- Would you stop bathing for 60 years? - Let's talk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning. - We've all been there.
You wake up late. You've gotta get to school, or to work, or to some other
engagement. And you're like, "I don't have time to take a shower. I'll just...
I'll just, uh, get a bird bath, or I might bathe in the sink at work
- at, like, lunchtime." - Not gonna do that.
Or I've got a little bit of time, so I give myself a head shower...
- Mm. - …but I won't give myself
- a full-body shower. - Or a second layer of deodorant.
- That's my technique. Whoosh whoosh. - Oh, I do that plenty of times, too.
- Cologne. Shh shh! - But the general approach to life
and the reason why we have to rationalize all these things that we're doing when
we're late for stuff is because there's this pressure to take a bath every
- single day. To take a shower or - Mhm.
a bath, but not both. I mean, a couple of days ago, I took two showers in one day.
I started to feel a little guilty, because of the water situation here in California,
- Yeah, you shouldn't have done that. - …but besides that….
If you fall down in the shower, sometimes you take a bath at the same time.
- If there's a drain issue. - If the drain (stammering)….
- If there's a drain issue… - Whoa, I'm taking a bath!
- and you fall down… - Now I'm not!
you can find yourself in a surprise bath situation. But the facts are
skipping showers is not necessarily a bad thing. The dermatologists back us up.
They say you really should't bathe more than every two to three days. Or two to
- three times a week. You do the math. - Same difference.
If you shower too often, particularly in hot water, you can PARTICULARLY --
- I can say that word. - He can. He can.
- I just didn't want to! - Trust me. I've heard it before.
Uh, you can dry out and irritate your skin, wash away the good bacteria
- that is present on your skin, - You need that bacteria.
you can introduce small cracks in your body (laughing).
- You don't want any extra cracks. - That puts you at a higher risk
- of infection. - You wanna wash that one crack,
but you don't wanna introduce new cracks.
In the 1700s -- and probably for earlier than that, for longer than that --
people just bathed once a week, and they were fine.
Yeah, I mean, they lived to be 40. I mean, you know. (laughing)
It is said that your clothes -- do I sound defensive now? It's said that your
clothes get rid of more dirt than taking a shower.
- As long as your… It is said. - It's said?
- Who says this? - I'm not gonna say...
It's common knowledge. Well, I don't know. It's said, okay?!
- (laughing) - It's not the dermatologists.
But most of the dirt is on your clothes, if you wear clothes.
- Yeah. - And then you just change your
clothes. It's like taking a clothes shower.
I get that. Not really. Maybe.
- What your approach to bathing? - I take a shower every single morning,
almost without fail. And I do think I have, like...
- You feel pressure. - I have, like, dry skin issues...
- ...and stuff. [inaudible] - Mm. You have cracks, don't you?
And my wife takes a shower every single day, which I appreciate.
But my children… we have to be the ones to monitor them...
- Oh, gosh. Forget the children. - When I smell my 10-year-old's...
- It's a losing battle. - …hair from like six feet away,
- (snaps) he gets a shower. - He needs a shower.
And then when I see the dirt on my six-year-old -- like on his feet, it'll be
- just completely brown on the bottom, - (laughing)
of he'll have some stuff all over his face.
- Right. - Then he has to shower.
- Um, yeah, so… - Other than that.
Our kids could probably stand to bathe a little bit more, yeah. Or maybe
they're in the sweet spot. So what I would like to do -- what we're going to do --
is we're going to explore the opposite end of the spectrum. What if you never
bathe? And we have two case studies here. I've got the first one here.
A 70-year-old man named Kailash Singh lives near the Indian holy city of
Varanasi. He has not bathed in 41 years. And he looks awesome.
- That's intense. - I mean, he doesn't look dirty.
- He looks awesome. - He probably smells very intense.
He doesn't… I don't know if he's happy. He doesn't look really happy.
He stopped bathing in 1974 after he got married.
(Rhett laughing) Yeah, 'cause once you get the girl...
- Right, mission accomplished. - …then it's just like...
- "I ain't gotta bathe. - Why should I do...
- I ain't gotta bathe, girl." - Why should I do that any more?
But no, here's his real story. The priest told him that in order for him to have a
son as a heir, he needed to stop bathing. That was the priest's prescription.
- That totally makes sense. - Well, he ended up having
- seven daughters. - Mm.
But he never stopped stopping bathing.
- Yeah, yeah. - So he just kept up that habit.
- That's scientific, too. - He works on the banks of the
river Ganges in heat up to 116 degrees Fahrenheit. He has six-foot-long
dreadlocks. The dude is not six-foot tall. His dreadlocks, you can see in that picture,
- (Rhett) They drag. - (Link) They're dragging the floor.
- (Link) They're drag-locks. - (Rhett) Now, that's cool!
- (stammering) - And he seems healthy!
You can smell just a dude with dreadlocks, though. Like, just a dude with dreadlocks.
- Yeah. - Like a normal dude?
- You can smell those things, too. - You can wash dreadlocks, Rhett.
- People do it. - I know, but you can smell 'em.
- Oh, gosh. - Little dreadlocks waft sometimes.
- You ever had that? - (laughing) No, I'm gonna...
- You imagine what this smells like. - I'm gonna stay out of this one.
I'm sure we have Mythical Beasts who are dreadlocked...
- It's cool. - And you know what?
- Be proud. - You're welcome here.
- Wear 'em long. Never cut 'em. - I love the way you smell.
He does wash his hands and face with water, but he only bathes with fire.
- (laughing) How do you do that? - He dances around...
He dances around a bonfire. That's what he does. He's livin' large.
- Look at him. Kickin' back. - I've done that…
…but I never considered it a bath. I just considered it….
(unison) Camping. (laughing)
Camping! Oh, we're getting a little loopy today. I just think I'm excited...
- Ah, s'mores! - that there is a viable...
(stammering) evidence to not have to bathe. I'm excited!
- Well… - I mean, I'm not gonna apologize.
- It gets worse with this second guy... - It better.
- …who has not bathed in over 60 years. - After a few years in, it's kinda like
- a marathon. You just hit a stride. - His name is Amou Haji.
He is considered the world's dirtiest man. I don't think anybody else has been around
and not bathed as long as this guy. He's over 80 years old. He lives in
- Southern Iran, or "Ee-ron," - (Link) Uh-huh.
near the village of Dejgah. Now, there's a bunch of really cool pictures that were
taken by an Iranian news outlet that did a really good job of kinda...
almost making this guy look like a superhero.
- (Link) Like epic, yeah. - (Rhett) That like could come...
- …out of the dirt and save the day. - (laughing)
And you kinda get this impression that this guy is completely owning this
- dirtiness. He looks incredibly happy. - (Link) Yeah, he's just ecstatic.
(Rhett) I wanna hang out with this guy. From a distance.
Hold on. May I point out that he could just be squinting. He could be looking
- right into the sun in this photo. - (Rhett) I like to imagine that
he's incredibly happy. Now, he doesn't bathe because he believes that cleanliness
brings him sickness.
- Which studies show. That's true. - It is said. It is said, right?
It is said that your shirts are better than showers and cleanliness
brings you sickness. And he actually gets upset if you offer him clean food
- and water. He literally gets angry. - Okay.
So he drinks his water from a rusty oil can, and his favorite meal --
I'm not making this up -- is rotten porcupine meat.
- In Iran. - Where do you find porcupine meat?
- The Iranian desert. I guess. - And then you let it rot?
And that's what he likes, and he washes it down with his dirty, rusty water.
Well, good for him. Stare into the sun and seem happy.
He cuts his own hair, and I can identify with that move, because I also
cut my own hair. But I use clippers. He uses fire. He just burns --
this guys takes a fire bath -- your guy takes a fire bath,
- It's interesting. - my guy just burns his hair off.
What is it with these guys who… between, like, not bathing and, like,
- harnessing fire for like… - I don't know. Maybe we should...
- …grooming purposes. - …find it out. We should have like
- a fire that's always going on set. - A grooming fire.
- Yeah, a haircut. - I'm gonna trim my nose hairs
- with this uh… - Yeah, that won't go well.
He sleeps in a hole in the desert that looks a lot like a grave.
- (Link) Wow, it does. - Now, the locals wanted to
reach out to him a little bit, so they built him a brick shack. But he only uses
it in the winter, to escape the extreme cold. He's like, "I ain't sleepin' in there.
- I'm sleepin' in my grave." - Oh, gosh.
And his most prized possession is a three-inch steel pipe that he smokes
animal feces in. That is his tobacco of choice: animal feces.
Does he like dry it out first? Does he just like scoop it up and...
I guess once you light it, it just starts drying real fast.
- (laughing) - I don't know.
You think this guy cares if… He probably takes some and puts it,
and rubs it into his face while he's doing it. I mean...
That's a big pipe. I mean, that's literally like a plumber's pipe.
it's not like a pipe that you use to smoke dung with. It's pipe that you use
to like fix the sink with. That's what he's smoking.
- But you get a lot of feces in there. - (laughing)
- (stammering) I think… - He's squinting in that photo, too,
but he doesn't look as happy. So… I think he's just a squinter.
I think you could just learn a lot from this guy. I think that everybody should
- take, you know, at least… - A few years.
- A few years. A few years. - Few 60 -- a few decades.
No, we should take… Let's take a month. What if we just did a month with no
bathing. You know? No bathing, no cutting of hair. No grooming.
- Mmmmm, uh… (laughing) - (laughing and impersonating Link)
- We'll think about it, I guess. - That was like me opening the
hinge on my brain. To figure out what I thought about it.
- (both making the noise) - "Well, I'll think about that."
So, next time I have to get my kids to get in the bath...
- Show 'em this picture? - I'm gonna show 'em the pictures, like
"You wanna be like this guy?!" And they'll probably be like,
- "Yeah, those a pretty epic photos." - "Yeah, he's cool. He sleeps in a grave,
- Dad. Smokes feces. - (Link and crew offscreen laughing)
- I'm into that." - So, I think we've...
We've examined the extremes. Now you choose where you are on the spectrum
- and let us know in the comments. - Yeah, and while you're down there,
- give us a like. (laughing) - Oh, you stole...
- You can't steal that from the girls! - (Rhett and crew offscreen laughing)
- That's Hey Hey Show material. - I wanted to see if that got...
- if you picked up on that. (laughing) - You know what time it is.
My name is Devin. I'm from [Pocomoke] City, Maryland,
and it's time to spin The Wheel of Mythicality.
Sometimes you get cold in your head region, and you need a hoodie.
We've got you covered in the Good Mythical Morning hoodie!
- (Link) Ho! - Lemme stretch that out for ya.
- Hood! - It's navy. And you know what they
- say about navy: it cleans you. - Click through to Good Mythical More.
We describe how we get our kids to take showers. It ain't easy.
- ♪ (celebratory music and bell) ♪ - Oh, Link, look what happened!
- (both yelling in excitement) - (Link) We get to give somebody else
- a prize! - It's… Tr...
- (both Rhett & Link) Trmajor15! - (Rhett) Congratulations, Trmajor15.
You win a paw. I coyote paw that we used in the Get Off the Phone video.
Hmm, look at this. I have a dog paw. it's not real… or maybe it is.
- No, it is. It's totally real. - Euh. Okay, but we're gonna ship
this to you along with some Rhett & Link merch. Congratulations for
making your Win Face! Now you've got a reason
- for making it! - (making hit noises with mouth)
[Captioned by Kevin: GMM Captioning Team]