135: Dark History: Trafficked & Beheaded!? The REAL Story behind your Disney Favs
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Once upon a time, bedtime stories were straight up R-rated. Kids were being tucked into tales about cannibalism, sexual assault, body mutilation, and so much more. And the best part is, these stories are still around, but disguised as your favorite Disney movies.

Work, Disney, work! That's right, some of your favorite childhood memories have absolutely horrific origin stories. Some of these stories were written as cautionary tales, but others, like Rapunzel, were inspired by true events. Oh yeah. And spoiler alert: no one lived happily ever after. In Rapunzel's case, her dad chopped her head off.

If you're ready to learn the dirty truth behind some of your favorite childhood movies, then stick with me to hear The Dark History of Disney Part 2. ♪

Hi friends, I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Here, we believe history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic, it might be happy, but either way, it's our dark history. Before we get into today's story, don't forget to like and subscribe. I come out with that hot juicy history goss every week.

And plus, let me know what you think. I mean, I love hearing from you guys in the comments section. Now let's get into today's story, huh? Or should we take a moment? If you're watching over on YouTube, Paul is dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Girl, you look so cute. You should wear that every day. And then Paul, not Paul, what's your name? I'm so sorry, I forget.

Joan! Joan is a Cheshire cat! You look so good as a cat, Joan! You should be a cat more often. Maybe you wouldn't be such a bitch, you know what I'm saying? I'm just kidding. I guess I'm not in the group text, 'cause I missed the memo. I'm never invited to you guys' party, and it really hurts my feelings. You know, this is my show too. Anyways, you guys look cute.

I'll just be over here in my hoodie. Hey, you know, we're used to fairy tales being lighthearted, aren't we? Innocent, fun. Everyone lives happily ever after, after they learned their lesson, you know? And that's because today, fairy tales are considered for kids, right? But it wasn't always that way.

Nay, nay. Back in the day, adults told each other stories because that was just how they entertained each other, really. I mean, there was no TV, no books. I mean, but even after books became available to the masses, not everyone could read. John Updike, a famous author, said that adult storytelling back then was, quote, the television and pornography of their day. Hot.

Yeah, I would like to see that reenactment. Porn but live action? What is that? An orgy?

But it was storytelling back then. But as society advanced and people became literate, the tradition of storytelling didn't just die out. Oh no, it gets handed down to kids. The same stories that peasants were telling each other around a fire became popular in Victorian nurseries. And if they were a little scary or violent, it was believed that it would help scare a child into being like better behaved.

In the 1800s, a lot of these oral and written stories that had been around forever finally got edited and published by people like the Brothers Grimm. And even though they were considered dark, they were considered completely normal, quote unquote, fairy tales. Totally fine for children at bedtime, okay? So let's jump into one of my personal favorite Disney stories, Rapunzel.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair. Right? Yeah. That story's so fun. I loved it when I was little. But I always thought it was kind of weird that it took Disney so long to make a movie out of it. Eh. I mean, Tingled came out in like 2010. Yeah.

So there was a delay. So what was the holdup, you know? Well, for one thing, allegedly, in the true story of Rapunzel, her dad kills her. Oh yes, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The very first written version of the Rapunzel story was recorded in 1600 by an Italian poet named Giambattista Basile. Without Basile, we wouldn't have Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella.

just to name a few. Bezile created fairy tales based on the oral versions that had been passed down for generations. Most of them came from Greece and all across Italy. So Bezile took all these stories, wrote them down, and published them in one big book that

that translates to the Tale of Tales. This came out in 1630 and was a huge inspiration for the Grimm brothers. In Basile's version of Rapunzel, things go a little crazy.

It all starts when Rapunzel's mom steals some like parsley from a garden when Rapunzel was just a baby. Unfortunately, she gets caught and as punishment, baby Rapunzel is taken away from her and sold to an ogress, which is a female ogre.

I know, it was like a Shrek crossover I was not expecting at all. Then the Ogress locks Rapunzel away in a tower for her whole life. So I guess that's where we get the whole tower thing from. But then in 1812, the Grimm brothers take this version of the story and they ramp things up to a whole new level of weirdness.

And then in this dream I had, I'm eating his head off while he sings God Bless America. I mean, what do you think it means? Paul, are you even listening to me? I'm so annoying. Maybe it's time I find an actual doctor. I'll just use the ZocDoc app. Hey, yeah, I don't need you, Paul. You don't even listen to me. With the ZocDoc app, I can search and compare highly rated and network doctors near me. Plus, I

Plus, I can book appointments with them instantly and the ZocDoc app and slash or website is totally free. When you open the app, you can search for a doctor or specialist by location, availability, and whether they take your insurance. There are so many options depending on what you're looking for. There are tens of thousands of top tier doctors who are available, all with verified patient reviews. Unlike Paul over here, who is officially fired as my therapist.

Which is great news because I now need a therapist. And the typical wait time to see a doctor booked on ZocDoc is just between 24 to 72 hours.

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This is when the name Rapunzel actually comes into play. The word itself is actually a type of vegetable, like a parsnip or a radish. So one night, according to the Brothers Grimm version, a pregnant woman is having a crazy craving for Rapunzel, the vegetable.

Now, there are Rapunzel vegetables growing next door in her neighbor's garden. So the woman convinces her husband to hop the fence and steal some from the neighbor. So

So he does, hops the fence and gets up. And the next night, I guess he goes right back and he takes some more. Well, apparently the husband and wife had a hunch that their neighbor was a witch. And this version of the fairy tale was written at a time when witch paranoia was like at an all-time high. So it makes sense that the Grimm brothers would want to change the villain from an ogress to a witch. Because it makes sense for the time. Anyway, for whatever reason,

The husband doesn't ask his neighbor to borrow or have some radishes. I guess it never occurs to him. And when he comes back to steal more vegetables, the neighbor catches him red-handed. Now, this was unfortunate because she was, in fact, a rat.

which just as they suspected. So the husband tries to explain like, it's for my wife. She's got these crazy cravings. You know, she's pregnant. Please forgive me. And then when she's like, oh, interesting. Okay. So then she tells the guy, she's like, okay, you can have all the Rapunzel you want if I can have your baby.

That's my witch voice. I can have your baby. And, um, okay, so that's... She's asking for a lot, it sounds like. But in the story, the man agrees. Without even consulting his wife. Once the baby is born, the witch comes and...

gets that baby, scoops that baby right up. She's like, "Mine!" And she decides to name the baby Rapunzel after the radish plant. So for whatever reason, the witch decides to raise Rapunzel in a tall tower, completely sealed off from the rest of the world. And as she gets older, Rapunzel grows this beautiful long hair. And I guess the witch is like, "Hair? Long hair? Free ladder?"

Okay, I don't know her thought process, but that's how it, I don't know. So every day in order to visit her adopted daughter, the witch sings a secret rhyme to Rapunzel, I guess to prove that it's her. And then Rapunzel throws her braids down from the tower and the witch climbs up. So the two of them, they hang out, brush her hair,

do some homeschooling, whatever. And like, it's pretty impressive of this witch, right? Because do you remember having to climb those ropes in PE? Like this witch must have had some serious upper body strength, huh? Good for this witch. But one day a man is passing by the tower and hears Rapunzel singing. So he's like hanging outside spying on her all day. He waits until the witch comes for a visit and learns their little secret passcode.

So when it gets dark, this man who was lurking outside pretends to be the witch and gets Rapunzel to let down her hair. Next thing you know, boof.

Rapunzel is pregnant. I know, wild jump there, but it happens. So the witch comes back one day, like a few months later, and sees that Rapunzel is very confused about what's going on. I guess like there was no sex ed happening in this tower because Rapunzel had no idea that she was pregnant or like what happened to her. So when the witch finds out, she's pissed. I'm guessing this was the whole reason that she put Rapunzel up in the tower to protect her.

And like now she's dealing with teen pregnancy. Is this an episode of Maury?

The witch chops off all of Rapunzel's hair and banishes her into the wilderness to fend for herself. When Rapunzel's man comes back that night, the witch pretends to be Rapunzel. And this man does a little like a secret code and the witch tosses down the braids and lets him climb up. He's thinking it's her, you know? So when he gets up there, he's obviously horrified to find a witch instead of Rapunzel. So this man is so shooketh

that he falls off of the tower and he lands in a patch of thorns. And I guess he's mostly fine, except that two thorns land exactly in his eyes and he's blinded. Ugh.

What a bummer, huh? Meanwhile, Rapunzel's out like fending for herself in the woods and she ends up giving birth to twins. And she's out there just like raw dogging it, just trying to guess like, what do I do? She's in the woods, Prince is blind. So the Prince, blind Prince is wandering around for years before he finally hears Rapunzel singing and they are reunited.

She cries, I guess 'cause she's happy. She's crying, and the tears magically restore his sight. The original true story that inspired all of these versions of Rapunzel was actually about a girl named

Barbara. Now this is factual. Barbara is just a beautiful girl with a rich dad named Dioscorus. So yeah, I guess no men were even allowed to look at Barbara without an interview from Dioscorus. So Dioscorus is Barbara's dad. And again, the year is 1275 and this girl's name is Barbara.

Yeah, I just want to stop right there because her name is Barbara. Barbara goes way back. The name Barbara, way back. Everyone else had these wild names. Dioscorus, whatever else name you can think of. And Barbara. Isn't that wild? I know. I thought the same thing. I was like, that's nuts. Barbara, huh? Yeah. Anywho. So, daddy is strict.

Okay, and Barbara's not, she's not loving it. She told her dad that she was, you know, she wanted to date whoever the hell she wanted to date. And her dad was like...

I don't freaking think so. Lock her up. So this was in Rome and there was a major shift happening with religion. Most people were still pagan and Christianity was only recently becoming a thing and people did not like it. In the year 1275, Christianity was seen as like the witch. So Barbara gets locked up, okay, and while she's locked up, she stumbles upon a book which

I'm guessing was the Bible because Barbara reads it and she fully converted to Christianity while she's grounded behind her father's back. According to Jacobus de Voragine, who recorded this story, things did not go well from there. Barbara's dad discovers she's been becoming like a Christian in secret and he ends up dragging her by the hair to the Roman courts. There's

I just had an epiphany. You know how a lot of like Christian women are named Barbara? Come on. Okay, anyways, a judge asked Barbara about her crimes and Barbara says that she only answers to the authority of Jesus Christ. So, you know, it's pretty obvious that at this point, Barbara is indeed a Christian. So in the street, a mob forms and people start attacking Barbara.

They're like, "We've got a Christian!" They're so like, "Ugh!" So they get really brutal. They attack her 'cause she's Christian and they're cutting her up with knives. They're throwing salt in her wounds and then they're burning her skin.

a bit much, right? So I guess Barbara is like fighting for her life when she sees her dad approaching and she's like, oh my God, dad, like, please help me. Daddy, you know, help me. So he picks up his sword. He walks towards her and she's like, oh my God, yay, like he's gonna save me. But then he chops her head clean off.

Wow. All right. So between that and the teen pregnancy, I guess I could see why Disney maybe took their time adapting this one, huh? Now I'm sitting here thinking like, what's the moral of this story? I don't know. Here's something here. I'm just going to throw some ideas at you. Tell me if it hits. Maybe the moral of the story with Rapunzel is like, respect your elders. Don't get pregnant. Barbara is an old name.

Moral of the story? It's been around for a long time, huh? That's the moral of the story. We've had Barbaras for way longer than we even think. Honestly, I think Disney should have went with the OG and like chopped her head off. That's wild. That's fun.

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That's rocketmoney.com slash darkhistory. Rocketmoney.com slash darkhistory. Now the next story, yeah, I think it's a lot of our favorites. Maybe it's not, but it was one of my favorite movies growing up or Disney movies growing up. It has a hot prince. It has little fairies and a crow sidekick.

I know I was thinking about this Joan. I was like maybe this movie had a bigger impact than on me than I even realized because I have a crow sidekick. I know isn't that something? I'm talking about Sleeping Beauty. I do like to sleep huh? Yeah! I know the scene where her dress keeps changing colors. Oh

Well, we're here, so surprise, surprise, none of that was actually in the original story. The original version of Sleeping Beauty was written in the 1600s by our guy, Giambattista Basile, the guy who inspired the Grimm Brothers. Back then when Basile wrote it down, this fairy tale was called Sun Basile.

Moon and Talia. And I guess they had been around for years. Now, just like the Sleeping Beauty you and I know, it starts with the birth of a princess. But this one's name is Talia. So when Talia is born, some wise men show up and predict that Talia is in big trouble. They see something horrible in her future. A splinter. That is pretty horrible. Have you ever gotten a deep splinter? That shit hurts.

But anyways, specifically a flax splinter, which is like a grain used to make clothes. Flax? I don't know, but I guess, you know, flax splinter, it's gotta suck. So the king is like, no flax in the castle, period. He wants to protect his daughter. But just like the Disney version, the princess finds herself in a weird room in the castle one day, and she finds an old woman spinning thread.

Somehow Talia gets the splinter and drops dead. Bummer, I know. Her dad, the king, devastated. He abandons the whole castle with his dead daughter locked away inside. I guess a hundred years go by

and a random king from another kingdom is passing by the castle and decides to go inside. He's like, "Oh cool, abandoned castle? Let's check it out." So he goes inside, he's like looking around and this guy, the king, he finds Talia who has been assumed dead for a hundred years. And this king is like, "Oh my God, she's so beautiful." And he's like absolutely captivated by her beauty. But instead of like giving her true love's kiss,

like Prince Charming. This king has sex with her, rapes her, you know what I'm saying? I think it would be called necrophiliac, right? Necrophilia? I think that's what they call it. Yeah, that's what they call it. But sure, guy. But then here's the twist. Talia is actually not dead. She's a zombie. I know. She, I guess, essentially was in a coma. So after this incident,

She gets pregnant and gives birth to two twins nine months later. The fuck is going on? I know. I don't know. These people were wild back then. Stories were weird. Mind you, she gives birth and all this stuff all while she is still unconscious.

I don't know. It's like a twilight birth, really. But she gets lucky, I guess. One day, one of her babies was having trouble finding her nipple. So I guess the baby went for the next best thing, her fingers. So the baby is sucking on that finger. And I guess it's the cursed, like, splinter finger. Okay, so the baby...

sucking on it and this baby is able to suck out the um the like the poison or the curse splinter situation that was in Talia's finger this is the weirdest story I've ever heard I know the baby sucks it out and this wakes Talia up

Now ain't that some shit? Just imagine getting a splinter one day and you wake up a hundred years later, you now have two babies, twins, and everyone you know is dead. You know, it's just like, what year is it? I'm not even sure what I'd do actually.

Well, at some point, Talia names her kids Sun and Moon. And we're not sure like exactly when she does this because she's been asleep. So maybe when she woke up, she's like, oh my God, Sun, Moon, that's your names. Now here's a crazy coincidence. Around this same time, the Predator King comes back to visit Talia. He's like, I'm gonna see if she's still there and have sex with her. And surprise, he's like, bummer, she's awake. Damn it.

Yeah. And she has babies now. Are those mine? F***ing responsibility. The problem on top of like the problem on top of the problem here is that the king at this point was already married. And when his wife finds out like what...

had happened and what he did, she obviously was pissed. So the queen comes up with an evil plan. She orders their cook to kill the twins while Talia isn't around and then have them cooked and fed to her husband, the king, unknowingly.

That'll teach him a lesson. I guess, as the story goes, the cook didn't have it in him to do this, you know? Instead, the cook kills a goat and serves that instead. The king's wife somehow finds out she's pissed and she decides that she now has to like kill not only these babies, but also Talia. And on top of that, she's like, you're still gonna cook them.

Okay. I mean, you know what they say, if you want something done right, you just gotta do it yourself. And this queen was like, I'm doing it. So the queen prepares a boiling cauldron of poisonous snakes and plants, like toss all of them into it and make some kind of horrible soup. And at the last moment, the predator king, he intervenes and he pushes his wife into the cauldron instead. Work. So Talia and her twins live.

But I guess they end up with the king. So, you know, I don't know how happily ever after that is. But 99, I don't know. I mean, it's pretty wild that this was like in a kid's book, huh? Yeah. Bazile, you were sure an interesting guy. Full of imagination. Or maybe just back then kids were built different. No, I don't think so. And Joan, are you guys still working on your website? Let me see. Show it to me right now. Oh, that's nice.

It looks like it was made before Y2K.

Is that clip art? Listen, you two, no one is ever going to see your glamor shots unless your website looks a bit more polished. I mean, it doesn't have to be that difficult either. That's why you need to check out Squarespace. Squarespace makes it so easy to start a website or domain. With Squarespace Blueprint, you can choose from a professionally curated layout and styling options to build a unique online presence to show off

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This next story is a classic and it's referenced to this very day. And it's actually like the very first Disney movie about a fairy tale. And it came out in 1937. Again, it was like based on the original fairy tale from 1812 by the Brothers Grimm. Except the Grimm version is more PG-13 instead of G. Oh, and in German, she wasn't known as Snow White. She was known as Schneewittchen Schneewittchen.

Eh? Okay. Well, in the beginning of the Disney movie, you know, with Snow White, the evil queen stepmother asks for Snow White's heart in a box when she sends her away with like the huntsman. But in the Grimm's version, the queen asks specifically for Snow White's liver and lungs. Yeah, because she wants to have them for dinner.

Makes sense. Just like in the Disney version, the huntsman doesn't hurt Snow White. I mean, who could? Instead, he brings back the lungs and liver of a young boar for the queen, and she boils them with salt and eats them. In the German version, Snow White also runs away and is taken in by dwarves, but these dwarves have no names and no special personalities. They're just seven dwarves. The evil queen comes calling to the dwarves' house not once, not twice,

but three times before Snow White finally falls for her poisoned apple trick. The dwarves come home to find Snow White apparently dead and they carry her away in a glass coffin. Years later a prince sees Snow White and falls in love. I know in these old stories like um it's a lot of men being attracted to comatose women. It's really interesting. It's a theme. I don't know what's going on. The prince tries to buy Snow White's body off of the dwarves and the dwarves are like

Why'd you have to make it weird? Like, that's our friend. What do you want to do with her? But the prince will not take no for an answer and he is begging the dwarves. He tells them that he will die if he can't see Snow White's body every day for the rest of his life. Necrophilia again, huh?

I don't know. But apparently he begs and begs and like, this works. They're like, all right, dude, sure. And the next thing you know, the prince's servants are carrying Snow White's glass coffin back to his place. And when they're doing so, they accidentally drop the coffin. And when the coffin is dropped, I guess it like gives Snow White the Heimlich maneuver in a way. Like she's able to like cough something up.

when the coffin is dropped. You get it? And a big old chunk of like that poison apple comes flying out of Snow White's mouth and she suddenly comes back to life. And then after this, Snow White and the prince get married. Then in the story, as punishment for her evil deeds, the queen is forced to wear a pair of iron shoes that were heated over a fire. So they're red hot and they make her dance and dance and dance, you know, in these shoes until she drops dead.

Do you remember when we did that episode of The Dancing Plague? In like, when was that? Season one? Cross, right? So again, like I was trying to think, okay, what's the moral of this story? Do they have moral? Like, what's the, what's the moral of the story? I think in this case, or maybe in both of these, you have a better chance of getting a man if you're in a coma. You know, that's my takeaway.

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Our last story takes a bit of a turn. We all know Alice in Wonderland, right? Love it. So great. It's movies actually based on the book by Lewis Carroll called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In it, Alice falls down a rabbit hole.

Alice ends up in Wonderland and goes on to meet all kinds of wacky characters. She learns about herself and she grows literally and emotionally, and it's fun. It's different. It's wild. Unexpected. Now this fairy tale is a little different from the ones I mentioned.

It was written in 1865 and was completely created by Lewis Carroll. And what caught my eye about this Disney favorite wasn't the story, it was the author. I know what you're thinking, Bailey, we know the author was probably on some like wild drugs when he wrote the story. 'Cause that's always like the rumor or whatever. I mean, what else could inspire someone to write about a hookah smoking caterpillar?

Drugs, you would think, right? Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, wasn't actually named Lewis Carroll. That was just his pen name. His real name was Charles Dodson. I don't know why I can't fucking see the last name, but I can, okay? But that's his real name. He was said to be very modest and he didn't want his personal life to become everyone's business, so he wrote under a pen name. Or maybe he was hiding something. Either way, you know, to keep things simple, I'm just gonna call him Lewis.

Simple for me. Lewis was born on January 27th, 1832 in a British town called Cheshire. Cheshire. Cheshire. Cheshire cat.

Makes sense, huh? I guess he came from like an extremely religious family with good connections. And when he was old enough, Lewis went to Oxford University just like his dad. And he kind of never leaves Oxford actually. He ends up like working there as a librarian and then eventually gets a job as a math teacher. Some sad news. There's actually like zero evidence that Mr. Lewis Carroll was eating magic mushrooms while he was writing Alice in Wonderland.

I know, he thought of that all himself. But what he did like to do was hang out with little girls. Yeah, and Alice, I guess, was based on one of the little girls he liked to hang out with. So Lewis's office at Oxford was apparently right next to the dean's house. And the dean of Oxford was named Henry Liddell. And over time, Lewis and Henry, I guess, became friends.

Louis starts to hang out with Henry's family, his wife Lorena, their three kids, Edith, Lorena Jr. and Alice. Alice. Alice was based on a real girl. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And she was just four years old when Louis started hanging out at her house. But it wasn't until one day on a little family boat ride that Louis and Alice formed their special bond.

Lewis apparently made a big impact on Alice and her two sisters when he started to tell them a story. I guess he had made up the story like right on the spot. Little did anyone know at the time that they were like getting a sneak peek at what would become, you know, the most popular child's book of their time, Alice in Wonderland or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice loved the story so much that she asked Lewis to write it down.

She's like, I want to remember it and read it all the time. So he did. And from that point, I guess Alice was his muse. Apparently, Lewis even wrote in his diary about the first time he met her. I know. Eh, what? Yeah, normal thing for a 30-year-old math teacher to write about in his diary, some would say.

Martin Gardner, a historian, wrote that, quote, Carol's principal hobby, the hobby that aroused his greatest joys, was entertaining little girls, end quote. Not great, not great, you know? And I was like, okay, maybe he's just like, maybe I'm like being the perv. Maybe he just really loves kids in an innocent way, you know?

But then I read something else. Martin Gardiner went on to say that Lewis, quote, "thought the naked bodies of little girls," unlike the bodies of boys,

Extremely beautiful. Louis would do these nude sketches and take photographs of little girls. And apparently he always asked the parents permission first. So that's good. We don't have any of these pictures or sketches, which I think is great. We don't need them. But Louis had very specific instructions for them after he died. He said that these pictures should either be returned to their families or they should be destroyed. Which...

Fuck yeah. It's said that Lewis would make friends with little girls at the beach and on the train, and in his bag he always carried around little toys and puzzles to entertain them. He also carried safety pins specifically for pitting up the skirts of any little girls who wanted to go wade into the water without getting their clothes wet, which is like so thoughtful.

After Alice grew up, he wrote to her and said, quote, I have had some scores of child friends since your time, but they have been quite a different thing. End quote. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what he's saying, but I don't like it. I wish this was a story about a man who was tripping balls on mushrooms or something, but no, it's not. He just likes little girls. Yeah.

Looking back at everything we've learned today, you know, Disney definitely added some flavor, cleaned things up a bit. They were heavily influenced by these stories, right? They just, you know, didn't follow them all the way through. You know, it's interesting the way Disney adapted these stories. They took a story that featured a creepy Predator King from Sun, Moon, and Talia and made him Prince Phillip.

Sleeping Beauty. They took the creep guy who was outside of the building in Rapunzel and made him into Flynn Rider in Tangled. Oh and then in Snow White of course like the random prince who takes Snow White's body you know in Disney he becomes Prince Charming and he rescues her. Oh I mean okay. Sorry Disney. Make

Make your money, I guess. I don't know. They needed inspiration somewhere. And they got it. And they just added some spice and had some princes save some women and called it a movie. Disney really made us believe that like witches were really the ones out there that we had to watch out for, right? But really the whole time it was like the perverts.

I don't know. Anyhow, speaking of disturbing stories, did you guys hear about those people who died because they drank that caffeinated lemonade? Did you hear about that? That's some wild shit. I read that story as I was drinking a Red Bull. Not funny, but like, I was like, oh shit. But it made me realize, like, I don't really know anything about energy drinks. I mean, where did they come from? It seems like just one day they like popped up and now there's so many of them, right? Are they good for us? I'm gonna say no, but...

Are they bad for us? And like, what's bad about them? So I had to get answers. And once again, it did not fail me because let me tell you, it's not great. So tune in next week for the dark history of energy drinks. Oh, fuck. I know. I'm sorry. We'll be talking about it next week.

Well, friends, thank you for hanging out with me today. You can join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder, mystery, and makeup. Don't forget to like and subscribe because I'm here for you every week. I love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story. So make sure to leave a comment in the comment section. And you know, I can see what you guys are saying. So now let's read a couple of comments that you guys have left me. My favorite part. Yay!

Moon Goonin left us a comment saying, "I'm obsessed with the grindhouse style intro." Thank you, Moon Goonin. I like it too. It's super cute. Yeah. Leah Kinnery Perez 5137 left us a comment saying, "My granddaughter got me into watching you." Love that. "I'm 59 years old and I have learned way more about dark history from you than I ever did in school."

Miss Leah, that is such a huge compliment. Thank you so much and shout out to your granddaughter. I love that. I mean, I'm bringing families together. It's so special. Nikki C8886 said, I want the story and conspiracy against crows and ravens. The fear in stories about how they tie into death. Nikki.

Why are you going to do that? Nikki, I've been obsessed with crows, you know, and the disrespect. Kind of like pigeons. Did you watch our pigeon episode? Well, if you didn't, go watch pigeons because it's kind of similar. They're so smart. Gross. And, you know, maybe we should do an episode on them. I think you would like that.

Yeah. Well, I love you for watching and also engaging. Keep on commenting because maybe you'll be featured in our next episode. And hey, if you don't know, Dark History is an Audioboom original. I want to say a special thank you to our expert, Anne Duggan, professor of French and fairy tale studies. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Have a good day, make good choices, and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye.

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I'm Stanzi Potenza. And I'm Brad Padre. Launching June 13th is our new podcast, Late to the Party. In this post-ironic chat show, we'll show you a window into our world of crazy post-ironic thoughts. An unlikely friendship founded on a shared love for riffs, ranting, and getting absolutely wrecked.

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