Drunk History (2013) s05e12 Episode Script
Death
1 (Patriotic music) So Meigs gives the order to bury the dead on Robert E.
Lee's property.
(Burps) Oh, boy.
We're gonna go kidnap Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Is somebody having sex next to us? Elmer McCurdy gets shot in the chest (blows raspberry) and becomes the bandit who wouldn't give up.
Oh (Gospel music) Here we are.
All right.
Berg, we're still alive.
Let's do this.
God, I spilled all over my crotch.
Christ.
Bourbon balls now.
(Slurps) Hello, my name is Steve Berg, and today we're gonna be discussing General Meigs And the cemetery revenge.
Okay.
Let's take this back to 1837 on the Harbor of St.
Louis.
Montgomery Meigs entered the United States Engineering Corps, and one of the first gigs was shadowing this big deal dude named Robert E.
Lee, and Meigs is like, Oh, Robert E.
Lee is, like, kind of the cool quarterback.
He's, like, the dude.
He's handsome, he's a leader of men, and he is the ideal of what a Christian man should be.
And they worked together the whole summer, and they became tight, like a tight-knit crew.
So in mid-May of 1861, - the Civil "Ware" the Civil War - (Laughs) Was about to go down.
When Robert E.
Lee says, fuck you, Union arm Union army, I'm going down to be the guy behind the guys of the Confederate army.
I'm gonna go help out a bunch of rednecks who love slavery and help them do do a bunch of cool shit that he thought was cool.
I don't think it's cool.
- Okay.
- So Montgomery Meigs gets so pissed off.
He's like, A guy I looked up to, the guy who I modeled myself after, turned out to be one of the biggest traitors since Benedict Arnold, and now I'm fighting against him? (Dramatic music) Game on, brother.
Game on.
So at this time at the Lee estate, Mary Lee, wife of Robert E.
Lee, was walking around her beautiful rose garden.
She was like, This is my joint.
This is my this is my thing.
This is my thing.
This is my thing I love.
I love this environment.
As far as the who, what, and where, this is the "where" I want to be.
The "who" and the "what," that's gonna come later.
(Sniffs) And Robert E.
Lee is like, Look, Mary, babe, there's gonna be bloodshed, brother upon brother type of shit, so I'm gonna need you to wrap it all up and get the hell out of there.
So Montgomery Meigs gets made quartermaster general.
He takes his soldiers over the Potomac, and they occupy the Lee residence and make it kind of the HQ of the Union army, and he's like, Yeah, I'll fucking nail this job, especially now that I'm so pissed off at my mentor, fucking Robert.
(Hiccups) So in 1864, General (hiccups) Oh, boy.
General Robert (hiccups) Oh, my God.
I love you, Steve.
So go ahead.
So General Lee And Ulysses (hiccups) Ulysses S.
Grant begin their 40-day bloodbath massacre.
82,000 people are killed in one month.
Montgomery Meigs had to deal with all the incoming Union dead soldiers, so every soldier he has to bury makes him angrier and angrier at Robert Lee.
And all of a sudden out of nowhere, he gets the dead body of his son.
(Somber music) So Meigs has to bury him.
And Meigs is like (Mumbles) Should never have to see your child go before you.
So Meigs, like a quasi-madman, says, I want to make sure that Robert E.
Lee can never come back, and that if he does, he sleeps among Union ghosts.
Capisce? Haunting you, Robert E.
Lee.
Meigs gives the order to his soldiers to start burying the dead on Lee's property, and Meigs is so excited about this.
He's like, get those dudes around the house, man, around the porch, and dig a giant pit right under Mary Lee's beloved rose garden.
Sweet.
That's what we're doing.
That is the whole point of this situation, to fuck their house.
It's a zombie playground.
(Hiccups) It's dark.
(Burps) So the Civil War officially ends, and Robert E.
Lee and Mary Lee find that their precious land that they loved so much had been turned into a graveyard.
(Dramatic music) And they're like, Are you kidding me? This guy.
Okay, fine.
Cool.
(Sighs) Fine.
And do you know what that place became? It became the Arlington National Cemetery.
Really? And Mary Lee's precious rose garden became the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
How about that? Wow.
Arlington National Cemetery, the heartbeat of America.
(Sniffs) The heartbeat? That is weird, because there is literally no heartbeats there.
(Both laughing) Please let that be it.
Bergie, great job.
Thanks, man.
Arlington National Cemetery.
It's quite a tale.
Will you teach me some of your language? Yeah.
Okay.
"Drunk History" with Derek Waters.
(Incoherent speech) Derek Waters.
(Laughs) You tried.
I feel like my voice was offensive.
(Chuckles) Just don't say anything.
Okay.
I get that note a lot.
Okay, okay.
(Speaking Mandarin) "Drunk History" with Derek Waters.
(Hip hop music) Mm.
That's (Chuckles) What? (Exhales) Hello.
My name is Jimmy O.
Yang, and today we're gonna talk about the kidnapping of Lincoln's body.
Mm.
(Chuckles) That makes you thirsty, huh? The story began in 19 no, wait.
1875, uh, in Chicago.
This dude, Big Jim Kennally, had, like, the best counterfeiting ring in Chicago.
But the real man behind the scene was this guy named Boyd.
He was the guy that made the best press, and his fake bills were so good that people would look at it and be like, Yeah, it looks like real money to me.
But it's not.
(Laughs) So So they were making so much money that the Fed finally caught up with them, and then Boyd took the heat.
And he went to jail.
And now Big Jim is like, Shit.
I just lost my guy.
I don't have my cash flow anymore.
What can I do about this? So he went to the saloon that he owned called The Hub, and he talked to a couple of his goons called Mullen and Hughes.
And he's like, Guys, we're gonna go kidnap Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Wow.
And we're gonna hold it for ransom for Boyd's release from prison.
And 200 grand.
Boom.
And then his buddies Mullen and Hughes were like, Big Jim at it again with the great ideas.
And in the midst of that conversation, this other guy named Lewis Swegles came up to them and was like, Hey, guys.
You guys talking about stealing Lincoln's body? 'Cause, um, I don't mean to brag, but I am the boss of body-snatching.
So then Mullen and Hughes was like, Whoa.
Swegles, you seem like a legit guy.
Come on in in our crew.
And now Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles are now in the kidnapping crew of Lincoln's dead body.
But little did Hughes and Mullen know that Swegles was actually an informant for the new agency called the Secret Service.
So he went back to the head of the Secret Service Agency, Patrick Tyrrell, who was from the Tyrell family of "Game of Thrones.
" (Laughs) Do you ever go outside? Not really.
Mostly video games and "Game of Thrones.
" (Both laughing) Okay.
So Swegles he's like, Yo, Pat, I got a scoop for you.
These guys are planning to kill your dead president.
Well, you can't kill a dea I'm sorry.
These guys are plotting (chuckles) To kidnap your dead president.
(Burps) You should go catch their ass red-handed.
So Patrick Tyrrell, he was super down with this.
He was like, Yes! This is it.
If we protect the dead president, that means we're protecting the live president.
This the publicity we need to cement ourselves as the goddamn Secret Service of the United States of America.
(Dramatic music) So Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles went to the grave that night.
And the Secret Service guys were all camped out around the graveyard to try to catch these guys red-handed.
And then when the three guys got to Lincoln's grave they're like, whoa I guess this is how, like, rich people bury themselves.
It's a mausoleum, a sarcophagus, and then a coffin.
Oh, shit.
What should we do? So Mullen took out his axe, and he was like, I'm just gonna bash this shit and take Lincoln's body.
And then Swegles, obviously, he didn't want to damage Lincoln's body.
He was like, whoa, whoa, guys.
You can't you can't do that, dude.
You know, that's gonna alert uh, the graveyard owner, and we'll have less time to run.
And then Mullen's like, You know what? You're right.
We're gonna do this slightly more What's the word? Like, sophisticated? Slightly more So sophis Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know what? You're right.
We're gonna do this with a little more finesse.
So then Mullen picked the padlock.
Right.
And then they got in the grave.
They're like, Okay.
(Burps) Let's, uh, try to lift it, and then we just take the whole thing.
And then they realized they're all too weak to lift the sarcophagus.
So they're like, Shit.
We really were unprepared.
So Swegles is like, all right, you know what, boys? You know, I'm just gonna go outside, smoke a cigarette, and think about this.
(Faint shrieking) Is somebody having sex next to us? Uh, it's definitely an animal.
I don't think it's sex.
It's an animal? I think it's a coyote or a dog.
(Faint shrieking) That's a sexy-ass coyote.
So Swegles used this opportunity to signal Patrick Tyrrell and the Secret Service guys.
So they all, like, tippy-toed in there.
But then this guy, George Hay, was so stoked and nervous, he fired his firearm on accident.
(Imitates gunshot) Whoops.
And everybody freaked out.
So Hughes and Mullen say, ah, shit.
We got to get out of here.
And all the Secret Service agents start, like, firing in the dark.
They're like, boom.
Man, this is fucking bullshit, dawg.
So by the time they got to the mausoleum, Mullen and Hughes has gotten away.
So it was a huge mess and the Secret Service guys are like, Ah, shit.
We really fucked this one up.
So Hughes and Mullen, they didn't know it was the Secret Service.
They just thought it was some random dudes' shoot-out at a graveyard.
So they just went back to The Hub.
And they're just chilling.
And then the Secret Service fucking bust into the bar and catch up with them.
So they're all patting each other's backs.
They're like, we finally got these fucking assholes, you know.
This is the establishment of the Secret Service.
We're gonna protect presidents, dead or alive, for now To eternity.
So in the end, to quote my grandfather Up, up, down, down, B, A, B, A, select, start.
SÃ, señor.
(Video game music) Hello, I'm JD Ryznar.
Today I'm going to tell you the story of Elmer McCurdy, the bandit who wouldn't give up.
(Slurps) Boy So where does our story begin? This is gonna be great.
You guys, you're gonna nail this, okay? I'm gonna go (Imitating whooshing) And when I pull this back, it's gonna be the past.
It's gonna be 1911.
Ready? Whoosh.
1911 in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
Elmer McCurdy wanted to be a famous outlaw like Bill Doolin of the Wild Bunch.
He was like, Ah, the Wild Bunch.
They did so many cool robberies in the 1800s, and they were the sweetest outlaws you could think of.
That's who I'm gonna be.
Let's find some crimes for me to do.
So he decided to rob trains.
So he robs everybody in the train and hides out.
But then the police show up, and say, Hey, Elmer McCurdy, we see you, and we're gonna have a shoot-out with you now.
And he's like, All right.
(Imitates gunshots) And the cops are like (Imitates gunshots) And he's like (Imitates gunshots) Elmer McCurdy gets shot in the chest.
(Blows raspberry) And as he's dying, he goes, Heh, heh, heh, heh, you just watch.
I'm the bandit who will never give up.
And he dies.
Mm.
And they just take him to the funeral home.
And Joseph Johnson, the funeral director, was like, Got an outlaw here.
It's 1911.
People love outlaws.
So I'm gonna embalm this piece of shit.
Okay, so Joseph Johnson sets him up in the back of his funeral home.
And he says to people, Hey, everybody, who wants to see a dead outlaw? You put a nickel in the dead outlaw's mouth, you can look at him.
So people just coming back to the back of his funeral home and going like, Whoa.
It's a dead outlaw.
I'm putting this nickel right in his mouth.
(Parlor music) Best nickel I ever spent.
The funeral director had Elmer McCurdy in the back of his funeral parlor for five years, just making nickels hand over fist.
I got so many nickels.
(Chuckles) I'm payin' all my bills.
Nickels, nickels, I'm rich with nickels.
(Both laughing) A man throwing that many nickels around can't go without drawing too much attention from other greedy people.
And so this dude comes by and is like, oh, what's going on, bro? I'm Elm I'm Elmer McCurdy's brother.
I kind of want to give him a proper burial in uh, look, California or wherever (Blows raspberry) And the funeral director's like, well Made a lot of nickels.
That was cool.
I'm not gonna make many arguments about that.
So turns out the guy who took Elmer McCurdy's body was not Elmer McCurdy's brother as he had claimed.
It was actually one of the Patterson brothers.
And the Patterson brothers were taking this dead body across a country and were like, Hey, everybody, come and check it out.
Hey, we got a cool wax figure of Jesse James and Bill Doolin from the Wild Bunch.
That's a cool bunch.
And then we also have a real dead body of the bandit who wouldn't give up.
And people were like, Oh, a real dead body.
I'll pay a nickel, 25¢.
And the Patterson brothers were like, Cha-ching.
Money, money, money, money, money, money, money.
Quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter.
But after a while, the Patterson brothers made their money and then it it just kind of wore out its welcome.
So Patterson brothers sell him to somebody else.
This dead body is being passed around.
And people are like, Listen.
We can't do too much with this dead body anymore.
We're gonna cover him in a bunch of wax and we'll just put him in storage in Hollywood.
(Blows raspberry) (Dramatic music) That was a great story.
No, it's the story's not over yet, Derek Waters.
I'm sorry.
The story gets cra The story gets crazy.
I'm gonna put a nickel in Derek Waters' mouth 'cause that's what people did to Elmer McCurdy.
(Upbeat piano music) (Both laughing) It's funny.
It's fun.
That was fun to do.
That was worth a nickel.
Let me take that nickel out of your mouth.
(Groans) That was more uncomfortable as you taking it out.
I'm gonna put it in your mouth again.
What a delight! This is great.
Where was I? (Laughs) Okay, so Elmer McCurdy's body spent 20 years in storage.
And then there was this amusement park in Long Beach, California, that was like, we need a spooky thing for our spooky house.
So they took this thing, and they hung it up.
And they painted it bright orange.
(Dramatic music) So now it's 1976 when a production of "The Six Million Dollar Man" came to the funhouse.
And they're like, It'd be cool if the Six Million Dollar Man came through the funhouse and got spooked by a thing.
But that mummy right there in the noose? That's not spooky.
We need to get something spookier than this.
Let's strike that.
That means "move it" in making movies.
So the moving-the-things guy goes and moves the thing, and the arm falls off.
(Blows raspberry) And the guy looks at the arm and was like, It's a there's a bone! It's a real human hand.
It's a bone in here.
Ah, this is a real dead body.
I'm scared of this.
So the ambulance comes, and the coroner takes a look at it, examines it very closely, and was like, Wait, there's a bunch of nickels in this guy's mouth.
He has a bunch of carnival sideshow stubs shoved into his coat.
We got a bullet wound in his chest.
We've got some certain scars on this and that.
Oh, this is shitty Elmer McCurdy, the outlaw who wanted to be a cooler outlaw.
Oh, well, that's who it is.
So once they found out it was a real dude they shipped him back to Oklahoma, and they had a big funeral for him.
300 people showed up.
And they buried him right next to Bill Doolin, and he looks at Bill Doolin's grave and he's like, I'm a big fan of yours.
And then Bill Doolin's ghost says, You're just a ghost talking to a grave, dude.
Uh, you're a shitty outlaw.
Eat a dick.
But Elmer McCurdy was the bandit who wouldn't give up, until he had a reputation as a sweet bandit, and that's what he got.
Not bad, Elmer McCurdy Not bad.
That's that makes me have hope for America that, like, you could really make it here as a dead body for 60 years.
(Chuckles) Who you winking at? Amer I was winking at America.
Lee's property.
(Burps) Oh, boy.
We're gonna go kidnap Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Is somebody having sex next to us? Elmer McCurdy gets shot in the chest (blows raspberry) and becomes the bandit who wouldn't give up.
Oh (Gospel music) Here we are.
All right.
Berg, we're still alive.
Let's do this.
God, I spilled all over my crotch.
Christ.
Bourbon balls now.
(Slurps) Hello, my name is Steve Berg, and today we're gonna be discussing General Meigs And the cemetery revenge.
Okay.
Let's take this back to 1837 on the Harbor of St.
Louis.
Montgomery Meigs entered the United States Engineering Corps, and one of the first gigs was shadowing this big deal dude named Robert E.
Lee, and Meigs is like, Oh, Robert E.
Lee is, like, kind of the cool quarterback.
He's, like, the dude.
He's handsome, he's a leader of men, and he is the ideal of what a Christian man should be.
And they worked together the whole summer, and they became tight, like a tight-knit crew.
So in mid-May of 1861, - the Civil "Ware" the Civil War - (Laughs) Was about to go down.
When Robert E.
Lee says, fuck you, Union arm Union army, I'm going down to be the guy behind the guys of the Confederate army.
I'm gonna go help out a bunch of rednecks who love slavery and help them do do a bunch of cool shit that he thought was cool.
I don't think it's cool.
- Okay.
- So Montgomery Meigs gets so pissed off.
He's like, A guy I looked up to, the guy who I modeled myself after, turned out to be one of the biggest traitors since Benedict Arnold, and now I'm fighting against him? (Dramatic music) Game on, brother.
Game on.
So at this time at the Lee estate, Mary Lee, wife of Robert E.
Lee, was walking around her beautiful rose garden.
She was like, This is my joint.
This is my this is my thing.
This is my thing.
This is my thing I love.
I love this environment.
As far as the who, what, and where, this is the "where" I want to be.
The "who" and the "what," that's gonna come later.
(Sniffs) And Robert E.
Lee is like, Look, Mary, babe, there's gonna be bloodshed, brother upon brother type of shit, so I'm gonna need you to wrap it all up and get the hell out of there.
So Montgomery Meigs gets made quartermaster general.
He takes his soldiers over the Potomac, and they occupy the Lee residence and make it kind of the HQ of the Union army, and he's like, Yeah, I'll fucking nail this job, especially now that I'm so pissed off at my mentor, fucking Robert.
(Hiccups) So in 1864, General (hiccups) Oh, boy.
General Robert (hiccups) Oh, my God.
I love you, Steve.
So go ahead.
So General Lee And Ulysses (hiccups) Ulysses S.
Grant begin their 40-day bloodbath massacre.
82,000 people are killed in one month.
Montgomery Meigs had to deal with all the incoming Union dead soldiers, so every soldier he has to bury makes him angrier and angrier at Robert Lee.
And all of a sudden out of nowhere, he gets the dead body of his son.
(Somber music) So Meigs has to bury him.
And Meigs is like (Mumbles) Should never have to see your child go before you.
So Meigs, like a quasi-madman, says, I want to make sure that Robert E.
Lee can never come back, and that if he does, he sleeps among Union ghosts.
Capisce? Haunting you, Robert E.
Lee.
Meigs gives the order to his soldiers to start burying the dead on Lee's property, and Meigs is so excited about this.
He's like, get those dudes around the house, man, around the porch, and dig a giant pit right under Mary Lee's beloved rose garden.
Sweet.
That's what we're doing.
That is the whole point of this situation, to fuck their house.
It's a zombie playground.
(Hiccups) It's dark.
(Burps) So the Civil War officially ends, and Robert E.
Lee and Mary Lee find that their precious land that they loved so much had been turned into a graveyard.
(Dramatic music) And they're like, Are you kidding me? This guy.
Okay, fine.
Cool.
(Sighs) Fine.
And do you know what that place became? It became the Arlington National Cemetery.
Really? And Mary Lee's precious rose garden became the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
How about that? Wow.
Arlington National Cemetery, the heartbeat of America.
(Sniffs) The heartbeat? That is weird, because there is literally no heartbeats there.
(Both laughing) Please let that be it.
Bergie, great job.
Thanks, man.
Arlington National Cemetery.
It's quite a tale.
Will you teach me some of your language? Yeah.
Okay.
"Drunk History" with Derek Waters.
(Incoherent speech) Derek Waters.
(Laughs) You tried.
I feel like my voice was offensive.
(Chuckles) Just don't say anything.
Okay.
I get that note a lot.
Okay, okay.
(Speaking Mandarin) "Drunk History" with Derek Waters.
(Hip hop music) Mm.
That's (Chuckles) What? (Exhales) Hello.
My name is Jimmy O.
Yang, and today we're gonna talk about the kidnapping of Lincoln's body.
Mm.
(Chuckles) That makes you thirsty, huh? The story began in 19 no, wait.
1875, uh, in Chicago.
This dude, Big Jim Kennally, had, like, the best counterfeiting ring in Chicago.
But the real man behind the scene was this guy named Boyd.
He was the guy that made the best press, and his fake bills were so good that people would look at it and be like, Yeah, it looks like real money to me.
But it's not.
(Laughs) So So they were making so much money that the Fed finally caught up with them, and then Boyd took the heat.
And he went to jail.
And now Big Jim is like, Shit.
I just lost my guy.
I don't have my cash flow anymore.
What can I do about this? So he went to the saloon that he owned called The Hub, and he talked to a couple of his goons called Mullen and Hughes.
And he's like, Guys, we're gonna go kidnap Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Wow.
And we're gonna hold it for ransom for Boyd's release from prison.
And 200 grand.
Boom.
And then his buddies Mullen and Hughes were like, Big Jim at it again with the great ideas.
And in the midst of that conversation, this other guy named Lewis Swegles came up to them and was like, Hey, guys.
You guys talking about stealing Lincoln's body? 'Cause, um, I don't mean to brag, but I am the boss of body-snatching.
So then Mullen and Hughes was like, Whoa.
Swegles, you seem like a legit guy.
Come on in in our crew.
And now Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles are now in the kidnapping crew of Lincoln's dead body.
But little did Hughes and Mullen know that Swegles was actually an informant for the new agency called the Secret Service.
So he went back to the head of the Secret Service Agency, Patrick Tyrrell, who was from the Tyrell family of "Game of Thrones.
" (Laughs) Do you ever go outside? Not really.
Mostly video games and "Game of Thrones.
" (Both laughing) Okay.
So Swegles he's like, Yo, Pat, I got a scoop for you.
These guys are planning to kill your dead president.
Well, you can't kill a dea I'm sorry.
These guys are plotting (chuckles) To kidnap your dead president.
(Burps) You should go catch their ass red-handed.
So Patrick Tyrrell, he was super down with this.
He was like, Yes! This is it.
If we protect the dead president, that means we're protecting the live president.
This the publicity we need to cement ourselves as the goddamn Secret Service of the United States of America.
(Dramatic music) So Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles went to the grave that night.
And the Secret Service guys were all camped out around the graveyard to try to catch these guys red-handed.
And then when the three guys got to Lincoln's grave they're like, whoa I guess this is how, like, rich people bury themselves.
It's a mausoleum, a sarcophagus, and then a coffin.
Oh, shit.
What should we do? So Mullen took out his axe, and he was like, I'm just gonna bash this shit and take Lincoln's body.
And then Swegles, obviously, he didn't want to damage Lincoln's body.
He was like, whoa, whoa, guys.
You can't you can't do that, dude.
You know, that's gonna alert uh, the graveyard owner, and we'll have less time to run.
And then Mullen's like, You know what? You're right.
We're gonna do this slightly more What's the word? Like, sophisticated? Slightly more So sophis Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know what? You're right.
We're gonna do this with a little more finesse.
So then Mullen picked the padlock.
Right.
And then they got in the grave.
They're like, Okay.
(Burps) Let's, uh, try to lift it, and then we just take the whole thing.
And then they realized they're all too weak to lift the sarcophagus.
So they're like, Shit.
We really were unprepared.
So Swegles is like, all right, you know what, boys? You know, I'm just gonna go outside, smoke a cigarette, and think about this.
(Faint shrieking) Is somebody having sex next to us? Uh, it's definitely an animal.
I don't think it's sex.
It's an animal? I think it's a coyote or a dog.
(Faint shrieking) That's a sexy-ass coyote.
So Swegles used this opportunity to signal Patrick Tyrrell and the Secret Service guys.
So they all, like, tippy-toed in there.
But then this guy, George Hay, was so stoked and nervous, he fired his firearm on accident.
(Imitates gunshot) Whoops.
And everybody freaked out.
So Hughes and Mullen say, ah, shit.
We got to get out of here.
And all the Secret Service agents start, like, firing in the dark.
They're like, boom.
Man, this is fucking bullshit, dawg.
So by the time they got to the mausoleum, Mullen and Hughes has gotten away.
So it was a huge mess and the Secret Service guys are like, Ah, shit.
We really fucked this one up.
So Hughes and Mullen, they didn't know it was the Secret Service.
They just thought it was some random dudes' shoot-out at a graveyard.
So they just went back to The Hub.
And they're just chilling.
And then the Secret Service fucking bust into the bar and catch up with them.
So they're all patting each other's backs.
They're like, we finally got these fucking assholes, you know.
This is the establishment of the Secret Service.
We're gonna protect presidents, dead or alive, for now To eternity.
So in the end, to quote my grandfather Up, up, down, down, B, A, B, A, select, start.
SÃ, señor.
(Video game music) Hello, I'm JD Ryznar.
Today I'm going to tell you the story of Elmer McCurdy, the bandit who wouldn't give up.
(Slurps) Boy So where does our story begin? This is gonna be great.
You guys, you're gonna nail this, okay? I'm gonna go (Imitating whooshing) And when I pull this back, it's gonna be the past.
It's gonna be 1911.
Ready? Whoosh.
1911 in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
Elmer McCurdy wanted to be a famous outlaw like Bill Doolin of the Wild Bunch.
He was like, Ah, the Wild Bunch.
They did so many cool robberies in the 1800s, and they were the sweetest outlaws you could think of.
That's who I'm gonna be.
Let's find some crimes for me to do.
So he decided to rob trains.
So he robs everybody in the train and hides out.
But then the police show up, and say, Hey, Elmer McCurdy, we see you, and we're gonna have a shoot-out with you now.
And he's like, All right.
(Imitates gunshots) And the cops are like (Imitates gunshots) And he's like (Imitates gunshots) Elmer McCurdy gets shot in the chest.
(Blows raspberry) And as he's dying, he goes, Heh, heh, heh, heh, you just watch.
I'm the bandit who will never give up.
And he dies.
Mm.
And they just take him to the funeral home.
And Joseph Johnson, the funeral director, was like, Got an outlaw here.
It's 1911.
People love outlaws.
So I'm gonna embalm this piece of shit.
Okay, so Joseph Johnson sets him up in the back of his funeral home.
And he says to people, Hey, everybody, who wants to see a dead outlaw? You put a nickel in the dead outlaw's mouth, you can look at him.
So people just coming back to the back of his funeral home and going like, Whoa.
It's a dead outlaw.
I'm putting this nickel right in his mouth.
(Parlor music) Best nickel I ever spent.
The funeral director had Elmer McCurdy in the back of his funeral parlor for five years, just making nickels hand over fist.
I got so many nickels.
(Chuckles) I'm payin' all my bills.
Nickels, nickels, I'm rich with nickels.
(Both laughing) A man throwing that many nickels around can't go without drawing too much attention from other greedy people.
And so this dude comes by and is like, oh, what's going on, bro? I'm Elm I'm Elmer McCurdy's brother.
I kind of want to give him a proper burial in uh, look, California or wherever (Blows raspberry) And the funeral director's like, well Made a lot of nickels.
That was cool.
I'm not gonna make many arguments about that.
So turns out the guy who took Elmer McCurdy's body was not Elmer McCurdy's brother as he had claimed.
It was actually one of the Patterson brothers.
And the Patterson brothers were taking this dead body across a country and were like, Hey, everybody, come and check it out.
Hey, we got a cool wax figure of Jesse James and Bill Doolin from the Wild Bunch.
That's a cool bunch.
And then we also have a real dead body of the bandit who wouldn't give up.
And people were like, Oh, a real dead body.
I'll pay a nickel, 25¢.
And the Patterson brothers were like, Cha-ching.
Money, money, money, money, money, money, money.
Quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter.
But after a while, the Patterson brothers made their money and then it it just kind of wore out its welcome.
So Patterson brothers sell him to somebody else.
This dead body is being passed around.
And people are like, Listen.
We can't do too much with this dead body anymore.
We're gonna cover him in a bunch of wax and we'll just put him in storage in Hollywood.
(Blows raspberry) (Dramatic music) That was a great story.
No, it's the story's not over yet, Derek Waters.
I'm sorry.
The story gets cra The story gets crazy.
I'm gonna put a nickel in Derek Waters' mouth 'cause that's what people did to Elmer McCurdy.
(Upbeat piano music) (Both laughing) It's funny.
It's fun.
That was fun to do.
That was worth a nickel.
Let me take that nickel out of your mouth.
(Groans) That was more uncomfortable as you taking it out.
I'm gonna put it in your mouth again.
What a delight! This is great.
Where was I? (Laughs) Okay, so Elmer McCurdy's body spent 20 years in storage.
And then there was this amusement park in Long Beach, California, that was like, we need a spooky thing for our spooky house.
So they took this thing, and they hung it up.
And they painted it bright orange.
(Dramatic music) So now it's 1976 when a production of "The Six Million Dollar Man" came to the funhouse.
And they're like, It'd be cool if the Six Million Dollar Man came through the funhouse and got spooked by a thing.
But that mummy right there in the noose? That's not spooky.
We need to get something spookier than this.
Let's strike that.
That means "move it" in making movies.
So the moving-the-things guy goes and moves the thing, and the arm falls off.
(Blows raspberry) And the guy looks at the arm and was like, It's a there's a bone! It's a real human hand.
It's a bone in here.
Ah, this is a real dead body.
I'm scared of this.
So the ambulance comes, and the coroner takes a look at it, examines it very closely, and was like, Wait, there's a bunch of nickels in this guy's mouth.
He has a bunch of carnival sideshow stubs shoved into his coat.
We got a bullet wound in his chest.
We've got some certain scars on this and that.
Oh, this is shitty Elmer McCurdy, the outlaw who wanted to be a cooler outlaw.
Oh, well, that's who it is.
So once they found out it was a real dude they shipped him back to Oklahoma, and they had a big funeral for him.
300 people showed up.
And they buried him right next to Bill Doolin, and he looks at Bill Doolin's grave and he's like, I'm a big fan of yours.
And then Bill Doolin's ghost says, You're just a ghost talking to a grave, dude.
Uh, you're a shitty outlaw.
Eat a dick.
But Elmer McCurdy was the bandit who wouldn't give up, until he had a reputation as a sweet bandit, and that's what he got.
Not bad, Elmer McCurdy Not bad.
That's that makes me have hope for America that, like, you could really make it here as a dead body for 60 years.
(Chuckles) Who you winking at? Amer I was winking at America.