The Sore Feet Expertease

Welcome to the podcast. Today, our audience is made up of people with comfortable shoes. And Danno, that's your area of... Spelled wrong? Aren't you supposed to say spelled wrong when I say it to you? You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer, Clare Sera, and expert comedy writer, Danno Sullivan, bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Hello, and welcome to our podcast today. We have a very exciting expert in orthopedic shoe insoles.

I am excited to use my tongue to speak on a subject that's close to my soul. Clare, I can't tell you how fortunate I feel to be here as someone who's an expert on the insoles and inserts of shoes. I am not invited on very many podcasts, as you can imagine. I, Danno, I can't imagine because I will just say Dr. Scholl's changed my life. The original Dr. Scholl's or the current Dr. Scholl's? I assumed that the current Dr. Scholl's was an heir apparent of the original Dr. Scholl's. Those are heir soles. Yes. There was a little bit of a kerfuffle. Yeah. In olden times, the original Dr.

Scholl's was considered to be a con man. And there's been a lot of work in the last decades to try to overcome that reputation. Well, now, Danno, this has brought an expertise into your area of expertise. I'm fascinated to find out what kind of con the original Dr. Scholl's pulled. Like Coca-Cola was made with cocaine back in the 1800s. Sure, sure. Dr. Scholl's, anything that you can imagine was put into one of those to try to bring a little comfort to the sore-footed person of the time. So there were things like, oh, poisonous mercury. Poisonous mercury, as opposed to.

Not poisonous mercury, which they could have used, but is much more expensive because of filtering process. Filtering, of course. But you can imagine the comfort of setting your foot into a non-Newtonian liquid and just getting that sloshing sense sort of enfolded in a warm metal substance that will seep into your pores and kill you very, very quickly. And also, if I may point out, it was at this time in unionizing history that bathroom breaks were mandatory. Sure. Yeah. So there was some extra walking right there. Well, yeah. And if your foot is sloshing about in liquid insoles, you're going to need more bathroom breaks.

How do you reckon? Oh, I'm going by that old adage. If someone's napping, put their hand in some water. That's not an adage, Claire. That's a practical joke. You make it sound like a bit of old folk wisdom. Like you're trying to help someone. But that's just a dirty practical joke when you put somebody's hand in a bowl of warm water. It's helpful to someone who might be having problems. So I do see how you could confuse the two. Thank you. The idea of putting your hand in a bowl of water or putting your foot in a shoe of mercury. Some of the other substances in the original Dr.

Scholl's Innersoles, there was broken glass. Oh, I don't understand the thinking behind that. There was actually great thinking behind that, which was if it's your shoe that's causing you pain, get your foot the hell out of the shoe. So by filling it with shards of broken glass, there was zero inducement to put your foot into that shoe. That is some really advanced thinking. We see it that way now, Claire. There's a great wisdom from times of the past. It's hard for us to look back and glean that wisdom because we feel like in modern times, we've made all the mistakes, we've discovered all the answers.

But there is true wisdom sometimes that we've left behind. Sometimes you have to take two steps backward to take one step forward. Sometimes you have to put two hands in a bowl to take one leak. I would walk 500 miles in Dr. Scholl's Innersoles. Did you see our ad from the 1990s with exactly that headline? Oh, I did not. With that Scottish band. One shoe was proclaiming, I would walk 500 miles. And the other shoe proclaims, I would walk 500 more. Except that there's glass in my foot. You're conflating times. That was old enough. This was the 1990s. We were trying to make Dr.

Scholl's cool for the kids. Oh, is it? Well, this was the Gellin period. Are you Gellin? I'm Gellin. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we had those gel inserts. Right. And we were trying to, you know, fill the language with the language of Dr. Scholl's. And you know, it did sort of catch on with the kids. There was the MC Hammer Pants and we'd get kids to say, are you hammering? And they'd say, yeah, I'm hammering. Are you hammering? And then we'd get out those blue inserts. The gel inserts. Yeah. Yeah. Are you Gellin? Yeah, I'm Gellin. Right. And now I wanted to know why those were named after Magellan because he sailed.

Didn't it? Wasn't he a sailor? He circumnavigated the earth clear. Sure. That's one way to look at it. So that was our advertisement was Magellan standing as a thwart, the globe taking one giant step from pole to pole with great comic cartoon drawn bunions. Oh, right. Kind of sparking from his feet. Oh my gosh. And Paul Bunyan was one of your mascots for a few years too, as you tried to tie that. Yeah, Paul Bunyan was one of our more successful advertising campaigns because it was so narrowly focused. That's the thing in the advertising world. You really need to know who your audience is.

And in that case, our audience was 40 foot tall lumberjacks with blue oxen. I don't want to bring up the controversy, but since you're not, I will. Dr. Scholz was accused of creating insoles, chiropractic insoles for his shoes to get out of serving in the military. Yeah. He created convex insoles that made him appear flat footed is the accusation. He had such healthy arches that he actually made anti-arching shoes. This served successfully, Claire, to keep him out of the first world war and the second world war and Korea. So they were very well done anti-arching shoes.

Um, he also went on to not serve in Vietnam and Kuwait. But didn't he get in trouble for selling these to young men of the time? So they too could dodge the draft. Yeah. Dr. Scholz had a lot of problem with young men at various times, you know, he'd meet a young man in a public, public location. And before you know it, he'd be dipping his hand in a bowl of warm water. But when that story leaked, it was really, really devastating to the company. The whole thing with the, uh, the army soldiers that really did stir up some problems because, you know, uncle Sam needed young men with strong arches.

And, uh, there was a big movement to not go to fight when called upon. And these insoles provided a way for a lot of people to get out. But the flip side of that, Claire, is it created a super arch shoe that by wearing it in reverse mode, which is to say by strapping it onto the bottom of your foot, not only would that naturally make you taller, but it would create a reinforced arch. So Dr. Scholz intentionally or not created a type of super soldier. Claire, let me ask you this, who won world war one, who won world war two, who had to leave Vietnam in shame and embarrassment, but feet held high.

Let's talk about his lighthearted foray into animal hospital, uh, to a little tree, hospitality, hospitality, animal hospitality, where he was just like really nice to animals for a while. This is really sweet. Claire, he loved animals more than people. In some ways, he replaced a lot of the soldiers that he had hired to go to war in his stead. He actually wound up hiring animals to fill a lot of those positions. He sent a pig into world war one. There was a donkey that went to world war two on his behalf. And for the Korean war, it was actually just an adorable little, what are the long, long eared bunnies?

Oh yeah. March hair. Sure. Let's call it a March hair. So that's how much he loved the animals that he was willing to send them into battle. And because he loved them, he took to holding their feet closely, examining them closely. Not unlike the way he examined those young men's hands in public places. And the thing that he found right off the bat was that, you know, they say a rabbit's foot is a lucky, lucky charm. It's lucky for you if you're the human who's got it. But if you're the rabbit, who's got four of them, that is no luck at all. You're being worn right down to the haunch.

Right. So the original Dr. Scholz, he would examine the paws or the hooves or the feet. In public places. Naturally. Always in public. There was nothing, nothing untoward in any of this. Just to see what they needed. And he was able to craft insoles for the horseshoes and outsoles for the other animals. You know, I, for the horses, I do understand because they are beasts of burden. There was some controversy around the race horses. None of those horses won. They actually clip clopped a lot slower than the other. The insole was never built for speed. It was built for comfort.

Right. Do you ever wear high heels, Claire? Oh, I sure do. Yeah. And I'll bet you look great, but how fast can you run? I can get up to 20, 30 miles an hour. Have you ever considered entering a horse race? Because a lot of those horses with the Dr. Scholz inserts are not moving that fast. And some of the prize money is pretty big, pretty enticing. I really hadn't thought about that. Although I will say I have enjoyed my high heels more since Dr. Scholz created inserts for high heels. What a way to keep up with the times. Yes. Are you jellin'? I'm a jellin'. Probably, at least in Dr.

Scholz's personal experience, wearing the high heels was by far the least comfortable of the shoes that he would wear strictly, strictly in public places. In public places, he'd wear his high heels. No, you are, you are painting a picture of Dr. Scholz. Dr. Scholz is very proud of his work with the high heels, or as he called them during World War II, high heels. This has really been an interesting insight into the life and legacy of Dr. Scholz. Claire, I'd like to offer your listeners a coupon. Oh, we don't normally do that. I mean, usually that would go in the show notes, but no, but, but, but go ahead.

What they need to do is just type in the code V-L-C-T-R-T-R-T-R-3 T-R-3 again. T-R-3 again. Not the word again. I was just saying again. Oh, T-R-3. T-R-3. Zero, zero, O-O, no, that's zero, zero, O-O, O-Zero. And that'll save them a dollar. Oh, that's great. On any product? On any product that we sell. Of course, of course. On any product that you sell on your website, which is. Oh, I'm sorry. We don't have a website. They'll have to come to the store. Uh, we have Dr. Scholz outlets now. Oh, old brick and mortar. Brick and mortar. That's us. All right. Remember Photomat in the 1970s and 60s?

I only met him once, but. Good old Photomat. Really interesting fella. Photomat were those little standalone huts in the middle of parking lots. Yes. Where you could drop off your film to get it developed. Right. Well, with the rise of digital photography, Photomat has just gone right out the window. Nobody needs to drop off their film anymore, but there are all those weird little kiosks in the middle of parking lots. And the only way to get to them, the only way to access them now is by foot, so it's really worked out well. We've taken over those kiosks for our Dr.

Scholz products. People have to walk to them, getting sore feet in the process. Oh my gosh. You can't really walk in because it's so small. There's only room for the clerk and maybe 10 of our pads. But anybody who comes to one of our kiosks with that code I gave you, you need me to repeat that? No, we've got that. That's recorded and I'll put it in the show notes. Okay. Cause I can repeat that if you need me to. No, we've got that. That's recorded and I'll put it in the show notes. V L C T R T R T R 3 T R 3 again. T R 3 again. Not the word again. I was just saying again.

Oh, T R 3 T R 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. So anyone can bring that code to repeat that? No, I, we've got that. That's recorded and I'll put it in the show notes. If the product they want happens to be one of the 10 to 15 that we have in stock in that very small little hut, we'd be happy to give them that big discount. Well, you are there for the people, uh, Dr. Shulvin and, uh, we, the people, all of us with feet appreciate that dearly. The expertise spelled wrong podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.

A lot of people have expressed curiosity at the fact that Dr. Shul sells a product that is good for the soul and wondered if that was some sort of a marketing device. What do you think? Oh, I, I've always assumed he was some kind of a man of some spiritual nature on a quest to, you know, upgrade humankind. A lot of people do worry that what he's doing is not good for mankind. That if God had intended our feet to be comfortable, he would have given us comfortable feet. And that by creating this, um, false method of having foot comfort, we're going against the way humans were meant to exist.

I knew that there was a spiritual bent to your company. Uh, I have been spiritually bent in public places. In public places.