Oct 20, 2026 · 1 hr 23 min · 37 segments
Elmer McCurdy came of age at the end of the Old West, and as it vanished he tried to grab at that outlaw life while it was still a real thing. Trouble was, he was not good at being a bad man. In…
Zaron BurnettHostElizabeth DuttonHostWell, I think what I'm thinking of in my head right now, as opposed to in my feet, is how nauseated I got when you told the story of Einstein's brain.
Oh, I forgot about that one because it's only one body part.
Like I literally felt sick.
Oh, yeah.
No, that was a rough one.
Like
as if someone made me eat Gray Ranch.
Yes.
Well, see, I'm so clinical it didn't bother me because it's like a brain in a solution.
But you're like over there picturing it not in a cartoon way for once.
Yeah, I know, right? Well, this, Elizabeth, this story, before we get to the body, let's meet the man who once called that body home.
Okay.
His name was Elmer McCurdy.
And he was a bad man.
A
bad man.
Trouble for Elmer was he was not very good bad man, as in he was not good at being a bad man.
Yeah.
So Elmer McCurdy, he enjoyed a bizarre level of posthumous fame.
For instance, there's a BBC documentary about him.
There are not one but two biographies written about him.
There are multiple poems about him.
There was a Celtic folk band that wrote a song about him.
And in Oklahoma, he's the star attraction for a dinner theater-like rendition of his life story that's dubbed a murder mystery weekend.
Oh.
Well, I think what I'm thinking of in my head right now, as opposed to in my feet, is how nauseated I got when you told the story of Einstein's brain.
Oh, I forgot about that one because it's only one body part.
Like I literally felt sick.
Oh, yeah.
No, that was a rough one.
Like
as if someone made me eat Gray Ranch.
Yes.
Well, see, I'm so clinical it didn't bother me because it's like a brain in a solution.
But you're like over there picturing it not in a cartoon way for once.
Yeah, I know, right? Well, this, Elizabeth, this story, before we get to the body, let's meet the man who once called that body home.
Okay.
His name was Elmer McCurdy.
And he was a bad man.
A
bad man.
Trouble for Elmer was he was not very good bad man, as in he was not good at being a bad man.
Yeah.
So Elmer McCurdy, he enjoyed a bizarre level of posthumous fame.
For instance, there's a BBC documentary about him.
There are not one but two biographies written about him.
There are multiple poems about him.
There was a Celtic folk band that wrote a song about him.
And in Oklahoma, he's the star attraction for a dinner theater-like rendition of his life story that's dubbed a murder mystery weekend.
Oh.
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