Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey this week we're talking about Harold von Braun Hunt, who is an advertiser in the fifties and sixties who sold sea monkeys. You might have heard of these. They were just basically tiny little shrimp that they that they sold through magazine articles and then kids were like what you mean they can't dance. What do mean they can't play baseball because it was easy to take advantage of children back then? That's how want to say that. That's how I want to intro the episode. Okay, it's Marge teeth. What do you got going on? 00:27 It's what's which day is it March eighteen yeah this weekend? I'll be in Ashland, Kentucky on March twenty second I would love to see you there, and if you're like where's Ashland, Kentucky that's I asked as well, so Google it you'll find it. It's out there and then my this June we're running the church comedy tour back those dates will be available soon check all my dates out on my website jaren Myers comm slash shows 19:04 So this obviously isn't much. mean, even if you look at like some of their more extravagant versions of this, like where they've got, he's got a pirate ship and all this stuff. it's just kind of glorified fish, not even fish. Like they're just tiny little itsy bitsy creatures. But what he did really well was advertising. And so he came up with this brand of Sea Monkeys and sold them as if they were 19:34 You could do tricks and you could teach them stuff and he sold like different sets for it. So he sold a set where it was like the dancing set. And so it was like it was supposed to resemble a stage and you're supposed to be able to teach them how to dance. Right. And then there was the baseball diamond and it looked like a baseball field and they're supposed to be able to play baseball because it's all just like gimmicky things like that. Obviously they're little shrimps. They can't do anything. And but he he was like I'm selling to kids. They don't know that. 20:02 he referenced when he was a kid and he was at the fair and he saw the the the flee thing. Remember these to do that like the yeah. I remember trapeze fleas the trap. Yeah, please we remember that you remember that from our childhood. Yeah, you don't remember trap fleas 20:23 I said yeah keep going. What are you wanting from me right now? Okay, I don't know. Do you understand the Alex? You see I'm crazy like do I feel I feel insane today where Tim's just like he's telling different sets and stuff and you remember trap trappies fleas trappies please remember trappies you remember that 20:52 you're that yeah, but I know what you're talking about. Okay, all right. Where is this episode going bro? So his whole thing was he's essentially selling fish food is what it is. It's a Brian shepherd. It's fish food yeah and he said okay. If I if I give them tell them put tap water in one of these little jars, you pour that you dump the solution in that's supposed to make the water clean and then you dump the eggs in. Here's the deal. It was a lie. 21:20 What you were doing is you were dumping the eggs in first and then the next day you were just putting salt in because he was like, well, it's going to take like 24 hours from where I'll start hatching. so he was like, you're going to purify the water, but it was you're putting the eggs in and letting them sit overnight so they can hatch and then you're going to put some salt in. And so he sold these for a dollar 25. And he called a bunch of comic book manufacturers, 21:50 printers, sure, publishers, thank you, and he started putting those, putting these ads in comic books. Yeah, and this was something that no one was doing. No one was putting ads in comic books because it was kind of like, I don't want to say like taboo, but everyone's like, why would you advertise to children? What's the point of that? And so he's like, he's like, oh, I'm selling to kids. I should advertise to kids. And so it was a buck twenty five. And what you would do is you would cut out this little thing, put it in an envelope, 22:19 with your buck 25. because people back then didn't understand the power of like how you could get a kid to annoy their parent into buying your product. Yeah, no one knew how easy it was to get kids to get their parents to do stuff. Yeah. They hadn't figured that out yet. As a former kids pastor, it's easy. That was the number one thing we did was teach kids to annoy their parents. Yeah. We actually would. Here's some inside baseball. 22:49 we would for like big events where we wanted like increase attendance to have people at. We would plan special things for the kids to get the kids really excited about it because we knew if the kids convinced their parents, the parents would get like drug along and so we would like like tricking the parents through their kids. It's the same thing these guys are doing. You tricking the parents. You were just telling the kids like guys were gonna have 23:15 pizza next week and then the kids are like we got to go because we're going to have pizza next week instead of presenting them the gospel of Jesus Christ yeah, because the kids don't care about the gospel. They want pizza. The kids don't care about the gospel that's going on a t shirt. The kids don't care about the gospel. The kids will never care about the gospel until it tastes like pizza. So he started advertising in these books, 23:45 And it was a he at the height of his operation. Yeah, he was printing ads and three point two million comic books a year. And so it became a thing where everybody knew about the sea monkeys. Not everybody got them, but at least everyone knew about him because it was inescapable. was in every comic book you would ever get. And so through that, throughout like into the eighties, was just sea monkeys are everywhere. And so he became a millionaire. How many 24:13 asmr creators. Do you follow? don't follow a single one that you got numerous ads for this I'm okay. First of all, I don't follow when you're saying this. I was like yeah, but I wonder how many people have seen ads about this. I'm asked and then go. I've never seen ads because I don't watch asmr speaking of ads. We'll come back to this, but speaking you're trying to get away from the fact to away, watch asmr videos. First of all, I don't watch. listen to obviously 24:42 and I because it helps me focus, so I listen to him while I work and here's the here's the thing I am ashamed of it, so I always believe my history every time I watch him because I don't want it to be in my algorithm. I don't pay for you to premium. I don't pay for you to premium. That's crazy that you're watching ASMR videos and listening to ads. It's just get the new Domino's five nine nine breadsticks suck a lot. That does it does suck a lot. Here's the deal. A lot of them 25:13 The kids don't care about the a lot of them won't run mid rolls. They only run pre rolls because of that very reason, but some of them do run mid rolls and when they do, oh my gosh, it's the worst because so loud. Yeah, it's you like a freaking sure, but yeah, it's it honestly, it really helps with focus. You watch on the tilling account because sometimes I've seen those pop up. 25:34 No, I've never yeah you actually are still logged into the and you watch a little as that would be me because I delete the history because I don't want to messing up my algorithm and I'm ashamed. If they're just so weird, I don't know why they have to be so weird like why can't you just make the sounds and shut up like 26:03 anyways about average, I just make the sounds and shut up. 26:11 Uh, so... 26:15 So Tim, just to be clear yeah, your covenant eyes report each week is just just yeah. Is there a specific creator? Do you know what do you search when you're looking at our videos? What do you search? I literally just search ASMR and then I just scroll through until there's one that's like oh that's probably fine and then I want you to know and I think this is important and I think less of you now. 26:43 I think it's important for you to know that I do think less of you right now. Hey, that's fine. Honestly, I'm proud of who I am embarrassed. I am and I'm telling you, you should be it. It's just it helps me focus. It helps me focus there and makes the top of my head feel nice who watches this podcast and then removes it from their watch. They go, I can't have this in my algorithm know that I watch this. It's less about people knowing it's more about. I don't want to 27:12 I'm cluttering my algorithm yeah, because it's a yeah. I don't want those recommendations. I just want while I'm working for it to be in the background yeah, but it's. I think if you watch it, even if you're moving from your watch history, it still affects your not doesn't. If it's not in your watch history, it doesn't affect your algorithm. I only is true because if that was true, then I would be getting recommendations for it. Okay, because I like at least once a day I have it on the background while I'm working. It's just in the is in the background. Wow, 27:40 it's like music is the same thing as music. Don't be so weird about this. I was smoking crack. Okay, would you have such a problem about it with it? No, I'd actually prefer that there's there's treatment system and communities for support. They haven't made ASMR illegal yet, so I can't. I can't throw the book at you right now. Okay, whatever. When I was in New York, 28:09 speaking about advertisements sure when I was in New York. 39:42 So that that's a crazy thing to advertise those like you can see your bones. We're looking at me you pig. I'm looking at your bones. 39:57 that's that is nuts. That is nuts. How do you sell that though? It obviously doesn't work. Oh yeah, that's the thing is none of the things he sold really did anything. They were all just gimmicks. It was all just gimmicks that obviously didn't work. He also had like hip glasses looking at your bone. All right, all right, stop saying that keep doing it, sir. Who cares? I don't get what you're doing. Just don't talk to me more and then and then in a weird and a weird like 40:26 shift from character. He's like I'm going to make I'm going to make something for adults and so he makes this, which is called the Cuyoga, which is a baton and at the tip of the baton there's a taser and so you hit people and it'll like them essentially yeah, but it's a baton so it's like telescopic and so you can this is since been outlawed. He also he also he got arrested in Ligurian says you don't need a gun. 40:55 What year is this? I don't know judging by this ad. I would say like early seventies. I'd say early sixties. It could be could be and it's marketed towards. don't know if you can read this from here, but it's marketed towards people who can't get a gun like if you legally can't acquire a gun. He said, why don't you get this electric tan? So for some reason you're not allowed to buy firearms anymore. I'll sell you get without a license yeah. 41:23 Yeah, but that's just a gun now and so yeah he got he got arrested in LaGuardia for trying or do you a guardia for trying to take it on a flight, LaGuardia, LaGuardia, LaGuardia. Yeah, why do they make that so hard to say? So you got arrested for trying to take that on the flight in the nineties and so they arrested him. They I don't know what they processed him and they ended up releasing him because they're like well, we don't know technically speaking like our 41:52 technically banned yeah. They were like this. We don't have a category for this. It's technically not illegal, but like we don't want you to bring this so you can't, but there's not a law, so we can't like charge you with anything. That's how I feel about it's not illegal for you to watch as tomorrow. I don't want you to, but I can't legally yet. Yeah, I would kick you off a flight if you did it, but like I can throw you in jail for it, so that's exactly what happened to him. He got kicked off his fight and then in the nineties in ninety two 42:22 This is my favorite part of the story and I do to I feel like we're going to take an alien turn right here. Aren't we? Oh, I wish no in ninety two. He was approached by I don't know some TV producer and they produced the show the amazing live sea monkeys and the concept of the show was a mad scientist had a grow ray 42:49 and accidentally grew sea monkeys to life size and they like escaped from their little pen because obviously they were too big. And then it was the life of these sea monkeys as human size sea monkeys. My favorite part about this is see if you can guess who the professor is at the top of this picture. These are the sea monkeys. So obviously I think you can guess which ones are the monkeys. This is 1992. I think you can guess who the sea monkeys are. They're the ones that look like crazy things. 43:17 but then the guy in the middle, the per you know him like you don't know him personally, yeah, but you know who he is right. Hold on 43:30 Eddie Murphy. 43:36 Is it Alec Baldwin? No, no wait. You're going to say it. I'm going to go yeah, honestly looking at this picture. I cannot see it like it doesn't like him. It's how he Mandel 43:51 and so he played this professor. can't see that or I can't see that one bit, but he plays this professor who turned these sea monkeys into life size. Okay, this show ran for eleven episodes and got cancelled. Apparently it wasn't very good and it's really obviously it's also apparently really hard to find any evidence that had ever existed like there's images. That's how he's doing 44:15 yeah. He got that got that e t money and he was a we get rid of that to get rid of that yeah, but it's like not online. It's like lost. It's considered lost media, so if you can find it and you can see it, I want to see it send a VHS well, it's because people had the VHS and they poured water on it because I thought that was like student monkeys out it. They were like I were dumb yeah and so it's probably no surprise to you judging by the x-ray specs that he ended up marrying an adult film star and then 44:42 after he passed away, he left his home to her and so she had to drive home every day to this gate. Okay, where is this? I don't know where they ended up settling at this stage of their life. I do know that they lived in Manhattan for a very long time. This clearly is not man. Yeah, so I wife would love this gate by the way. If we had that, yeah, she'd like oh my gosh, it this place so much character. 45:11 you know, where is this like not a normal anyway, but she she ended up selling like the a license to another toy company to continue selling sea monkeys after his death. Sure and smart business woman and wasn't clear on the terms of the agreement, bad business woman and long story short, ended up coming back to bite her and towards the end of the two thousands. She ended up in a situation where the house that they lived in was as 45:39 big massive house. She couldn't afford to pay for the heat in the home, and so she had like wad herself into like two of the bedrooms because I guess they were the warmest rooms or something and she like lived in her for court. She wore these fur coats around the house and like basically lived in like kind of poverty like she saw the giant house, but she couldn't heat it and she can really afford her life anymore. Yeah, and I don't know exactly what that means. 46:06 I don't know if that means like she couldn't afford to eat or she just couldn't afford the lifestyle she used to have. It's not totally clear, but she didn't have a great end of her life because of that sure that licensing deal. So one last small thing we probably need to 46:27 this episode really was going nowhere then, huh? No, I just about the sea monkeys. Okay, all right, Harold, here all winners. Where's the other episode? I said that there's another episode. I've said that before where I go. This was kind of weird. Huh Tim just sat over here and was like I got a gift and I like ASMR. It was about the sea monkeys. Oh okay, 46:54 I thought we were building up to like something and you were like, ah, his wife died alone. 47:02 this seem like it's interesting yeah yeah. Okay, so anyways the New York Times wrote about him. Hold on or no, the Washington Post wrote about him quote. He was born as Harold Nathan Bronhut, a Jew. That's the that's what they wrote because he in the fifties added Vaughn to his name because he was ashamed of his heritage. 47:30 and so he was shared. Yeah, so he wanted to try to be. wanted to sound more German and he took his problematic. He took his earnings from all of the sea monkey fame. He took those millions and he poured them into white supremacy groups. Oh and the whole episodes about the guy who invented the sea monkeys was kind of a grifter. 48:00 yeah at the very end, you're just like by the way, a piece of crap, the surprise he actually he was a surprise. He actually not see the whole surprise. The guy who made this actually suck yeah yeah, so yeah he was and it. I think it just goes to show yeah, that the rich they always end up sucking 48:28 Yeah, it's the alt right. It's the alt the alt right pipeline. guess I was going to try to come up with some sea monkey name for it, but no no yeah. He did end up somehow becoming a white supremacist and funding a monkey thing, which is very strange and his parents. His parents were like yeah. We he got disowned by his family for that obviously because in the fifties he was like actually I sigh with the guys who did this to us and they're like yeah okay, they're like yeah, that's weird. 48:58 actually yeah and then the rest of his life he's like my parents won't talk to me you idiot yeah. They shouldn't they shouldn't yeah to you. Oh our son yeah he takes advantage of children. He sells them hopes and dreams and he just capitalizes on that yeah and then he married his wife and electric baton actually, which is kind of cool. It doesn't say the date on here. It just says her name 49:27 so yeah, I don't know when they got when they got married, but yeah, so you know, I mean some some rough ideas, lot of griffs, a lot of griffs in his day, but that's Martin Van Bure hut. That's not Martin Harold, Harold Van Bure. I'm thinking of Van Van Bron hut hair, her old Harold Von Braun hunt, Harold Von Braun hut sucky guy 50:00 Hey, thanks for watching this episode. you liked it, might like Edward Bernays. He was another advertising guy, really kind of the... 50:06 founder of PR and advertising and grifting you and tricking your brain into thinking things. It is rough. It's great, but you might like them. So check that episode out and if you like this episode, you might like our next episode and you could watch that right now, but become on our supporter on Patreon. You can do that at we sell dead people dot com. Our supporters help the show happen. They also get a lot of great perks they can have. They get access to our discord. They get access to episodes a week early without ads and a lot of other great stuff. We appreciate our supporters. make the show. 50:34 This is an Evergreen podcast. You can find out more about them at Evergreenpodcasts.com and we'll see you next week for another episode of Tilling Podcasts.