(tess) lincoln's like, your balloons are [bleep] awesome.
I want to send them into the sky so that you can spy.
[bleep] yeah, I will do that.
This is the funnest job ever. [laughs]
(mark) it would be like,
This and this and this and this
Then go with this and this and this and this,
And the other would go, you wish, tuna fish.
[laughs]
(jenny) they're like, we hear this thing.
It's like [imitates static].
Oh, my god, this is basically the sound of the big bang.
Boing! [babbles]
[patriotic music]
♪ ♪
(man) I was born in jersey.
I was raised in jersey.
I am definitely going to die in jersey.
(man) jersey's [bleep] goddamn [bleep] cold.
And, like, the next day, it's [bleep] fine.
And then, like, two days later,
It's [bleep] cold as [bleep] again.
(man) I love jersey,
But everything in jersey pisses me off.
[geese honking]
- Let's do a shot. - Let's do a shot.
You did all that in one? Tess!
'cause we're on camera.
- Mmm! - It's delicious. [giggles]
- Oh, giving me more--oh. - Oh, [bleep].
- Bless your sweet heart. - Oh, [bleep].
You put so much more in mine.
I did.
Doesn't have a cork.
You only need a cork if you're not gonna finish it.
Hello, I'm tess lynch,
And today we're gonna talk
About the union balloon corps.
[derek laughs]
(tess) so it's a week into the civil war.
Thaddeus lowe is a balloonist.
He's airborne in hoboken, new jersey,
And he's like, [bleep] yes. Like, aah!
And everything seems great, until, oh, boom.
Winds hit.
Whoo! And it's like, [bleep].
[bleep] winds, you know?
But, like, the winds? They don't care.
The winds don't care.
They're like, we're gonna have you land
Wherever the [bleep] we want you to land.
[blows]
(tess) and all of a sudden,
He finds himself blown into south carolina,
Like, right in the middle of confederate territory.
Are you serious?
So he was like, boom,
Blown into the hands of the confederate mob.
So they freak, and they're like, whoa.
Are you a yankee spy?
What's your deal?
And he's just like, what the [bleep] do I do?
So he has all these papers with him
That basically are like, thaddeus lowe,
Important balloon person.
And they're like, you know what?
You seem like a cool dude.
You can go.
And he leaves.
Okay, one second.
This is the funnest job ever.
[both laugh]
Okay, so basically,
He's just like, I don't think this is working out for me.
The winds keep taking me
Into, like, the worst, [bleep] neighborhoods.
Like, I'm done with this.
But then, he gets a call.
But not a call because it's back in the day.
So he gets a message, and it says, hey, you.
I've had my eye on you.
Why don't you come on down to washington?
And he's like, who are you?
Okay, I'll go. Whatever.
Like, trip to washington sounds good.
So he goes down to washington to this, like, fancy room.
All of a sudden, who walks in?
It's [bleep] president lincoln.
And lowe's like [gasps]!
Like, oh, holy [bleep].
Like, president lincoln.
I didn't know you were, like,
You know, keeping tabs on my balloons and stuff.
And lincoln's like, I have been, and guess what.
I have heard tell that your balloons
Are [bleep] awesome.
I want to send them into the sky
So that you can spy on the confederate troops.
Let's see what you can do.
You know, put your money where your mouth is.
Thaddeus lowe's like,
[bleep] yeah, I will do that.
Lugs his balloon out,
Takes it out to the washington mall.
Whoop!
500 feet above ground, boom.
He's like, I am gonna send an aerial telegram down.
[imitates beeping]
Hey, lincoln! I see you down there!
It looks pretty cool.
I see all the, you know, this and that and whatever.
Boom.
Lincoln is like, this is awesome.
Like, I can only imagine what you can do for the union
When you're--whoosh--
You're all like, tchh--
Above the forces, and you're just reporting back.
Thaddeus lowe,
I'm gonna task you with making the first union balloon corps.
So he, like, bands them all together.
Lowe is like, check out what I've got.
I've got, like, a billion balloons.
I've got the excelsior,
The constitution,
The [bleep] whatever,
The this, the that,
The intrepid!
They become a, like, balloon force.
It's crazy. It's balloons.
So thaddeus takes lowe, and--
Wait, no. What? That makes no sense.
[laughs]
Are you okay, derek?
This is what happens with this show.
You get a little--
I'm wobbly.
[laughs]
(tess) so he goes, and he spies.
The confederates were trying their best.
They were like, look, if you see us,
We're gonna shoot cannons at you.
He's like, boom.
He's like, what the [bleep]?
Like, you're trying to shoot me with cannons.
It's ridiculous, you guys.
I'm way the [bleep] up here!
And they're just like, pbbt, you know what I mean?
Like, it's reverse fart noise.
It's not gonna happen.
(derek) what?
(tess) well, fart noise is pbbt,
And reverse fart noise is [slurps].
Yes, 'cause gravity. [giggles]
So that's basically the end of it, except--
- That's it. - No, it's not it.
No.
(tess) so he comes home with all this intel,
And he's just like,
Hey, lincoln, I took a bunch of good notes up there.
What do you think?
And lincoln is like, oh! Balloons!
What the [bleep]? They're the awesomest.
This is the country's first air force.
And he did. He did.
- He should. - No, he did.
He should, and he did, and he would.
I'm seeing, like, so many of you.
- [laughs] - that's the worst.
[both laugh]
[patriotic music]
These are the people that created paleontology.
Marsh is like, einstein isn't invented yet,
But you're no einstein.
[laughs]
(man) there's actually a place,
Here in new jersey,
Where you can learn to be a wrestler.
That's all I've ever wanted to be.
[laughs]
[hard rock music]
[bleep].
This is a dream come true.
You might be really good, or you might be really...
Bad, you know.
It's either one or the other.
Smack the mat, tuck your head.
All right.
Take this to the next level?
- Yeah. - All right.
♪ ♪
Ooh!
[all shouting]
One, two, three!
[all cheering]
I do vodka because it doesn't give me a hangover.
You don't have to keep looking at the camera.
It's, like, a documentary.
I come from the office.
I was on the office for three years,
And we look at the camera and go--
[laughs]
Hello, my name is mark proksch,
And today we are gonna talk about the bone wars.
[snickers]
A lot of people know this.
The first dinosaur wasn't discovered
Until the mid-19th century.
This created kind of a new science.
Two of the first paleontologists
Were othniel marsh and edward cope.
Cope discovers this great discovery in new jersery.
New jersery--not a place.
New jersey!
The first dinosaur that's nearly complete.
And so the lar--
And so marsh gets there,
And they tour around.
It's like, hey, cope.
You're a great guy.
Love you. Thank you so much.
You're awesome.
And then he goes to the owners of this site
And says, listen, buddies, here's my dollars.
Dollars good in the eye of the federal government.
If you find any more dinosaur bones,
Don't send them to cope.
Send them to me.
And they do that.
Cope finds out about this and becomes infuriated.
You were my friend.
I let you come see this site.
Why would you do that to me?
Marsh says, listen.
If I can make this work for me, then bully to me.
That's what I'm all ab--
[exhales]
All about.
And so cope then breaks into marsh's sites
And starts pillaging and stealing.
Marsh finds out about this.
[bleep] livid.
What the f?
What do you think you're doing, mister man?
You're not--why would you--
And cope is like, listen.
This is the game we're playing.
I was here.
I found these bones.
Just 'cause you're not here yet doesn't mean nothing to me.
[stammers]
Eh.
[both laugh]
Well, cope finds this dinosaur,
And he starts publishing all this information.
And marsh gets there, and he's like, wow, that's--
I mean, that's neat.
Um, why did you put his head on his ass?
It's supposed to be on the other end, you dingus!
Marsh takes the head,
Puts it on the tail, and it fits perfectly.
And marsh is like, einstein isn't invented yet,
But you're no einstein.
So marsh-- oh, no, no, no, no.
Cope is like, screw you.
We are obviously not friends.
Let the bone wars begin.
- Dun-dun-dun-dun. - Da-da-da-da.
(mark) a race breaks out to discover
New dinosaur fossils in council--
In ccccomo--coun-- como bluff, wyoming.
So you have these two pits.
It's like, hey, this discovery is pretty neat.
And the other would be like, nuh-uh!
This and this and this and this
Then go with this and this and this and this.
And the other would go, you wish, tuna fish.
This and that was part of this and that.
The other would be like, cool your jets.
The two of them discovered over 140 species of dinosaurs,
But they were, like, fighting,
Throwing dirt in each other's pits,
Sabotaging their own findings.
Marsh would be like,
Don't let cope get ahold of these.
Blow it up.
Just so cope wouldn't find them.
Cope was like, don't let marsh get ahold of these.
Blow these up.
This is insane.
They even had a dirtball fight.
[laughing] these are two of the people
That created paleontology.
They're acting like spoiled little babies.
Put diapers on 'em!
Give 'em a nuk.
This went on then for 15 years.
And marsh becomes the head of u.S. Paleontology
Because he discovered the most bones
And is like,
All of the fossils collected by cope
Belong to the usgs.
That's all cope had left,
And marsh was trying to take that [bleep] away from him.
Cope was like, screw you.
I'm going to fight you on this.
Cope, it turned out,
Had been collecting evidence
That marsh was sabotaging all this science
This entire time,
Back to new jersey, to como bluffs.
Cope gives the new york herald...
[laughs]
All of these notes!
I get delightful when I'm drunk.
The new york herald publishi--
Publicizes all this information,
And it ruins marsh.
[laughs]
I got it. Don't worry, guys.
[chuckles]
(mark) this war, the bone wars,
Established paleontology.
But these two, they're children.
Cope was like, you know what?
I hate marsh so much that, when I die,
I want my brain weighed and measured.
I bet my brain is bigger than othniel marsh's.
And so when he died,
He had his brain cut out.
And then marsh was like, no, I don't want to do that.
[chuckles]
[laughs]
Guys, let's eat!
Let's enjoy a mouthfil--ful.
A what?
You want us to enjoy a what?
[laughter]
I mean, I didn't do myself any favors.
I really just made this drink.
It's like... You know.
[both laugh]
Let's talk about outer space.
Hello, I'm jenny slate,
And today we're going to talk
About arno penzias and robert wilson
And their beautiful cosmic discovery.
This is my dog's...
Uh, penis,
And then I've also had his balls removed.
- Aw, shame, shame. - Reggie.
"give me back my balls." you can't have 'em.
I took them away!
But I have a full vagina. [laughs]
[clicks tongue]
In 1960,
Bell labs made this, like, giant listening device for nasa.
But then, by the time they were ready to use it,
A better thing had been built.
So then it was just, like, by itself,
All by itself in new jersey.
A lonely horn. [sighs]
But two scientists,
Arno penzias and robert wilson,
They were like, oh, whoa, whoa!
Hold on, hold on!
If no one's using that, could we use it?
They were like, come on down to the horn.
So they get to the horn.
They're like, we are beautiful scientists with lovely minds,
And we want to listen to the sounds between the stars.
Boink. They're like, let's go, babe!
Let's listen up! [laughs]
Oh, god, I love thinking of them calling each other "babe."
So they listen, and the sound
Is a hundred times louder
Than any sound they expected to hear.
It's like [imitates static].
The universe is like... [imitates static]
Find out about me! [imitates static]
So they were like,
What is this darn sound?
[laughs]
It's coming from everywhere in the sky at once.
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
[imitates static]
And then they were like, no.
There's no way a sound could come from everywhere at once,
So we have to eliminate all the other sounds
That might be, like, interfering.
So first they thought maybe--
Someone doesn't care about science.
They were like, it must be coming from, you know, new york.
Urban interference, you know.
New york is a city with buildings and lights
And people and subway and blah, blah, blah.
So they were like, point it there.
[hums]
Pointed the horn at new york city.
No, that's not what we were hearing.
Forget about you, new york.
Maybe it's coming from a military base nearby.
And then they just, like, point it at the military bases,
But they didn't hear that noise coming from there.
No, it isn't it. [laughs]
So then they were like, okay, next.
Maybe it's from the sun.
They point it at the sun, and the sun was like,
I'm just the sun. I don't give a [bleep].
They were like, it's not the sun.
What the funk is this, man?
And then they were like, we should check our device.
What if there's something inside of this thing,
Like, you know, mold or a skeleton...
Of a hobo that crawled in there to get shelter?
[laughing] or whatever.
They look inside the horn. Guess what.
This [bleep] thing is filled with pigeons.
Houston, we do have a problem, and it's pigeons.
[both laugh]
Arno is like, you do it, robert.
You [bleep] kill them.
Robert's like, I don't want to do it.
You do it.
[laughs]
Guess what they did.
They shot them with a gun.
A shotgun.
Then they were like, well, that'll do it.
[chuckles]
After they've wiped the bird blood
Off of their hands,
They're both like, r.I.P. These pigeons.
Let's do this.
Boink. They start to listen.
They're like, oh, [bleep].
[imitates static]
They hear it again.
What the hunk is this right now?
[both laugh]
They don't have the answer.
They don't know what to do.
They listen through the horn for years.
They're going through their papers,
Their papers, their papers.
Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, I can't get it.
Ugh, ugh, there's nothing here.
Ugh. This one's boring.
Ugh, this is in another language.
Just being like, we're never gonna figure this out.
Finally, they find a study done by a scientist
Whose name is dicke.
[chuckles]
He had this crackpot theory that the universe,
Instead of being infinite, actually started at some point.
Dicke's like, 13.8 billion years ago,
Aka old as [bleep].
[laughs]
Check your watch.
I think the universe started
With, like, a crazy explosion, aka the big bang.
But they had no way to prove it.
Then these two guys from new jersey
Who have been listening to this [bleep] pigeon [bleep] horn...
[laughs]
Call him up, they're like, we hear this thing.
It's like [imitates static].
Have you ever heard of that before?
He's like, oh, my god.
That's it.
This is what we've been studying.
Cosmic microwave.
[sighs] what is that word?
What is the word?
We know it. What is it?
Cosmic microwave background radiation.
[triumphant music] - okay?
It's the sound of microwaves
From the big bang.
[imitates static]
And they were like, yeah, that's it!
This is it! We got it! We got it!
This is basically the sound of the big bang.
They wanted to try to find anything,
But what they found was the sound of everything.
Boing! [babbles]
[laughs]
I had to unfollow nasa on instagram
'cause it made me too crazay!
It would just be like,
This is a picture of a [bleep] black hole!
And I was like, aah!
[laughs]
Okay, let me tell you this.
Penzias and wilson get the nobel prize for physics.
Everyone [bleep] flips out, and they were like,
Yes, the big bang is real.
It happened. It's real.
You guys did it.
Penzias and, um... And, uh...
Oh, [bleep]. The other guy.
I just keep thinking of winslow...
[laughing] but I know that's from family matters.
(derek) carl.
[laughing]
Carl winslow discovered the big bang.
Derek, what this is right here,
This is the sound of the echo
Of the universe being created.
[imitates static]
Suck on that for a second.
See how you like it.
Just for a second.
The universe is like, just suck on it for a second.
[both laugh]
(jenny) I'm the [bleep] universe.
Suck on it for a second.
[patriotic music]
♪ ♪
Tonight, when I'm through with you,
You will be history!
School out!
Like, school's out of session.
I thought maybe-- was that all right?