- What are we drinking?
- Vodka. - There's a moth.
- There's so many-- - I wasn't swatting at you.
- No, I know, I have a moth infestation.
- I see that. - It's terrible.
[laughs] I got to get a [bleep]ing--
[laughing] - Classic--
- It's the worst! [smacks]
There's a--I don't want to kill him, though.
- Why? - 'Cause they deserve to live.
There happen to be in the cave
of a super-advanced monkey species
that wants nothing more than to kill them
just because they don't fit in.
To inventors.
Thank God for you.
Let's do this, man. I feel so drunk.
[blows]
Good day.
My name is Duncan Trussell...
and today we're gonna talk about Edison.
[laughs]
[cheerful music]
This story starts in New Jersey with Thomas Edison.
One of the great inventors of the time.
Known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park."
He would get poor geniuses, gather them together,
and he's like
If it's good I'm gonna say it's mine. Whatever.
You're gonna make money, so just do it.
An inventor by the name of Muybridge
came to New Jersey, shows this incredible device.
He managed to take a bunch of pictures
of a horse running and spin them on a cylinder
in a way that gave it animation.
And Edison's like
A hor--a horse... running.
[chuckles] Cool invention or whatever. Bye.
And then he's like
figure this [bleep] out because people are gonna
wanna watch this stuff.
We gotta start working on this [bleep]...
right [bleep]ing now.
And then in 1893 Edison is like
I figured out how to do it, guys!
I can--I can photograph
and make a movie. We can make movies now.
I came up with the very first camera, the Kinetograph
and I figured out a way to look at the strings
of moving pictures-- a Kinetoscope,
and it's all my idea. My idea!
He has people-- [laughing]
I'm too drunk.
Why would I take another drink?
So Edison needed content for his Kinetoscopes
and everything he was putting out was [bleep].
He's like
and then vaudeville scenes, people chasing each other.
Let's film a blacksmith's shop. Everyone's gonna wanna see that.
Right, guys? Right? Right!
And they filmed it.
People were into it, man. Freaking out.
Everyone's like
Oh, you've got to go. It's incredible!
So people came to Edison, they're like
Hey, look what we can do.
We can project images on the screen.
He's like
I can't believe I invented that.
That's incredible. I am so [bleep]ing smart!
Let's patent this [bleep].
Movies take off. People love it.
They went to these places called nickelodeons.
For a nickel you're in a Greek theatre.
Come on in!
People would sit in those theatres and be like
This is awesome.
So then Edison creates an industry town
and everyone comes to Fort Lee to start making movies
and Edison squeezes all of them.
He was like
The Edison Trust and all of you assholes
can join together with me and we're gonna make it so that
no other mother[bleep]ers make movies except us.
Got it? Write it down in your notebook.
And everyone's like
I don't want you to sue me, so I'll just agree
to whatever you say because you're super-rich
and I just wanna make art. So, great.
Sounds good.
They created a monopoly on all filmmaking.
There was a--a fellow by the name of Carl Laemmle.
He went to one of Edison's [bleep] shows.
He's like
People are paying a nickel to watch this [bleep]?
Why don't we try to make our own movies?
And so Carl Laemmle starts making movies.
He creates his own theatre and Edison's like
No. No.
I'm sorry, you-- what are you doing?
You're not allowed to... make movies.
And you're definitely not allowed to show movies
on my [bleep]ing equipment without paying me
a [bleep]ing licensing fee.
How dare you?
He sues Laemmle 284 times.
Laemmle's number one dream,
I just wanna one day make enough money
to take my family on a vacation in Europe.
And Edison is like
I'm gonna squash you like a [bleep]ing bug.
I'm The Wizard of Menlo Park!
Take your [bleep]ing family on a vacation up my ass!
- [laughs]
- [kisses] Oh, God, he was just--
he was just eating a turd in the yard.
- Elon Musk, he's doing the opposite of what Edison did.
He's giving away his patents
and it's no accident that Elon Musk's company
is named after the guy that Edison f--
metaphorically mouth [bleep]ed.
- [laughs] - Edison was a bastard!
Imagine 284 lawsuits, man.
But Leammle was like
I'm gonna keep making these movies.
And Edison, faced with true opposition,
started sending thugs to Leammle's movie theatres.
People were just sitting and enjoying movies
and all of a sudden Edison thugs would come
crashing through the door and be like
[bleep] off! No one's watching this [bleep]!
This is not an Edison film!
They would go to the productions,
beat up the [bleep]ing actors,
but Laemmle didn't back down.
There's three guys who kept making movies.
Laemmle, Fox, and Zukor, and finally they realized,
What the [bleep] are we doing in New Jersey?
We're shooting films in New Jersey
and on a daily basis getting sued and beaten up.
Let's get the [bleep] outta New Jersey.
How about we go to [bleep]ing Los Angeles
where it's sunny all the time
and you don't get your ass kicked by a dick.
That's-- [laughs]
That makes great sense. [laughing]
That's a great idea. [laughs]
[snorts]
They headed to L.A. and those three heroes
created Universal Studios,
Fox, and Paramount.
The United States government recognized
that the Edison Trust was a monopoly
and they broke it up.
Uh, sorry, Edison, you can't have control
over all film being made in the world.
If we let you have your way, then people would be looking at
cats boxing until the planet blew up, you [bleep].
You're trying to ruin your species,
and you don't even realize it,
you greedy, reptilian [bleep] bag.
Still people are gonna think you're great, though.
No one's gonna know, so...
congratulations, demon.
[epic music]
I'm not saying inventors don't--don't deserve to be
rewarded for their inventions, but instead of suing people,
you work with them and then the end result of that
is the entire planet wakes up,
we experience what's called the singularity,
everybody gets dissolved by nanobots,
and we travel through the universe
as infinite beings of love.