Some people really need to let go of that dead person that's still in the house.
Let's talk about that.
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- Good mythical morning. - You know, there's only one thing that's
certain in this life and that's you shouldn't wear birkenstocks with socks.
- Oh and also you're gonna die someday. - Yes. And then you'll be covered or scattered.
- Not unlike hashbrowns at the Waffle House. - Oh gosh.
- Unless you have a loved one who loves you so much to keep you around... indefinitely.
Now today we've got two stories. Two true stories of corpses hanging around
that are very different but both equally fascinating. You be the judge.
- Alright, let's get started with Carl Tanzler, born in Germany in 1877
and by all accounts seemed like a relatively normal dude.
Other than the fact that he lied about the fact that he had 9 university degrees.
And also liked to call himself Count Carl Von Cosel.
Even though he wasn't a Count. But I don't hold that against him because
while vacationing I call myself Count Rhett Von Desel.
- (laughs) Not with me you don't. Ok I'll forgive him because he looks cool.
- Yeah he looks like a smart dude. - His glasses are cool. Like a double monocle.
- A couple of times in his life he- - i.e. glasses.
- Yes he wore glasses Link. Carl claimed to have been visited by
visions of a dead ancestor. A Countess of course, who showed him images
of his true love: an exotic dark-haired beauty. Now that's important, that's an important detail.
Hold on to that. Now Carl moves to the US in 1926 and settles in Florida because
as we all know there is a magnet in Florida that attracts weird people.
- Mm. - He brings along his wife and two daughters.
One year later Carl says: 'You know what? I'm tired of this wife and these two daughters.
1927 he goes down to Quay West and becomes a radiologist.
Sounds like a bad sitcom. - (laughs)
- Quay West radiologist. He works for a few years, until one day he meets a
beautiful young Cuban woman. Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos.
Cue the Cuban music. (Cuban music plays)
- Oh literally! Okay. - You remember the dark-haired exotic lady
- I just talked about a second ago from Carl's dreams? - Yes. Here it is.
- Even though he was 53 years old and she was only 21 Carl was convinced
- that she was the one. - So he x-rayed her?
- Yes he did actually. She came in for an examination a lung x-ray where they
discovered that Maria had Tuberculosis. Very fatal at the time but he was totally
in love with her so he was determined to save her. So here's what he did. He's convinced
that she's the woman of his dreams. So she goes back to basically die
at her parents' home. He goes over there, administers all these homemade tonics,
brings x-ray equipment from the hospital and begins to x-ray her hoping that's
- going to do something. - Can't hurt.
- He showers her with gifts, professes her love, his love for her. Meanwhile she's totally
- not into this. She's not into Carl at all. - And dying.
- She's also- yeah she's in the TB and the TB eventually kills her.
- Okay. - Despite all Carl's efforts she dies.
- But his generosity does not end there because he insists, he tells hers parents,
'I'm gonna pay out of pocket for a mausoleum. Very fancy mausoleum.
Where you can keep her remains.' -Nice.
- 'That only I have the key for.' - The Quay West?
- The key to Quay West mausoleum belongs to Carl and so Carl takes her body.
- He puts her in but then he takes her out. Okay. - Things is about to get weird. So buckle up!
- They were already a little weird. The Cuban music - For the next two years- Oh you didn't like that?
- I loved it, it was just weird. - For the next two years Carl visited her tomb.
Almost every night and he said her spirit would visit him when he played her
favourite Spanish song, which incidentally was that song I just played a second ago.
- Oh. Is she here now? - Did my accent to.
- And during these visits, she would say: 'Carl take me from the grave.
You gotta move me from the grave. Please take me from the grave.'
- So eventually after two years of this - He did.
- of course he did. - He was like well let me check the x-rays first.
- Yep, I should. - He snatches up her corpse, puts it in a toy wagon,
which helps to explain Radio Flyer's slogan from the 30's.
Tow the dead body in one, kids! Then he takes-
(everyone laughs) - They're kind of small.
- I don't know what that looked like but I'm, sure that the whole body was
- not contained in the toy wagon. - That's called niche marketing.
- Yeah. He takes her to a lab he built on the inside of an old airplane.
Here's a picture of it. -Of course he did!
- Is it weird that I'm starting to like this guy? - Uh a little bit.
- He's got a lab in a - in a plane? - You shouldn't like this, Link.
- With a dead woman? - That says something about you.
- I like anyone building labs in planes. - But you might like him when I tell you
that at this point inside this crazy plane contraption Carl began to bring
her back to life. He connected her bones with coat hangers. He stuffed her abdomen
and chest with rags to give the body some shape.
- Okay. - He used a bunch of perfumes and
disinfectants to deal with the odour. He replaced her decomposing skin with silk
soaked in wax and plaster. - Perfumed.
- And he even gave her glass eyes. And I know you're wondering but of course,
yes, she looked beautiful. -Oh goodness!
- (Rhett laughs) - She looks like Michael from Halloween or
- a piñata! - Oh come on! Don't talk crap about her!
- She's beautiful Link! - She's- I mean, you hit her in the wrong place
- candy comes out! - (Rhett and crew laugh)
- Or the right place. - Don't take her to a kid's birthday party
- in Southern California. So, she was so beautiful - (Link laughs). What in the world?
- that he kept her in his bed and slept with her, reportedly in both senses
- of the phrase. - Oh! Okay okay.
(crew groans) (Rhett hits the table)
- Isn't that romantic? Cue the Cuban music! No don't don't don't cue the music.
- Paper mache. - This goes on for seven years.
- He made her paper mache basically? - Yeah. But all good things must come to an end.
Link, would you believe me if I said Carl came to his senses and reburied Elena?
- Yes. Please yes. - You would be wrong. Would you believe me
if I told you a local boy spotted Carl through his window dancing with what appeared
to be a giant wax doll? - Please no.
- Because that's what happened. Carl was finally - (laughter)
- confronted because of these rumours going around town by Maria Elena's sister in 1940.
Which had to be a very awkward conversation. 'Carl, are you still sleeping with my sister?'
(laughter) - Because my sister's been dead for a decade.
- Good gosh. - (laughs)
- So authorities seized the doll, Carl's arrested for wantonly and maliciously
destroying a grave and removing the body without authorisation which you know what?
Statute of limitations is up for that. So he gets off and then he-
- He Tanzlered his way out of that one. - Yes. A public, a local funeral home puts
her body on public display because of course, it's Florida. And then eventually
- she's reburied. Now would you believe me - What?
- if I told you Carl went on to live a normal life? - Yes please.
- You'd be wrong again Link. Would you believe me if I told you Carl made another
Elena doll using a mould of her face and lived with it until he died in the arms
of this doll in 1952? - No.
- Because that, my friend, is what happened. You still like him? You still a fan?
- I don't- I'd like to go in the plane. Ah, but not if he's gonna be there.
- Okay. Carl Tanzler everybody. Count! - Can we go from creepy to heartwarming?
- Ah, slash body freezing? Cause that's where - Sure.
I'm going with this corpse. In Colorado there's a quaint little town called Nederland
and it's home to grandpa Bredo Morstoel who moved there after he died.
- (both laugh) - So grandpa Bredo dies in Norway in 1989
and his family packs him in dry ice and ships him to Oakland, California to
Transtime Cryonics facility where you know, cryonics. They freeze you forever
- Yes. Like Walt Disney. - in hopes that- That's not true.
- That's an urban legend. - Okay. Not like Walt Disney.
- But they freeze you in hopes that when technology and society advances later
that they can revive you to live eternally. - Yeah. That's awesome.
- He was placed in liquid nitrogen for almost 4 years BUT his daughter and
grandson wanted to open their own cryotel. My words not theirs.
They probably would have succeeded if they'd used that term, but it's mine
- you can't have it. - You pronounce the h Cry-hotel?
- Cryotel. - That just sounds like a place you go to weep.
- (laughs) It does, doesn't it? Cryo-hotel. - Cryohotel. Cryohotel?
- How about that? Cryohotel. - Okay alright. We'll work on it.
- Cryomotel. We'll make it a motel. Everyone can enter from the parking lot.
- Ah! Nice! Cause you got big stuff you gotta take in there.
- Well you got stiff bodies. - Bodies.
- So in 1993 grandpa was moved to Nederland Colorado to live with the daughter and grandson.
And they stuck him in a garden shed out back. The one on the left.
The one on the right is like for the lawnmower. And the one on the left is for the frozen grandpa.
- Whoa. The one he's in is bigger. - Of course!
- Eugh. - Gotta have room man. Hang up the picture
- of him above it so they don't forget. - Just to remember who it is that's in the shed?
- This is not the lawnmower. It's grandpa. - (laughs) Due to budget constraints grandpa
- was kept on dry ice. Not liquid nitrogen. - No no.
- That is expensive. - They made a homemade freezer box
made from plywood and Styrofoam which encased the metal sarcophagus that grandpa Bredo was in.
So you can see in this picture like that's the sarcophagus in the middle of this thing.
- Packed with dry ice all around it. - And listen, that's a lot of expense and a lot of work
to keep this thing frozen. They placed an ad in the local paper
for a job of transporting dry ice (muffled voice) for the body.
- (normal voice) You know they left that part off. - Small font.
- So then Bo shows up , became known as the ice man for the next 18 years.
- No. - 18 years Bo the ice man transported 1800
- pounds of dry ice to the shed and kept grandpa frozen. - But what happens when like Bo goes on vacation?
- I know. - This isn't like forgetting to feed a dog.
- No this is not. - This is like the whole thing could be undone.
Because of course one day he's gonna wake up and be like 'Hey'! 2015!'
- Or the half of him that didn't thaw - Right.
- when Bo took his vacation. - Hopefully it's not the legs.
- Yeah. - Hopefully the upper part works.
- If your legs come back to life you won't know it. - Well some people they just freeze the head.
- That's the part I'm doing. - That's cheaper. Could've just done that.
- But listen he becomes a local attraction. They let people come by and see him.
There's some kids looking at him right there. Look kids, isn't this nice?
It inspired a festival. Rhett. A festival. We can go to this festival.
- We are going. - Every March is called Frozen Dead Guy Days.
- Events include coffin racing, polar plunging - No.
- frozen turkey bowling. I hope it's a turkey. And frozen t-shirt contest.
- What else could it be? - How would you have a- parts of uncle?
- Uncle. I call him uncle now. - Okay. Oh yeah.
- He's not my grandpa. He's my uncle. Uncle Bredo. - Okay.
- Frozen t-shirt contest. We should have one of those. - Yeah that sounds a little strange.
- So of course one day they hope to unthaw grandpa Bredo and have him participate
- in the event. Isn't that cool? - I don't want to go to the festival necessarily
- but if they're gonna unthaw him I want to be there. I want to see that happen cause I want
to shake that man's perfectly un- well preserved hand. I'm sure it won't
- look like a mummy or anything. - Nope. Thanks for liking, commenting and subscribing.
- You know what time it is.
- Hi I'm Reega. I'm Kate. We live in Boulder Colorado and it's time to
spin the Wheel of Mythicality.
- We post videos to Facebook that we don't post anywhere else. They're called Facebook
exclusive videos and you should go over to our Facebook facebook.com/rhettandlink
and check em out. - Yeah. Also click through to Good Mythical More
I got one more story of 3 guys, one of them dead. It's Weekend at Bernie's
in real life. Click through to Good Mythical More. - Movie! Movie theatre yellers.
- THAT'S A GOOD MOVIE! THAT PREVIEW LOOKS LIKE IT'S GONNA BE GREAT!
- BUT HERE'S THE REAL MOVIE! - WHAT?!
- IT'S GOT- DON'T GO IN THERE! DON'T GO IN THERE YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!
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