Some people will leave some weird stuff in their wills.
Lets talk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good mythical morning. - People are born and you know what happens?
- Lots of things. - They die.
- Okay, if you just wanna push the - Everybody dies, deal with it.
- bookends together and set it up that way - And you know what?
- you can do that. - You know what?
You can't take anything with you but you can leave whatever you want behind and
that's what a will is for. People create wills so you will know what
- they have left behind to a certain person. - And today we're going to teach you how
- to write a great will. - No we're not.
- We're going to teach you some of the - No.
weirdest things that people-- (laughs) Lets do that later though.
- I love that idea for an episode. - Yeah. (laughs)
- "How to write a will." - Step one, grab a feather.
- But people have left all kids of weird - You should write wills with a feather.
stuff to people and we're gonna go through some of the strangest.
- Let me tell you about Solomon Sanborn who - (weird voice) Oh, yes.
we've all heard of. He's an american hat maker in
Massachusetts.
- He died in 1871. - Sanborn hats.
He was especially proud of the part Massachusetts played in the
- revolutionary war. - As he should have been.
And what do you do when you're especially proud of the part Massachusetts has played
- in a revolutionary war? - You die.
No, when you die you stipulate in your - Oh.
- will that your skin be made into drums. - (laughs) Oh, yeah.
That's what the guy did.
- He wanted his skin made into two drums - I like this.
and then he gave the drums to a friend of his under the condition that every June 17th
at dawn his friend would break out the Solomon Sanborn skin drums and he would
- pound out the tune Yankee Doodle at - Of course he would.
- Bunker hill to commemorate the famous battle. - Why wouldn't he?
- Why wouldn't he? - And how do you-- I mean, Yankee Doodle
- on drum is not that distinct, you know? - (both tapping the beat to Yankee Doodle)
I mean, if it's in your head you can hear it but that doesn't--
that just sounds like a dude beating on a drum.
You gotta have a flute or something. Make a--
I like it, don't make a flute.
- Hey, but listen-- - Side note the rest of his body was
donated to medical research and then composted for fertilizer to contribute to
the growth of an American Elm, his favorite tree.
- I love this man and now my duty in life - Yeah.
is to have a better will than him. One request is I'd like to have a guitar
- made with strings made from my skin-- - Your guts.
- My guts. - Your guts, like cat guts.
And you learn how to play the guitar-- Awesome classical guitar and you go on
- a career, classical guitar player. - I'm not gonna do that because I have to
grow out my fingernails. You got one?
Uh, yeah. John Bowman. He was-- He was died.
(laughs) He was died in 1891. His wife and daughters had died before him,
and he believes through some cult practices that he might be able to bring them
back to life with him. There's also potential reincarnation involved.
I don't know. It's kind of a strange deal, but the idea was that they might come
back to life, so he instructed servants to continue--
He gave them fifty thousand dollars. A fifty thousand dollar trust,
- which was a lot of money in 1891, - Yeah.
and said, "I want you to continue to make meals
every single night at our home just in case we show up one day.
We'll have something to eat." This is strange and bad logic because,
A, zombies eat people. They don't eat food.
- Hmm. - And ghosts don't eat food.
But if he came back bonafide they'd be hungry.
They would be hungry. They did this--
- Famished. - They did this until 1950, Link.
They did this almost 60 years until the money ran out.
Just making meals and you can still go to this place today.
The house is in Cuttingsville, Vermont and and can go there
- But they won't have food. - and check it out.
They don't make food anymore because they ran out.
I wonder if they ate the leftovers.
- You know? - Great question, maybe they gave them to
- the hogs. - I hope they gave them to somebody,
- I mean, someone who's living? - You know those servants ate that food.
Mark Grenwald was an executive editor of Captain America and Ironman comic at Marvel.
He died in 1996 and he left a pretty strange request.
His request was to take his cremated remains, his ashes,
- Yep, ashes. - mix them with ink and print a run of a
- comic book with his inky ashes. - Smart.
- Smart? - Yeah.
- A little morbid-- - Weird, it's weird.
I mean to put yourself-- To throw into a product is great as an
artist but he did-- to do it literally I just don't know if you can sell that.
Did they do it? Yes.
- About 4,000 copies of a printing of a - That's pretty awesome.
trade collection of Squadron Supreme, one of his most memorable series contains
- his inky ashes. - I mean but you got to admit that's
- that's pretty cool. - It's cool--
- Don't you want one of those-- - I mean, did they put a sticker on the
front that says "contains the ashes of the
- auth-- of the editor." - "Contains human remains."
- (laughs) Yeah, I mean-- - I hope I can get that comic book.
As long as you know what you're buying I think it's cool to sell it.
I'm doing that too. Add that to my list.
Are you making-- Are you taking notes for my will?
I'm taking mental notes which I will jettison shortly.
How about Fredric Baur? He was an american chemist and
food storage technician. He's known for inventing freeze dried
Ice cream! Hello!
Stop the presses! that's all you need to know how to do
- to be awesome! - So, astronaut ice cream?
Yes, he made that! He also did some other things.
So let me guess he wanted to do that to himself,
- Nope. - his body.
He also invented Pringles cans. He invented the cylindrical tube used to
- house Pringles. - This guy is a genius.
- I'm sure he came up with something great - Was as genius, he's dead.
- for his body. - He died in 2008--
well you be the judge of that, Link. He decided that his ashes should be put
into a Pringles can and buried. (laughs)
- That's it? - Yeah.
- He wanted-- - New, Human remains flavored Pringles!
- Blah. - No, they didn't put Pringles in there
- it was just-- that's pretty cool. - So a Pringle can coffin.
Put some of my ashes in a Pringles can too. Some of them--
My skin's gonna be-- My guts are gonna be--
I haven't even come up with what my skin's gonna be.
My drums are gonna be-- My guts are gonna be for the guitar,
I'm going in a Pringles can and put me in a book that you're writing.
- What if you die first? - Did you miss one?
- Oh, "put me in a book" you mean the ink. - And make meals for me everyday.
- What did you just ask me? - Just in case I come back.
- What are you doing if you die? - For myself?
I'm just gonna go in a cardboard box,
- I've already decided. - Oh, okay.
- This isn't changing anything I'm doing. - That's fine, whatever it takes.
Jeremy Bentham, I've heard of this guy. British philosopher, social reformer,
died in 1832 . He left his entire estate, including himself
to UCL, the university college of london under one condition.
He be publicly dissected by his friend the doctor.
(laughs) Add that to the list! You gotta do it on this show though!
Gather around, friends. In this episode of good mythical morning
we're gonna dissect Rhett because that's what he wanted.
(speaking quickly) And then burn him up and put him in a Pringles can.
- (laughs) - No, Jeremy didn't wanna be burnt up,
- he wanted quite the opposite. - After that he wanted to be preserved as
what he called an "auto-icon."
- Yeah. - Which basically means prop him up and he
just looks like a living person. They took his bones and reassembled them
and padded his clothing with hay like a scarecrow and then they shrunk his face
to preserve it and his face looked so grotesque that they replaced it with a wax
- head and then-- - You don't have to do this, the guy's dead!
- You don't have to follow through with this - It was his wish.
- kind of thing. - Well, I thi-- you know.
You can be like "hey, guys, he had a great idea, not really--"
So look at him sitting in this box, this is his auto-icon, right there.
- He's sitting in the box with his hat-- - Yeah, looks like an auto-icon.
He's got a wax face but look at the real head.
The real head was kept in the box between his feet for a few years.
And then students would take the head and like
- Play volleyball with it? - hold it for ransom and stuff so they had
- Oh. - to start keeping the head somewhere else.
the shrunken head, of course he's wearing his own clothes and he is now on display
at UCL. Like you're a student, you're walking aound,
- you see this dude-- - You people in London probably
- know about this. - Oh definitely.
And he's rumored to attend council meetings and he's marked present
but not voting. There's a website you can go to and you
can rotate him around, like look at him 360 degrees.
So you don't rotate him, you rotate a camera around him?
- Yeah, just by scrolling an image. - You don't make him spin.
No, it's not remote controlled Jeremy Bentham in a closet.
But this really completes the circle for me. If I die first you have got to put me on
display right here. Keep doing the show without me.
- You can't get a new host. - "What do you think about that, Rhett?"
And then my head falls off one day and then
- replace it with a wax head. - Put a wax head.
- And listen, hey and if you die first-- - I'll put you real head between you feet.
Do that to me.
- Is this a signal or are we about to - we're shaki-- shaking on it.
shake hands? Like, lets just air shake.
Air shaking. We're air shaking on this stuff.
We're air shaking on this one, it's kinda like pinky promising with an
- index finger. - Is this too morbid?
- I'm sorry if it is, just trying to leave - I love this episode.
- a legacy. - I mean, they made a whole website where
you can just see him from every angle because that's what I felt like I wanted.
Okay, we wanna thank our sponsor Lynda.com/rhettandlink.
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Please do that. Remember, there's all kinds of video
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thanks for liking an commenting on this video.
You know what time it is.
- My name is Danial. - And my name is Jessica.
And we're on our honeymoon at Walt Disney world in Orlando.
And it's time to spin the wheel of mythicality.
We've got an Instagram chock full of square pictures of miniature horses!
- It's miniature horse Monday every Monday. - Click through to good mythical more,
we've got another amazing and interesting will.
Beverly Hills hottie, Sandra west was buried with something very interesting.
Absurd KickStarter project.
Okay, so we would like you guys to know about our plans after we die.
- Right. - And how you can be a part of it.
Right, all you gotta do is pledge and you get lots of rewards because you get to
- spend time with us, our actual auto-icons. - That's right, for $10 you get to play
- drum made out of our skin. - (both) For $20
you get to sit on our laps. We're gonna be dead, get a load of that.
(laughs) We're gonna be dead but you can sit on our laps.
- For $30 what do they win, Link? - The shame associated with the $20 gift.
[Captioned by Whitney and Hayleigh: GMM Captioning Team]