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Time Bandits Review - TAS 279
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On today’s episode we review the surprisingly historically accurate Apple TV+ reboot of the movie Time Bandits. The new TV show, Time Bandits features a 10-episode season where a group of “bandits” travel through time meeting historical characters along the way. We talk about those characters and the real facts behind them, as well as what we liked about the show. They got a lot of the details right!
Links
- All 11 Real-Life Historical People In Time Bandits Season 1, Explained
- Time Bandits (IMDb)
- Mansa Musa
- Zheng Yi Sao
Contact
- Chris Webster
[email protected] - Rachel Roden
[email protected]
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode number 279. On today's show, we review the Apple TV Plus show, Time Bandits.
Trip to Atlantic City
00:00:24
Speaker
Let's dig a little deeper, but be sure to avoid any time paradoxes.
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to the show, everybody, and you. Hello. I feel special. I got a call out. Oh, and you too. Oh, and you. All right. Well, we are Jersey Shore people. Still in New Jersey. Yeah. Yeah. It's been gorgeous here. Yeah, it's been really nice. Nice. We went to Atlantic City this past weekend for our anniversary, and I've never been there before. No.
00:01:01
Speaker
And it was kind of like Las Vegas, but on the ocean, right right? It was cool. Kind of up until now, my only impression of Atlantic City and New Jersey was overall negative because it of of media, right? yeah So like Jersey Shore, which I've never really seen, I've just heard negative memes and impressions of.
Review of Time Bandits: Cast and Themes
00:01:21
Speaker
yeah Donald Trump, which I'm not a fan of, and but he's really associated with New York City, New Jersey, I don't know. And also Boardwalk Empire, which if you've ever seen that on on HBO Max, didn't paint a very good you know picture of Atlantic City. Okay, well there's one thing that gave you a really good image of Atlantic City. What was that? Your favorite game in the entire world? Oh yeah, Monopoly. Yeah. um Yeah, so that was super cool. That was cool.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, because just seeing all the streets, there's only two streets we didn't really see, which is Venner and Marvin Gardens, because they're literally in a different part of the, well, they're in Venner City, which we went through Venner, which we went through Venner, because we took off out of there, actually today, south, but we didn't go on the side where those two are, because Marvin Gardens literally is like a garden, it's a little block, so we didn't see those, but we did see the rest. It was fun, though. Yeah, it was really neat. It was a cool, cool little place. We didn't do any of the shows or anything. I know they're not as necessarily as high of a caliber as the ones that get in Vegas, but like, you know, everything else seemed pretty similar. We even went to like, you know, fancy sushi for dinner. So I had definitely had Vegas vibes, but plus ocean, which I appreciated. Yeah. We went up there to relax and have some fun. So yeah.
00:02:37
Speaker
Anyway, speaking of shows, we're going to do a show review today. Yeah. We haven't done one in a long time. No, but I think we did tease this probably a couple weeks ago. So hopefully everybody's had a chance to watch this show. Yeah. Because I think like we're kind of overwhelmingly recommending it, right? Yeah. We really loved it. So. So, the show is Time Bandits, and it's on Apple TV
Historical Inaccuracies and Humor in Time Bandits
00:03:01
Speaker
Plus. Apple TV Plus, that's right. So, so yeah, you've either got to, I don't know, steal it and find some place to find it, or have Apple TV Plus, unfortunately. So, a lot of people probably don't have that, which we understand that. but
00:03:12
Speaker
That's where we saw it and I don't know I thought it was super fun and ah for a number of reasons really like some of my favorite actors but both recently and in past stuff that they've done are in the show or part of it right so yeah there is the iconic Lisa Kudrow who plays Phoebe in Friends yeah so and she's done other stuff over the years too but really like Phoebe is who she's known for yeah And didn't you kind of feel like her character was a little bit Phoebe in the show too? Definitely some Phoebe vibes to this. yeah I heard in one of my podcasts when they were reviewing the show that she is the queen of the muttered aside. And like she totally is doing that in the show. It's very entertaining. So I appreciated that.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah. And then there was, ah I mean, there was other people in it, did but two of the other kind of more famous ones, at least, well, one more recently for me, but apparently it's been a lot of stuff, is ah Taekwondo Wakiti. Taekwondo Wakiti is not that hard. He's very famous, but I cannot pronounce his name. Well, I believe he is. He's from New Zealand.
00:04:16
Speaker
And then Jermaine Clement, who was in Flight of concords yeah flight of the And those two, I think, have worked together kind of a lot over the years. But we have recently been big Taiko YTD fans, because what we do in the shadows is one of our favorite shows.
00:04:32
Speaker
but Well, Taika Waititi was part of Our Flag Means Death, too, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, Taika Waititi was in the first What We Do in the Shadows. Yeah. There's been a lot. It's a lot of stuff, a lot of overlap between these people. So if you like the kind of stuff that they do, then you're going to love the show because it does have very similar vibes. Jemaine Clint is being his weird self in it, just like he always is. And it was really fun.
00:04:55
Speaker
Also, for anybody who lived through the 70s and remembers it, time bandits might sound
Historical Events and Time Travel
00:04:59
Speaker
familiar. Yeah. Yeah. So this is actually a TV show reboot of a movie yeah from the 70s that was produced by the the people who did Monty Python. I believe it was 1981. Oh, it was 1981? Yeah. Oh, yeah, 1981. Yes, very early 80s. Yeah, because Terry Gilliam, I think, helped produce this and ah well, some of the other Monty Python people. Yeah, the Monty Python guys. So yeah anyway, it was... And it was actually the main characters, the time bandits, if you will, were little people. And they were the time bandits. They did not feature in this, the only... Not so much yet, but it does seem like they're going to get a bigger role in the next season. Oh, I didn't see that. they Well, I mean, it just seems like they are because they're there are little people in the new show. They have a very small role as part of this investigation crew or whatever. And it seems like they're going to have a bigger role next season, potentially, assuming there is a next season. Right, right. But it was definitely a much ah smaller role than the original right had, so yeah. so So much like the movie, one of the big crossovers that does kind of hold true is the main character is a kid that loves history, loves archaeology, and he kind of... gets sucked up into this whole time bandit thing along with him from his bedroom and gets sucked into this portal and and comes along on their adventures sort of unwillingly at first. Only barely unwillingly though because he's a history buff and this is why we're talking about this show is because as they're traveling through time they're in all kinds of historical places yeah places that we only know about through archaeology, they're encountering people that we only know about through, you know, historical records or archaeology. So we thought it would be really fun to do a review of it because, you know, it's kind of like in our wheelhouse to sort of break down this kind of show where they're doing the, you know, the history thing. Well, and we we started looking at each other when we first saw the first couple episodes because we let it play out a little bit. You know, it wasn't all out and we we didn't watch it right away when it first came out. So we watched probably two, three episodes right back to back.
00:06:58
Speaker
And we started looking at each other and going, you know, as it started getting its footing and they started actually traveling through history, even just after the first episode. And we were just like, should we talk about this? Because they're getting some things right. You know, and we like that. A lot of times when you have a show that approaches history or approaches archeology, it's like, oh my God, they're doing that again. Like, here we go. Yeah. But they started like, like really kind of nailing it. They did. It was so good, right? Like even little things, like they chose to use BCE to refer to the time, you know, before 2000 years ago rather than BC, which I just really appreciated that from a non-Christian focused world because the rest of the world doesn't even know what BC means, you know? it's It's a very Christian focus on dating. And the funny thing is, this is all coming from a 12-year-old kid, too. Yeah, yes. Because he's the smarty pants. Yeah, he's the total smarty pants. yeah He's treated like ah like a loner, sort of, because nobody at school really wants to talk to him. His parents don't want to talk to him. His parents are kind of mean to him, actually. His parents are super mean to him. His sister's super mean to him. yeah He doesn't have any shared interests with anybody. yeah All he does is make these little dioramas and history figures, and and he reads books, and that's all he really does. I mean, in that respect, it's kind of unrealistic as a child character because the people in his life do seem to kind of just dismiss everything that he's interested in.
Woodhenge and Historical Significance
00:08:23
Speaker
To some extent, not completely, but. Because in the first episode, what I think is the most unrealistic portion, aside from the massive amount of time travel in this show. Oh yeah, well, you have to get over that one. Yeah, because I mean, I feel like
00:08:37
Speaker
I feel like all archaeologists, everybody who gets into archaeology has been dismissed once or twice in their life by people around them. Boring. Yeah, because it's boring, it's whatever. yeah you know I mean, people listening to this show don't really understand what we're talking about. No, because they're nerds like us. Clearly, you're here for a reason. But when I start talking about like super nerdy archaeology stuff yeah around my family, my sister will start singing, you're a finnerd. I mean, I'm like, oh, right, OK, right now, got it. But here's the thing, in the show, which was one of the things that really wanted us to make us talk about this, is that for his birthday, they indulge him yeah and let him go wherever he wants. And they go with him. No, they give him crap while he's there, yeah but they go with him. And they he wanted to go to Woodhenge. And Woodhenge is a real place in England. It is. It's a real true place. And the thing about Woodhenge is, Woodhenge isn't even there anymore.
00:09:27
Speaker
No, it's wood, right? Yeah, a hinge is just a ah circle of things. yeah that's all ah like ah An actual definition of a hinge is a circle of things, right? So, a wood hinge was a circle of wooden posts, I guess, yeah and they're no longer there, but we know they were there because of the impressions, or you could see When you dig in the dirt, you can see where a post hole was, for example, something like that. So we know where that where they were, and they've they've replaced them with concrete blocks yeah to know where the wood the word posts were. To give you that visual image, because when stuff has decomposed away, it's so hard to wrap your mind ah around what it looked like visually. So I really appreciate the concrete representations. However,
00:10:08
Speaker
And it looked like they were standing actually at Woodhenge. It did. It looked like it really was. I don't know if they recreated it or what, but yeah but his family was just like so unimpressed with the ah concrete reproductions of Woodhenge. With everything that's in the UK.
00:10:23
Speaker
Something tells me that the Woodhenge people were more than happy to have them film there. Do you know what I mean? I know it was just a few people standing in the field, but there's also trucks and camera equipment and all that stuff, and the damage could have been significant if they weren't really careful. I'm sure the Woodhenge people were like, please come film us. Maybe, but also, it looked pretty bare bones. It would be pretty easy to just recreate that for people who are good at building sets. Yeah, it wouldn't be hard. I understand why his family wasn't that interested. And I believe the reason they didn't go to Stonehenge is because they did Stonehenge the previous year for his birthday. So we kind of thought that was going to be it for Stonehenge. But then one of the first episodes of time travel that he has with the group of bandits who are out to steal things
00:11:10
Speaker
which is like a whole thing. They're trying to steal stuff and get rich in time, I guess. It doesn't really go so well for them, but that's kind of the fun of the the plot. But one of the first places they go to is is actually Stonehenge, and he was so excited. Kevin was so excited. But it was so but was portrayed so funny in the show because it was still just like a pile of rocks, basically, and they were like in the process of building it. And then over at the side, there was a gift shop already. Like Stone had just been the same, you know, just a place with rocks for people to go look at and then buy things at the gift shop. Yeah. It's the same thing now as it was 4,000 years ago or whatever when it was built. I know. It was literally 4,000 years ago and there was already a gift shop. Yeah. That was hilarious. There's just like some really fun jokes like that. And those kind of jokes are sprinkled throughout the series where like, if you're a little bit, not even an Uber nerd, just like a little bit of a nerd, you're going to love it. Yeah. Yeah.
Historical Characters in Time Bandits
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, because there was some other stuff throughout there. like I don't even know when it was, but at some point they mentioned the they said the phrase ancient geeks. We put that in our notes, but what was when was that said? I don't remember. Ancient geeks. I just typed that down, or whatever you did, one of us did. I don't remember either. We were trying to take notes while we were watching it, but we were also watching the show, so weren't like our notes are a little bit sketchy. I know it was in reference to ancient Greeks, but somebody said ancient geeks instead. Yeah, maybe. That wasn't like that. I mean, there was a whole episode with ancient Greeks, which I didn't really like spend too much time on because one thing that the show did do, which might be a little bit confusing to people who don't have a background in history, is that they're taking like mythological Greek stuff and Greek people and Greek places like Troy and sort of mixing it as if it might have been real. Like they could go back in time and go be inside the Trojan horse with yeah some of the characters from the Greek myth What is it Odysseus or? whichever whichever one the whole Trojan horse thing is in and Like I mean that's a story that the Greeks wrote not actual history So I think that would only that would be my only like complaint like that's the most minor of complaints cuz really come on whoa so fun There were a couple other things that if you're if you're paying attention And I don't know why they would have gotten little things like this wrong when they got other things So right yeah like in episode three there they did go back a little too far There were some dinosaurs and they actually brought one back with them into another time period yeah That's right. but They called like the times back in the dinosaurs prehistoric. Yeah Which dinosaur times are not prehistoric? I mean, I guess... I guess technically, but like it goes beyond prehistoric and then like to Jurassic or... It's got its own time frame. Prehistoric has another definition, but prehistoric technically still refers to the four people. human Well, to human times. yeah Prehistoric still to refers to human times, but... yeah But not dinosaur times. But not dinosaur times. We don't want to indicate that like people and dinosaurs could have been living together because they definitely did not. Well, definitely not. Yeah. yeah And they weren't trying to do that either. They just kind of used the wrong word. Yeah. So so I think it was just like one last thing. And and like our plan for the rest of this episode is to just go through
00:14:16
Speaker
some of the characters because while they were jumping through time to different places, I think where the show really stood out to me was the way they brought characters into these places. Historical characters. Historical characters, people that really existed and then just like filled them out to be real people but like almost like jokes of the real people in some cases as we'll see with some of these people I'm talking about. Some of them are like really truly like trying to be real versions of whoever they were but some of them are are jokes too and that was great. But I don't know there are just there are just so many funny moments like
00:14:53
Speaker
Kevin's sister Safran is a big part of the show later on and she like ends up with actual prehistoric people who are living in the Ice Age and she teaches them like British slang. yeah Because she ends up actually stuck with them for yeah three years. Yeah. yeah And so like one of the things one of the words that they really latch onto is, in it. Like, isn't it? like Isn't it? But like that British way that they just say, in it. Yeah, for no reason whatsoever. Used incorrectly. Yeah. But like like you get the context of it in modern language, but these like you know basically Ice Age people were saying it in completely wrong context like for no reason, just like shouting it. Right.
00:15:34
Speaker
It was so funny. And there were other words that she taught them too, but that was the one that stuck out to me. Yeah, because when Safran gets there, she's like 11. Yeah. And so she teaches them 11 year old British slang, English. Yeah. Yeah. these These prehistoric cave peoples. Yeah. Yeah. She's so funny because she's like kind of a loud mouth and she like made no effort to teach them like even anything like remotely correctly. It was just like what she knew they knew. Yeah. It was pretty funny. yeah so All right. Well, on the other side of the break, we will talk about some of the historical figures that they met and some of the real stories behind these historical
Time Travel's Cultural Impacts
00:16:08
Speaker
figures and what we liked about them. So we'll do that on the other side, back in a minute. Welcome back to episode 279 of The Archeology Show. And we're going to try really hard for the next two segments to not talk about how people get time travel wrong.
00:16:25
Speaker
Oh no, you just like you just can't. You really can't. I mean, it's really hard. Yeah, I know. Like at the end of the last segment when we were talking about how Saffron teaches British slang to these cave dwellers, basically, and like what kind of effect would that have had on the development of language in that population?
00:16:46
Speaker
no it's like You can't even like go down that road because... i mean I mean, go down it for a minute, because yeah i mean realistically, if you've got this, say, small population of people, and they've learned this whack-ass language, right? they've They've got this crazy mixture of grunting and whatever they were speaking, and British slang now. yeah What are the actual chances that this group of people either A survives to to be the you know a part of the group of people that helps populate the earth, right? And then B, you know, even, well, I guess that there's only A. yeah What are those chances, right? Like, what are the chances that that that actually happens? Because when you look at the people who have
00:17:29
Speaker
you know, populated and and become ancestors of everybody else, it's actually not that many people. It's true. You know, there's a lot of people who have just died and never become part of the our family tree. And by our, I mean all of humanity. Yeah. I mean, you're right. But also, like, there is a chance it could happen. Oh, for sure.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, and you never know. The butterfly effect is real, right? They talk about that in context of, say, you know, there's always like the weather patterns, like butterfly flaps its wings in the Sahara and there's a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. it's Not quite that that real, like there's global climate patterns. So that that doesn't actually do that.
00:18:04
Speaker
But, you know, the thing is, and you see different sci-fi movies where, you know, they've gone back in time and, you know, they go back to the age of the dinosaurs and you have to walk on this path. I seem to remember an Outer Limits or, you know, Twilight Zone or something where somebody accidentally stepped off the path and then they go back into the future and all of a sudden everything is different or they couldn't get back in the future because yeah there was no future to go to because they stepped on the path and squished some microbe right that became humans. Right.
00:18:31
Speaker
And it was just so ridiculous. And it's like, what are the chances that actually that microbe contributed to anything, right? right The chances are so astronomical. and i just I don't know. I feel like I feel like that's been overblown by, you know, by everything. Now, if you if you introduce some kind of disease, some kind of rapidly spreading sort of thing in the language could be thought of as that like cultural memes really could be thought of that rapidly sort of. I would worry about language spreading in a way that disrupts or.
00:19:04
Speaker
advances maybe human development faster than it did before and then completely changes good development from there. you know That could be one of the things that advances because it is it is a quickly spreading thing. yeah you know Or like they're in the far north, right? like I don't think they said what part of the world
Mayan and Chinese Historical Figures
00:19:20
Speaker
they're in. What if they're in North America?
00:19:22
Speaker
And language developed in North America before didn't really for Europe and then... I don't think we knew what time it was. It was just icy and it was indicating some sort of an ice age. yeah So who knows when it was or where it was even. If it was just an ice age, they could have been in Spain. They could have been anywhere. yeah But what I'm saying is because North and South America were isolated, right? So the the populations developed differently on those continents. And what if language what if they were on you know one of those continents and then language just developed earlier and that would that would change the whole track of the evolution of the people there, right? We'd have a different world today if that were the case, potentially. It's true. So yeah, anyway time travel stuff. You really can't think too hard about it because it'll break the brain. which is funny because they don't really talk about it except for one or two couple circumstances that move the plot forward, which they they definitely say, because Kevin's got this book that he's traveling with, this history book that kind of helps him know stuff about places they go. and
00:20:20
Speaker
He notices something definitely changes, like something changes from a three to a four or something like that as far as number of people. Yeah, something like that. And he's like, we can make changes. We can actually change stuff that we do. And I'm like, maybe they're proving my point in that all these crazy things that they're doing and these influences they're having are not having massive effects. Right. They're having little to no effect. Yeah, like changing you from a three to a four, like what did that... What did that actually do? What did that actually do, right? so yeah Anyway, so we're going to go through and like you said, talk about maybe really not episode episode necessarily, but in kind of order, but yeah some of the, some of the bigger characters that we liked and some info behind them. Yeah, for sure. Cause that was our, I think our favorite part. yeah We kind of, we're just talking about how we sort of got lost in the plot a little bit. like there's like was There's a map and the bandits are stealing things and then like the parents get kidnapped at one point and they have to go find it. There's a Supreme being who is Taika Waititi. And then there's also.
00:21:17
Speaker
The bad guy bad guy you're evil all is Pure evil is Jermaine Clement. And then, anyway. Everybody wants the map. Yeah, they want the map. I don't even know what they want to do with it, honestly. I mean i got lost in that. It's a plot that is kind of secondary to watching the show. Yeah, the fun part was watching them go through time and yeah interact with these people that we're going to talk about. so yeah If you enjoy history and comedy, I think you should just watch it. Yes, definitely. yeah All right, so in episode two, they went to a Mayan city where they met the, I guess, like, queen, I would call her, of that city, and her name was Lady Sakuk. And I think it was, we also met her son, and it was the two of them. And the bandits spent a good portion of the episode being very concerned that they were being groomed to be sacrifices.
00:22:00
Speaker
Because that's basically what Kevin thought was going to happen. Yeah, because that's what like history and yeah you know, Mel Gibson has made people believe that the Mayans yeah did, right? yeah And then it I think they got to the end and it was like literally just like a feast where everybody who was eating food together and like having a good time. It was a good party, basically. So I appreciated spinning that perception around and making it the other way. So that was cool.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, she was the queen of the Maya City state of Palenque. Yeah, so she was a real person, which yeah again, so cool that they brought a real person into the episode. She acceded to the throne in October of 612, and she only ruled for three years until 615.
00:22:43
Speaker
And this does seem to be one of those situations where ah she, a leader died, a male leader died. And it's unclear what her relation to that leader was. It might've been her son. It might've been her father. There might've been a couple of people that happened in a row and then died quickly. But anyway, there was a void in leadership and she had the credentials to step in. Yeah. through her family, and she was able to do that because her son was also in line. So she was like, hey, I can do this until he is old enough to do it, basically. so And she did that. she She ruled the city, and everything seems to have been great for those few years. And then when her son came of age, she abdicated for him. And yeah, that went pretty smoothly, it sounds like.
00:23:34
Speaker
It also sounds like she had a pretty heavy influence on him throughout his reign. So, you know, maybe there was a little bit of a ah power power thing going on there with her. Like she's like, all right, final abdicate. But, you know, I'm going to keep my fingers in the in the pot here. Are you sure you didn't take this from the season two of House of the Dragons?
00:23:54
Speaker
Oh, right. I know, all right? Yeah. All fiction is just written about history, basically. I know. so And the the confusion between how the people in history are related to each other, because I think they're just using, like, hieroglyphs to sort of figure out yeah who was ruling and when and sort of how they were related to each other. But just because one person took over for another person doesn't necessarily mean that they were father and son. There were other relationships that would be subbed in. And then that just makes it really, really confusing when a nephew or a cousin or somebody steps in and then it just like blows up that typical path of inheriting the throne or whatever. So complicated. But anyway, she and also her son were real people. So yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
In episode three, we see a person named Madam Chung, which was a famous Chinese pirate in the early 1800s. Her actual name was Jing Yi Sao, and she was also known as Ching Shi. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of different names there. Interestingly, if you did watch Our Flag Means Death, her character was also in that yeah as a Chinese pirate. yeah Yeah, so when I was reading this stuff, I was like, oh, this sounds really familiar. Oh wait, when we watched our flag means death, I was totally looking her up to learn more about this, well, to learn whether or not this pirate existed. And yeah, it turns out she totally did. Yeah, she was born in 1775 and married Jingyi in 1801. And he was the cousin of a famous pirate. And when his cousin was caught and executed in 1802, this Jingyi took over the fleet.
00:25:24
Speaker
yeah And in 1805, Zhang Yi organized the pirates along the coast that they're pirating on, the Guangdong coast. And they sort of organized all these different pirate groups or pirate fleets into a confederation of six fleets. And those fleets were all known by the color of their flag. And I guess this was big and important because they were like fighting amongst each other. They were raiding without any care or I don't know, plan, and I guess pirates need to be organized a little bit. So basically he organized them. And his fleet, of course, was the largest and was known as the Red Flag Fleet, which was sort of like the the main fleet who kept all the other pirate fleets in line. So yeah, that was sort of the peak of his career yeah to bring all those fleets together. In 1807, he basically fell overboard and drowned. That sounds a little fishy to me.
00:26:19
Speaker
But he fell over the board and drowned. Sounds like it was a storm. I mean, you what can you do if you fall over in a storm, right? Pretty convenient. So his wife took over. Zheng Yi Cao took over the fleet and with the support of his nephew. Yeah. Yeah. In 1810, she surrendered peacefully and was able to keep a portion of her fleet. She married her first husband's nephew and pretty much lived peaceful after that.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a very quick and dirty version of her story because the the whole surrender peacefully thing came after several years of you know fighting with various different groups. And basically the government of that area were just like, please stop, please, please, please, please stop. And they worked out terms where they could surrender, not lose all of their wealth that they had amassed. and not, you know, be punished really either. So I guess it was a good out for her. She took it and, you know, basically lived peacefully. So um yeah. And here's a place where smarty pants Kevin could have ruined all of history. yeah And he should have actually realized this as they are traveling through time being a smart kid like he is. But in the show, he gives her a piece of advice to hide up a river in order to win a battle. This battle, she didn't actually win in real life. And he's like, hey, if you hide up this river, you could win this battle and we don't know what she did. No, she did because he remember he encounters her later on in a later episode and she's like, friend and she's like, Hey, that advice worked. do You want to come work for me? You want to come be my suit, Sarah or whatever.
Prohibition Era and Organized Crime
00:27:48
Speaker
And he was like, uh, Nope. Right. But that didn't dramatically change history ah for her anyway. Well, it didn't because I think it was a place where they could kind of play with what happened in history because she does actually surrender eventually. And it sounds like she probably did in this new timeline, I guess, that they made because I don't know. It's hard to say because
00:28:12
Speaker
She could have, this could be any battle that they were talking about. They didn't really specify exactly which one yeah or what was going on. So like, honestly, like one battle that they went up river and hid and then, you know, got away. That's fine. That probably wouldn't change history that much, right? and I don't know. Hmm.
00:28:30
Speaker
Anyway, yeah they definitely definitely played with history a bit there. so Yeah. All right. Well, the next episode heads over to basically the Eastern United States and I guess pretty much the prohibition era. Yeah. like yeah Harlem, 1920s type.
00:28:46
Speaker
yeah yeah And the two main characters there were Bumpy Johnson and Madame Queenie. Bumpy Johnson. You just really can't get better names than like prohibition era yeah cities. Madame Queenie. Gangsters. Prohibition era gangsters are the best names ever.
00:29:04
Speaker
Now you took the notes on this one and you said Madam Queenie's real name was Stephanie St. Clair, but did she actually go by Madam Queenie? Yeah, she was called Madam St. Clair first, I believe, and then somebody also started calling her Queenie at some point, and then those names just got kind of combined into the Madam Queenie thing, and that did stick for quite a long time, it sounds like. And Buffy Johnson?
00:29:26
Speaker
they I didn't read how he got his nickname, but I didn't spend as much time on him, honestly, because he was really not the interesting character here. He got a little bit more play in the Time Bandits episode because it it's a funny story in Time Bandits because he doesn't know what Madame Queenie looks like in the show and he mistakes.
00:29:45
Speaker
Not Phoebe. He mistakes Lisa Kudrow's character. wasn't it penelope yeah her name Her character's name is Penelope. He mistakes her for Madame Queenie because he was supposed to meet her and then she was there instead. It was one of those like mistake moments that are fodder for comedy in shows like this.
00:30:00
Speaker
But in real life, Bumpy Johnson was her bodyguard and her enforcer. And in that role for the, I don't know, like decade or something that he did that, he murdered over 40 people for her. Like she was a legit gangster and he was her enforcer. So yeah they definitely knew each other. They would not have mistaken somebody else for each other. They they were part of the same gang, essentially. yeah I found her character so much more interesting than his though, because all he did was like hulk around and you know do gangster things. But she was the head of an organized crime operation that was doing the kind of organized crime what that wasn't in the show, first of all. In the show, it was all about
00:30:45
Speaker
I don't know, alcohol, right? They were trying to like get alcohol or hide alcohol or sell it or something like that. That was the portion in the show anyway. Yeah, because it was prohibition. But she doesn't, in real life, she didn't really focus on alcohol at all. She did kind of dabble in selling drugs a little bit. That's where it sounds like she got her start. But it was money. Money is where she came into play.
00:31:06
Speaker
Well, the only reason the portion of the show dealt with alcohol, if you remember, is because the portal they came through to get there was in the back store room of like yeah ah like a monastery's mead storehouse. Oh, that's right. That's right. So they had this like crazy mead that everybody was going crazy for. it Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. So they were pulling mead from this like 1400 era yeah monastery into the 1920s and then selling it to the gangsters there, I guess. yeah It was a funny plot line. Definitely that part was not real life at all. but But back to the real Madame Queenie. So her racket, I guess you could say, for her operation was actually partly in you know assisting the mafia, doing, you know, gangster stuff, obviously, with all the people murdered. But she ran like a numbers game, basically, in a legal lottery or a gambling scheme, depending on what they were doing, the time period, and whatever. So that's where the real money came in.
00:32:05
Speaker
Another piece of her operation was this whole like numbers banker thing, like either policy or numbers banker they were called. They're basically, your it's your local corner banker. It's not an actual bank. It's not backed by any other government agencies or anything like that.
00:32:22
Speaker
But they were really popular in the black community in Harlem because this is the 1920s and black people, they couldn't invest their money in the stock market or in anything else. They couldn't get loans legally from banks for houses or for small businesses or anything like that. they just they're cut off by the race from getting access to money to actually help build up the economy and make it better, which is you know racist policies that were stopping them from doing that. yeah And so one of the things that Madam Queenie did is develop this underground system to facilitate black investing and banking.
00:33:01
Speaker
It does sound yeah great, and that was great that she did that, but she did it like in the role of a gangster, so I think there's probably like a lot of broken fingers of people that didn't get paid that didn't pay their money back and stuff like that. But yeah but still, like played a key role in economics that you know nobody else was playing for these people.
00:33:17
Speaker
I don't know how many people retire from being like a lethal gangster, but she did. Yeah. She retired from the numbers game and and passed the operation completely over to Bumpy and became a civil rights activist and an advocate for political reform. but Apparently never turned him in. No. so I think I read that he did end up going to jail for a little while and then after he got out of jail, he like moved in with her.
00:33:39
Speaker
No, no, seems to fit. Yeah, I don't think they were together together, but they just stayed friends, I guess, their whole life. So, you know. All right. Once you run a legal operation together, I guess that makes you tight forever. Yeah, OK. Yeah, but she was a cool lady. very I love that she she transitioned from gangster activities to civil rights activities, right primarily because of the inequality that she saw amongst the people that she was making a ton of money off of. Yeah. yeah So it's like the good and the bad, I guess. I guess so. Yeah. All right. Turned over new leaf. Like the definition of that for sure. Okay. Well, I'm hungry. You want to get a sandwich? Yeah, let's do it. All right. You got some bread. and I got the meat. All right. We'll put those two together. We'll be back on the other side.
00:34:28
Speaker
Welcome back to The Archaeology Show, episode 279. Let's talk about the Earl of Sandwich. Oh, let's. Earl of Sammiches. Because not only did I love this guy in the show, I love, I love him in history too. He's a little annoying. Well, yeah, that's why it was so funny though, right? Yeah. so Yeah. So episode five, they're in England again and they're at this like party kind of thing and they're all They never eat really during the whole thing. Right. They were starving. And they ended up at this kind of party sort of thing. Yeah. And they go through these doors and there's just like a whole pile of like sandwiches. Like tables full of sandwiches. And they're at like the Earl of sandwiches.
00:35:11
Speaker
They didn't know that yet. No, they didn't. But there's a bunch of sandwiches. Well, they found out pretty quickly because the first thing that the Earl of Sandwich did was like announce that he was the creator of the sandwich in the episode, I think, didn't he? Yes, and of course Kevin was like, um, lay down some knowledge. Yeah, right. So, Earl of Sandwich, right? Did he really create the sandwich? Because that is sort of like the pop culture thing. You know, that's what people say anyway, right? Yeah. Well, his real name was a John Montague fourth Earl of sandwich. So sandwich is a title. Yes, it is a real thing. Yes. Yeah. And that's where the name comes in. Apparently the legend goes that he was gambling and didn't want to leave the table to eat. So he asked a servant to place roast beef between two slices of bread for him. And so that he could eat with his hands at the table, which kind of surprised it took that long for somebody to figure that out. It's surprising, isn't it? You want to know why? Because it did not take that long for people to figure that out. It took that long for people who have formal dining for every meal of their lives. It took them a long time to figure that out.
00:36:18
Speaker
But it did take a long time for people in England to figure that out, right? I mean, I guess it did, because they just didn't eat that style of food. That wasn't common to eat food like that. sure And I love that Kevin points this out in the episode, that that the whole idea that he invented the sandwich is really disputed by historians. But what they did really well in that episode was they had this guy, the Earl of Sandwich, running around proclaiming that he created the sandwich, right?
00:36:45
Speaker
And Kevin points out that this is disputed by historians, but that's the exact problem because he did kind of say that he invented the sandwich like the real guy did. And he probably copied it. He actually probably copied it. So that's why this whole thing is funny. Yeah. So I mean, I guess he gets credit for the name.
00:37:05
Speaker
because it is his name, and that's what we all call them these days, but he did not invent the sandwich. There are other examples of this in history. Even if he did copy it from Mediterranean flatbreads and things like that, or you know wherever he was traveling and yeah he saw a very similar thing where people are putting things in between breads,
00:37:25
Speaker
If you go take a ah loaf of, you know, white bread in England and you put some roast beef between it, it's not exactly the same thing. Right. And if you start doing other stuff to it and you want to call it after your own thing, sure, you didn't invent the sandwich, but it's not it's still different enough than something else. And I'm not going to call, you know, I'm not going to go call it a euro, a sandwich either. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to.
00:37:53
Speaker
well I'm not saying he invented the sandwich either. yeah but he didn't he didn't He didn't invent the concept of things between breads, he did not but we don't call all things between bread sandwiches. Well, true, but if he's tight trying to take credit for the things between bread idea, then yeah, that's that's not right his idea to take credit for. sure you know i'm not what so I'm wondering if he was. Yeah, I don't know. And like honestly, that part is a little bit sketchy because we don't have We don't have anywhere that he wrote, I invented the sandwich. You know, it's just like off of primary resources from the time that kind of give the idea that he was telling the world that he yeah he invented it. But like, do did he really? I don't know. We don't know if he really was like that, but.
00:38:36
Speaker
Apparently, one of the earliest known sandwich eaters was Halel the Elder, a rabbi and scholar who was born in Babylon and lived in Jerusalem during the first century BCE. The Haggadah, which is a Jewish text, it sounds like a sandwich itself, details Hal.
00:38:51
Speaker
Hello, Hello made sandwiches using pastel lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened matzah bread. Now I've got to tell you, if you're not going to stand on ceremony and eat a formal meal every time, and you've got stuff to do, you're a busy rabbi, and you're wandering around and you've got things to take care of, you're going to put some stuff on it, you're going to see a plate maybe, you're going to see a bread, you're going to see things, you're just going to toss it on there. You're gonna fold it or you're gonna put another piece on it? I mean, it's a pretty easy thing to invent. It's a very easy concept. And I gotta tell you, I think that the sort of Western sandwich between two pieces of bread is stupid. Everything falls out. A folded piece of bread makes a pocket. It's so much more logical.
00:39:35
Speaker
And what did I tell you? I love sandwich. Come on, man. You could have done better. And just to blow all of you guys away here for a minute, because I told you this today, because I just saw this reel like a few weeks ago, where somebody was talking about what club stands for in a club sandwich. Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah, club stands for, apparently, I don't know if somebody made this up after the fact, and it just happens to fit, but chicken, lettuce under bacon.
00:39:58
Speaker
Okay. Sure. I thought that you just ate them at clubs. Yes. Yes. That's what kind of club really golf clubs, golfing clubs, golfing clubs, golf courses, golf courses. Yeah. those But there's like club, yeah I don't know, tennis clubs. That's where you eat. and you think club why they Why would they eat those sandwiches at those clubs? I don't know. They're healthy. Aren't they? I don't know.
00:40:23
Speaker
Why do they want to eat healthy at those clubs? Clubs are not like my choice of sandwich, so I haven't really put a lot of thought into them. yeah Well, I thought this little bit of trivia was interesting. Turkey, the country, has a long history of basically rolling flatbreads up into a into a roll with fillings in it. So it's not quite a sandwich, but it's like a you know like a a roll.
00:40:48
Speaker
Incidentally, turkey the meat rolled up into flatbread with filling could also be delicious. Maybe they did. It's possible. Any filling you like, really.
Influence of Mansa Musa and Qin Shi Huang
00:40:58
Speaker
Also coincidentally.
00:41:00
Speaker
Maybe not coincidentally, the Earl of Sandwich traveled to Turkey and other regions in the Ottoman Empire before the whole sandwich incident happened. Roast beef between slices of bread incident yeah happened. So was that a coincidence? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know either. yeah What I do know is that in the show, they made the oral sandwich kind of arrogant and overly proud of his newly invented sandwiches. That's why he was throwing a party in honor of his new food. And it was very funny and I appreciated the jokes.
00:41:38
Speaker
I feel like if he had been in real life as arrogant about his sandwich invention, yeah and and that this isn't just like historical overinflation, which it very well could be, like ah like how do we know in real life if he was that arrogant, or if he just like said something to somebody one time, and it got maybe put into one of those of those crazy society-like newsletter sort of things, you know and then this has been historically overblown, and he wasn't really that crazy about it.
00:42:07
Speaker
It's possible. Because these society people, did they really did they really like you know were they really this crazy forward with their ideas? They seemed pretty reserved, right? Yeah. so But if he was, you'd think that would have caught on. And other people that traveled would have been like, well, I was the first one to see spaghetti in in in in in Italy, so now this is now called, I invented this here in England, so now it's going to be called you know this. I'm just imagining like Lady Whistledown writing about. Right.
00:42:37
Speaker
Have you watched Fredericton? Do you actually get my reference? Really? I'm familiar with it. I'm familiar with it. I didn't think I could get you to watch that show with me. Have you been sneaking it without me paying attention? I'm familiar with it enough because it's been everywhere. I know who she is. I know what she does. Anyway, I think you're right. I don't think we know enough about how he actually felt about the invention, quote unquote, maybe he did feel like he should take ownership of it, right like that sort of British colonial mindset. It was so easy for people in that time period to think that because they saw something in a different country, a different continent, a different place,
00:43:15
Speaker
and brought it back to the country with them that they could take credit for it because they were introducing something new to their people in their country and therefore they deserved credit for it. So like that is a very colonialist mindset. I could see him having that mindset about it and not even thinking of the fact that he didn't actually invent anything, but maybe not. I don't know. We can't assign like thoughts and feelings to people in the past, not unless they wrote it themselves. All right.
00:43:42
Speaker
well yeah Well, before we go on to what I think was probably my favorite character in the shows, I want to thank the person who is writing our one-star Apple podcast review right now for spending 10 minutes talking about sandwiches. Did we really spend 10 minutes on that? Yes. I just appreciate you taking the time to leave us a review. I promise not to spend 10 minutes on sandwiches on a future episode.
00:44:04
Speaker
I don't make that promise. You never know what archaeologists are going to find. That's true. We do find a... We talked about pizza, like not pizza. We did talk about pizza. We talked about flatbread. We talked about flatbread. Yeah. Well, if we do talk about sandwiches again, then you can leave another one star over here. There you go. Yeah. All right. Well, the next one is from episode six in Mansa Musa. This one was so outlandish when it first came on the screen. I immediately, like, I don't even think I watched it. I want to watch the episode again, because I don't think I watched any of it, because I was just reading about this guy the whole time while the episode was on. I was like, this guy cannot be real. This can't be based on a real person. No.
00:44:41
Speaker
He was the king of the Mali Empire, and he was considered the richest person of all time. yeah and Let's just just think about that just think about that for a minute. That's including Jeff Bezos. like all of our billionaires there's There's a billionaire in Japan who started SoftBank, which is an investment firm. Most people over here haven't even heard of him, but he's literally the richest man in the world. oh really Occasionally, because he makes bad investments, he makes good investments, but most of the time he's the richest person in the world. This guy was richer than even him, because when you take all of his wealth and you expand it out into today's dollars, it's almost incalculable how much he had. Yeah, that's what they say, is that it is impossible to calculate. yeah And that is partly because it's very hard for historical figures to separate their personal wealth from the wealth of the kingdom. It's the same problem with, like,
00:45:32
Speaker
you know, kings in Europe too, kings and queens, like, okay, they're their country might be flourishing, but are they themselves actually rich? Sometimes, sometimes not. And it's kind of hard to say. When you can spend and do whatever you want, yeah is that your wealth? When you can get 20,000 people to build you something and you don't have to like pass a law to do that, yeah you know, is that your wealth? Or if like you need a little bit more money, you just sort of increase taxes a little bit more. And then all of a sudden, hey, you have more money now. Right. Yeah. Well, Montsemos' wealth specifically came from controlling and taxing the salt that was produced in the northern regions of the territory he controlled. yeah And also from gold that was found in the southern regions. And I think in the TV show, they really focused on the gold piece of it. like They were just sort of throwing gold around like the entire time. It was it was pretty funny. So, Mansa is a title, yeah and he was the ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire, which reached his territorial peak during his reign from 1312 to 1337. That's a good long reign right there. yeah yeah The Mali Empire consisted of land that is now part of Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia, and the modern state of Mali.
00:46:44
Speaker
Now, the show actually picked up while they were on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. And that's where time bandits kind of picked him up. Which makes sense, because this like pilgrimage, where specifically where he passed through Cairo, stopped in Cairo and spent some time there, is is pretty famous. yeah His time there and what he did there yeah had a lasting effect on the city and the country of Egypt. So that's probably why they picked it to focus on.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, they picked him up while he was kind of in the desert. They just kind of came over a hill and there was this massive... Like entourage? Yeah, there was like 10,000 people sitting in this lake valley. Yeah, right. yeah and And somehow Kevin knew who it was immediately. yeah kevin because He's Kevin. That's one of those things where you just have to sort of accept that, that like he's 12, but he has all the knowledge of the history right of the world in his little brain.
00:47:35
Speaker
Well, he was, he was, he just like giving people gold and doing things. yeah on mo it did yeah They really like played up that supposedly generous aspect of his character in real life with the character on time bandits. He just, just was like very gregarious, laughing, fun, nice, generous guy.
00:47:54
Speaker
Well, apparently his lavish gift giving of gold had a noticeable effect on the value of gold in Egypt, so much so that it decreased the value of gold in Egypt for the next 12 years, the overall value of gold, because he puts so much into the economy. right and yeah and But some of the websites I looked at said that that would have had like a massive effect on the economy and it would have made it really difficult to trade outside of Egypt with other places and stuff like that. And then other websites I saw, other experts basically were saying, meh, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was within the range of fluctuation sure that they could experience. And so maybe this fluctuation was
00:48:31
Speaker
attributed to this one person and his generosity, but the fluctuation itself wasn't necessarily that out of the ordinary.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, he invested a lot of his wealth in revitalizing cities in his kingdom, including Timbuktu. That's not just a ah i know cartoon place. I know. It's so funny, right? like I think that part of the reason why Timbuktu became so, it's just one of those places that you've always heard of. you know yeah And it's partly because it was a major Islamic university center during the 14th century. And that was mostly because of Mansa Musa's money and development that he put into that place as an Islamic center. so yeah He ah died in 1337 and was succeeded by his sons who weren't nearly as skillful at managing the empire as their father had been, and it eventually just completely fell apart. Yep. That's all empires do. That's how it goes. As commonly happens, or happens to all empires, is they get a series of bad leaders and then everything falls apart. Yep, pretty much. Yep. so Watch out, world. Indeed. that's um yeah
00:49:34
Speaker
All right. Well, the last one we're going to talk about is from episode nine and it's with, I'm probably going to get this wrong, but Kin Shi Huang. Yeah. And honestly, I didn't have a huge amount to say for this one, especially because his role in Time Bandits was very, very small. But I know that this was one of your favorite moments.
00:49:56
Speaker
So how don't you why don't you paint a word picture for us about yes what happened? Well first off, the time bandit crew, they're like chasing somebody right and they they come out of this time portal yeah and the person just like runs before these guards like really know what was going on. She she runs away and she runs into like this tent or something like that. Yeah, it was like that that weird rock lady, right?
00:50:20
Speaker
It was the person they were trying to chase, they were looking for her. It doesn't matter who it was. yeah But when she runs by, the guards like turn around and see this group of people standing there and they're like, hey, you need to stop. yeah And then the the lead guy is who it turns out is this Quincy Huang. And they're like, you know, hey, you need to stop. You can't go over. And he's like, look at this wall I've got here. yeah And it's like these flat rounded stones that are like maybe five inches high. Yeah, like yeah like one to two like levels high. They're in the process of building it too, right? Isn't it like under like construction? There's like a couple other stones a little higher. And there's like so just a handful of people there. and There's literally like a total of like six people there. Yeah. And and and like you can't pass. This is a wall. This is a wall. Yeah. You can't you can't cross this. And Penelope, which is Lisa Kudrow, she's like, I can literally step over.
00:51:09
Speaker
then they do. They literally step over what will become. right Well, don't say it. Oh, sorry. OK. We'll say it again. And then Kevin kind of starts piecing things together. yeah And he says, oh, you're Kinshi Huang. And he's like he's like, you're going to be a ah ah famous emperor and all this stuff. And he just kind of like starts heading into it and yeah and basically you know says, says you know eventually, nobody's going to be able to cross this wall. And he's like, it it takes 2,000 years to build this thing. and he's like What? yeah i used to say He saying makes a comment about contractors. He's like, I knew I shouldn't have hired those contractors or something like that. yeah he like It was very funny. yeah He said something about building costs and things like that, and it was just really funny. But it turns out, this is what eventually becomes the Great Wall of China. yeah and And this is the first emperor of China. And when Kevin says you become the first part you become the first emperor of China, he goes, what's China?
00:52:02
Speaker
Which is, again, like the funniest, nerdiest history joke, right? Because China was not a thing yet at this time. he had no idea. This is, so, Qin Shi Huang was the first Chinese emperor in the Qin dynasty, which was in 220 BCE, but he is the first one. He builds all this. He creates this. So there is no China yet at this point. yeah I don't even know how long it takes before they start calling it China. I didn't do that kind of research, but it's probably quite some time. yeah but definitely was not a word that was part of his like vocabulary
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:52:35
Speaker
at all. He was like, say what? This is just my wall. I want to keep out all the like the marauders and invaders and probably like, I don't know, step peoples yeah I'm guessing. Like this is what my wall is trying to do. And you qualify as that. So you're not going to to cross my one foot high wall. Right.
00:52:57
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, he ended up illuminating the six rival states that constituted China at the time and annexed their final enemy state, Qi, or Q-I, can't remember how that's pronounced, to make the first unified China. Yep. So, yeah. Yeah, it brought everybody together, and there you go.
00:53:16
Speaker
I think I just the whole thing, the the jokes are just so deep because like did he become the first emperor because Kevin told him that he was going to be the first emperor and he thought of Kevin as some sort of soothsayer and so therefore he had the motivation and drive to like go out there and unify all these different states and and you know defeat the the final enemy that wouldn't join them and all that stuff like did that happen?
00:53:43
Speaker
just because Kevin was like, you know, hey, you're gonna be the first emperor, man. Yeah. Good job. This wall, it's gonna be amazing. Good job. Did he do the wall because of that? I don't know. Time travel, it's weird. Breaks your brain.
00:53:55
Speaker
So as I guessed, while we were just tidying up here, I looked up the name China and the etymology of it. Oh yeah. ah As I figured, I was pronouncing this wrong. So his name, we were, we were, we were saying kin or something like that. Q u-I-N or q k i n Q-I-N it's actually pronounced chin. Okay. Yeah. Q-I-N is pronounced chin and this is the chin dynasty and that becomes China. But it actually is.
00:54:23
Speaker
debated okay on one where this actually comes from. okay but yeah But it likely either way comes from his name, right? so okay But there's a couple other possible origin of origins of this, which one of those is the Persian word chin or chiny, which is referred to as China. Or there's a Sanskrit word called china. there's ah It's a Sanskrit word. But anyway.
00:54:45
Speaker
It's likely based on his name. I mean, it makes sense. He was the first emperor, right? He brought all these groups that were in this gigantic area together and they stay that way. yeah They stay that way for essentially millennia. So, yeah. Yeah, I think that little upstart is going to make it. So, we'll see though.
00:55:02
Speaker
All right, well, those are all the characters that really stood out to us. There were other characters in the show that didn't get as much play or were just yeah not as interesting. Like Casanova makes an appearance and he just wasn't that interesting of a figure in real life. Yes, he existed, but he wasn't that interesting, right? No, and he's doing weird, creepy things in the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah so it's But I think overall, like I said, if you're if you're if you're a comedy fan and you're a history fan, I feel like the show is worth watching the overall plot line. I wasn't very impressed with in the overall yeah end of the show. I wasn't overall impressed with their they they're going to do a season two. They have to. They must. But I guess they kind of tried to tie things up like some of the the.
00:55:42
Speaker
they're looking for the map and a piece of the map at one point and Honestly, like it's only been a few weeks since we watched the final episode and it's already starting to fade out of my brain It's like one of those kind of overly convoluted Plots where that happens and I can do without a few of the characters to actually left the show because well she had some reported abuse She reported abuse and and they wrote her out. Okay, let's clarify here. They didn't write her out because she reported abuse. She left and they had to write her out. She left and refused to continue working and they were not able to reach an agreement yeah and she left. yeah She made the choice to leave, although it doesn't sound like she was happy about it. but
00:56:21
Speaker
Well, I mean, good on her that she didn't just stick around. Yeah. Yeah. So I did read a little bit more in detail and we don't need to go into that here because there's a lot of like drama around it. But if you are interested in the drama, go read about it because there's a lot more on that. I liked her character, but I don't like a couple of the other characters. I think they're incredibly annoying. Which one? Which one? The guy that holds the map. I think he's stupid and annoying. I don't like the big barbarian like guy. I think he's a moron. He's kind of dumb. Yeah. Oh, and the actor guy. I just think, to be honest, I think most of the banded characters are pretty annoying. I'm in it for the historical references and the places they go. I think that's done well, which is why we're talking about it. Yeah, true. I mean, I love Lisa Kudrow as Penelope. She's amazing. Lisa Kudrow. Lisa Kudrow was the most annoying one on Friends as well. And if I could have caught her out of Friends, I would have. Honestly, you're alone in that opinion. She's almost everybody's favorite, but I understand. Yeah, there's been votes over the years of who your favorite friend was, and it's always being that wins. Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding. You can't even say words. You're so bad about it. I can't even say it. I thought that some of the other characters were great too, like Kevin and his family, even though they're annoying. So anyway, we'll see where they go. It was entertaining, even if the plot line overall is a little convoluted, but the rest of it was fun. All right. All right, you nerds. Stop reading books and go watch TV. All right. I think that's the message for today's episode. It's the message. Go learn things from TV. Yeah, apparently. Yeah. Oh my god. So don't take our advice out there. Today's message, watch TV and read Wikipedia the more you know. Today's message, don't learn anything from us. That's true. All right. OK. All right, thanks for the one star review. Bye. Bye.
00:58:19
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:58:43
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.