.

Speaker 13 Well, if you want to be like Aaron

Speaker 13 and vindicate me, bring it on. You can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at iHeartRadio.com.

Speaker 1 Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Speaker 15 Attention, parents and grandparents.

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Speaker 13 Living with a rare autoimmune condition comes with challenges, but also incredible strength, especially for those living with conditions like myasthenia gravis or MG and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, otherwise known as CIDP.

Speaker 13 Finding empowerment in the community is critical.

Speaker 13 Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio Production, and Partnership with Argenix explores people discovering strength in the most unexpected places.

Speaker 13 Listen to Untold Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 13 Here with one last reminder to keep you off the naughty list this holiday season, stuff your stockings, your pantry, your gift closet, anywhere you can with Duracell batteries.

Speaker 13 Because there's nothing worse than opening a gift on Christmas morning and realizing you don't have batteries for it.

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Speaker 13 So, stock up on your double A's and your triple A's so you'll be A-O-K for the holidays. Choose the only battery brand with power boost ingredients.
Choose Duracell.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.