Episode 78: The Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the Tar Creek Superfund Site

Have we all, every one of us, stared at a small humanlike doll and thought to ourselves, "What would it be like if this doll were like 35+ dudes and I starved them for six months in the University of Minnesota football stadium?" Of course we have; there's no need to even phrase it as a question. A notable fellow of science thought the same thing during World War II, and the results were the Minnesota Starvation Experiments, in which at least one dude just went full raccoon and started wandering around campus at night eating garbage. None of that is made up.

Meanwhile in northeastern Oklahoma, the Duke Boys were watching, helpless, as Ole Boss Hogg stole a bunch of American Indian land AGAIN, dug a bafflingly high number of lead mines, abandoned them when they stopped making money, and left countless piles of lead and rock dust hundreds of feet high next to stagnant pools of acidic lead water sitting on top of gigantic underground man-made caverns that were supported only by old boards! Don't worry though—the Dukes never put two and two together to pin it on Boss Hogg, as they'd been severely lead poisoned by the air and water of Picher, Oklahoma, one of our nation's very worst Superfund sites that's uninhabitable to this very day. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tar Creek, one of the more perfect examples of Oklahoma fellating businesses while said businesses burns the entire state down and puts on a fake nose and big glasses when it's time to foot the cleanup bill! Join us, won't you?