Episode Details

Welcome back to The Oddities Department, where history gets strange, science gets stranger, and questionable medicine has apparently been trying to kill us for centuries.

In Episode 26, we cut the ribbon on The Odditorium, our brand-new guest wing, and hand the keys to our first Guest Tour Guide, Terra Izora of Thick Thighs & Murder Vibes. Her chosen theme: Strange Cures & Questionable Remedies.

Terra starts with Graham Cracker’d, the story of Reverend Sylvester Graham, a nineteenth-century health reformer who believed bland food, whole grains, cold baths, and a joyless diet could suppress sexual desire and save humanity from moral ruin. Somehow, we eventually turned his legacy into s’mores.

Then Lindsay introduces Wilhelm Reich & The Fantastical Fuck Box, following a respected psychoanalyst from theories about orgasms and emotional tension to orgone energy, a human-sized energy accumulator, Albert Einstein, the FDA, and one spectacular descent into questionable medical science.

Gavin closes the main exhibits with Album Graecum, the elegant Latin name for sun-bleached, powdered dog shit that apothecaries mixed with honey and prescribed for severe throat ailments.

Then we cut the ribbon on three brand-new interactive exhibits inside The Odditorium.

The Lost Exhibit, where Terra must invent the history of a mystery artifact before we reveal the horrifying truth behind a Victorian tapeworm trap.

Oddity or Fraudity, where Terra and Lindsay must decide which bizarre medical treatment was real: live pigeon slippers used to draw out fever, or a deeply suspicious dysentery paste involving cow gallstones, beaver grease, mercury, and opium.

And The Suggestion Box, where we read actual one-star reviews of famous museums and make Terra and Gavin figure out which institution pissed somebody off enough to take it to the internet.

This episode has anti-horny crackers, cosmic orgasm energy, medicinal dog shit, tapeworm fishing, pigeon footwear, fake pharmaceuticals, angry museum patrons, and our first Guest Tour Guide trying to survive all of it.

Please enjoy your visit.

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