Hello, I'm Chelsea Paredi. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me, my podcast is relaunching. Do you fear wild, dangerous animals to the point where you're constantly watching attack videos and reading articles about wild animal attack survivors or those who succumb to attack? Call in. We can also discuss reality shows and emergency room footage. Listen to call Chelsea Paredi on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh and Chuck's here too. And so is Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes this Short Stuff.

Yeah, I've been singing Ween all day because of this one.

Oh, yeah? Are we talking about Mosques?

No. From the song Freedom of 76, when they sing about the Liberty Bell.

I don't know that one.

Liberty Bell cracked in half is the line. Yeah? So that's been on a loop in my head.

Okay.

I'll bet. A bacon steak, a perfect match.

You know, it's been on a loop in my head?

Either the final countdown or that one you were whistling the other day that drove me nuts.

Sure. Yeah. Susanne Mega.

Boy, you can earworm it with the best of them.

Yes. I was thinking about We the other day. I was like, I need to find something new to get into. And I was like, You know, Weens got a pretty extensive collection. You never really got into it. And I never really got into them. Not because I don't like them, I just never got into them. So maybe I'll go see if I can get into Ween a little bit.

Well, I can send you the book on how to do that, the order of operation.

Oh, okay, please do. Please do.

I'll need to send you a canister of nitrous, too, though.

That's fine.

I'm not sure if you can do that through the mail.

Please do. We're talking Liberty Bell.

That's right.

The reason why we're talking about the Liberty Bell is because, well, there's no good reason. But let's talk about the Liberty Bell anyway because it's actually pretty interesting. The Liberty Bell we think of today as the Liberty Bell.

Is a fraud. Yeah. Let's go back in time a little bit to 1751. Let's hop in the old wayback machine. Oh, boy. This is dusty as can be.

Don't get too close to.

That spike. Yeah, this is very dusty, but it still fires up. Look at that. The flux capacitor is flexing. Nice. And off we go to 1751 to the State House of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania State House, where they have just brought in the bell. And even though it's not named the Liberty Bell at this point, that would come along as we see much later. It's a bell, and it was used, although it had a lot of causes and purposes through the years. At first, it was just a bell. We ring it when someone important dies or when we need to call the government together, like the reasons you ring a town bell?

Someone won a bingo?

Yeah, ring that bell.

They called it initially the State House bell, which is on the nose, but appropriate because it was originally commissioned by the Pennsylvania provincial assembly to be the bell in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. They didn't even call that Independence Hall. It was the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. Everything was very businesslike, bureaucratically named, and it told you what it did and what it was, and that's how they liked it.

That's right. The Bell itself was cast by Lester and Peck, a company out of London with the words, Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, which is apparently referenced to Leviticus in the old Bible. Duh. And it was about 3 feet high, circumference of 12 feet, weighed about 2,100 pounds. And like I said, it was just a bell. Here's the thing about the Liberty Bell and that crack is no one really agrees on exactly how that happened.

No, but some historians think that it cracked the first time it was used in 1752 after it was installed, the first time.

Yeah, and Lester and Pack were like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Actually, it's pretty cool. They made good on replacement. The Pennsylvania provincial assembly said, Pack, Lester, fellas, we need a replacement bell and we're not going to pay for it, okay? They said, That's fine. We'll send you another bell. The Pennsylvania provincial assembly was like, Well, do you want the correct one back? Do you want us to send a picture of it or something? They're like, You just keep it. Do whatever you want with it. Make belt buckles out of it, munitions, hat buckles if you're so into the Pilgrim thing, shoe buckles. Shoe buckles. Any buckle you want to make, you go ahead and use that bell. They said, You know what? We're going to actually use this bell to make a replacement bell while we wait for the real replacement bell. This is where it gets confusing unnecessarily. I say we take a break to just let all that sink in.

All right, let's do it.

Hello, I'm Chelsea Paredi. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me. My podcast is relaunching. Subscribe and treat yourself to sound effects like this and this. Have you ever been attacked by a bear? Yeah. Yes. And moments like this. I happen to fall asleep in.

Front of.

A space heater.

No. And my.

Whole leg. From my.

Knee down and my foot burnt until it's full of this big bubble. And this, kale chips are delicious. They're too oily when I.

Get.

Them. They shouldn't be soft at all. They should be really crispy. That's what I said every single time. You are yelling at me. And this. Do you want to go to the Clipper game with me tonight. Do you have 25 references of mutual friends that can tell me that you're not a murderer? And this. Hold on, I got to open some peanut butter pretzel. Listen to call Chelsea Peretti on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Daniel Tosh, host of a new podcast called Tosh Show, brought to you by iHeart Podcasts. Why am I getting to the podcast game now? Well, it seemed like the best way to let my family know what I'm up to instead of visiting or being part of their incessant group text. I'll be interviewing people that I find interesting, so not celebrities and certainly not comedians. I'll be interviewing my plumber, my stylist, my wife's gynecologist. We'll be covering topics like religion, travel, sports, gambling, but mostly it will be about being a working mother. If you're looking for a podcast that will educate and inspire or one that will really make you think, this isn't the one for you. But it will be entertaining to a very select few because you don't make it to your mid 40s with IBS without having a story or two to tell. Join me as I take my place among podcast royalty like Joel Olstein and Lance Bass. Those are words I hope I'd never have to say. Listen to Tosh show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, so if I am understanding this correctly, you now have two bells?

Technically, three, eventually. But one doesn't exist any longer, but it does because it's now been melted into the second bell.

Okay, but you also have the replacement bell, right? Yeah, right.

They were both apparently in the Pennsylvania State House. They were both used. But who knows what happened to the replacement bell that Paak and Lester sent?

Okay, so that's the one that wasn't officially hung or hanged. I'm not sure what you would say there.

I would say hung, but then you would correct me. Okay.

So it was the one that they melted down and redid the original. That is the official one then?

That's what we call the Liberty Bell, yes. Okay, all right. But they didn't call it the Liberty Bell back then. Again, they called it the State House Bell. And then they were like, Which one? They're like, The original one. They're like, I thought that one was melted down. They're like, Yes, this is the one that we melted down from the original. It went on a lot every time somebody asked about it.

They're belling this thing up. They're using it as you would use a bell. In 1777, when the British were encroaching, they removed the bell because they didn't want it captured and melted down into bullets, basically. Or buckles. Or buckles. They hid it again later on in a church. I'm sorry, they hid it in the church then in Allentown. And then in 1785, they raised it again. And it was really just a bell until 1824 when Marquette de la Fiat was the last general of the revolution that survived, went on a tour of the United States and America. That's when America was like, Hey, let's rename this place, Independence Hall, and let's call this thing. Well, actually, it took another 11 years to call it the Liberty Bell, even.

Yeah, it was some abolitionists who were like, Oh, you got a Liberty Bell, huh? You know who the Liberty Bell isn't ringed for? Enslaved people. So let's do away with slavery. They actually used the Liberty Bell and the new national pride around it to really point out just how slavery is a terrible thing and we need to do away with it.

Yeah. Here's where it gets really interesting. That first bell was damaged and cracked. So they melt it down, make this new one. The New Bell cracks as well. And they're not exactly sure how this happened either, but they think it was in 1835 when it was rung to mark the death of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, to mark his passing. And other people say, no, it was really the 1840s during the fourth of July when things got really rowdy. Or other people said, no, it was on February 23rd when we were getting hammered celebrating George Washington's birthday. People are just wringing the heck out of this thing. And no one's really sure. The National Park Service, for their point of view, just says it just cracked after 90 years of use. Quit asking.

Just be quiet. Just take the pamphlet and be quiet. Exactly. But apparently, there are some researchers who in 1975 were like, Actually, it wasn't just like hard use. This bell was destined to crack. And the reason why is because their high tin content. It's like a quarter tin almost. You don't want to use that in a bell that peels. Maybe a decorative bell, something you find it like Kirkland or something that is not Mentor Ring? Sure, make that a tin. But you're using a functional workhorse bell. Do not put 25 % tin in that thing.

No, you've been telling me that for years. Sure. The bell they tried to fix in 1846 because Washington's birthday was rolling around again. And they're like, Listen, you know what we do here in Philly? We get drunk, we ring this bell, we act incredibly in hospital-able for our professional sports teams and the teams that.

Play them. Don't get us started on Santa Claus.

And they used something called stop drilling, in which they actually widen the crack. The crack now is 21 inches long and about an inch, a couple of centimeters wide, and they would widen it. So basically, when it was rung, the two sides would not touch each other at all and create this awful buzz.

The booyoan-yoing?

Yeah, exactly. So they widened it so it wouldn't touch. But another crack developed and they were like, We got to find a better way to celebrate Washington's birthday. We can't ring this thing anymore.

They said, Forget it. Forget it. I'm done with this stupid bell. That's what they said.

Yeah.

So it became a true symbol after that point. They just stopped ringing it. And apparently over the years, people have been like, We got to fix that thing. We got to ring that thing again. It's a big deal. And other people are like, Don't even bother. It's better as a symbol. And in fact, it proved its worth pretty quickly on as a symbol during World War I, I guess it went on a whistle-stop tour of the United States on the back of a train and drummed up enthusiasm and support for Liberty Bonds. They were called Liberty Bonds because the Liberty Belle was basically the mascot of this bond drive to raise money for the US to fight World War I. They ended up raising, in today's dollars, billions of dollars from Liberty bonds, thanks to that cute little Belle with the crack in it.

Yeah, pretty good.

Earned its worth. Yeah, they think a quarter of the United States saw the Liberty Bell during that tour. That's how popular it was. People just throng to see it.

Yeah, that's right.

Pretty neat.

Pretty neat. But if anyone is emailing me right now, Oh, yeah, well, the Philies own the Braves the past two years. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Get out of sports radio. It's toxic. You got anything else?

I got nothing else.

Okay, well, since you've checked that, sure stuff's out.

Stuff you.

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