The Vaseline: Ointment of History Expertease

Welcome one and all to the Expertise Knowledge Podcast. So glad to have you here. Our guest tonight is Danno Sullivan. Since you are an expert in the origins of Vaseline, I thought we could probe your area. What? Of Expertise. Spell drunk? Naturally. Clare Sera, what a treat to be here on your podcast from the shores of this murky backwater in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of Vaseline. Vaseline, of course, is a form of mineral spirits coagulated with a waxy substance to make it adhere to whatever it needs to adhere to. For example, right now I've covered my lips with a little bit of Vaseline to counteract the natural chap state that I find myself in this time of year.

It's exactly because you are such an interesting chap that we have invited you onto the show today. It's my dream, Clare. I live in a world of Vaseline. Everything has sort of a gauzy, beautiful light filtering aspect to me. I wasn't sure whether to bring it up, but I noticed that you are wearing spectacles that have a little bit of a filmic film. A lot of people know, Clare, that in old movies to get that ethereal glowing effect when the starlet comes on and looks so beautiful that they would actually smear Vaseline on the lens of the camera. Right, right.

Because I want to go through life, I only want to see beautiful things, Clare. Love it. By smearing Vaseline onto my own spectacle lenses, everything that I see, as long as it's backlit, takes on that beautiful, ethereal aspect. Everything that I see is like a starlet coming toward me. And that also might explain, I see that both of your legs are in casts. I thought perhaps you might have tripped a little bit not being able to really fully see what's in front of you as you walk down the street. For every ying, there is a yang. Turn, turn, turn. And you know, the plus is everything looks so beautiful, but everything is so, so hard when you crash into it.

Right. So I really am fascinated not only by the product Vaseline itself. Yes, that's trademarked, by the way. Trademarked Vaseline. I mean, it is a trademark and noun, isn't it? It's like Kleenex. Right, right. It's a generic noun at this point. That's amazing marketing, really, when you think of it. And on behalf of Vaseline, the company, I do have to mention that each time you say the name, it's 25 cents for a podcast. Oh. Would you mind if we just started again at the top of this? Sure, take it away. Yeah. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly.

You know, I did, I, of course, read your pamphlet. Yes, Vaseline and me, the Dan O'Sullivan story. By the way, that's 50 cents now. We've just said it twice. Can we beep that out in editing? Would that cancel the cost? Now, of course, the beep company charges 25 cents each time we say the word beep. But I just feel it's a moral issue. I would rather give the beep company. As you wish. It's your podcast. So Vaseline comes, oh, darn it. So your petroleum jelly product. Oh, right. There you go. That's the way to get around it. Yes. Yeah. I see how you podcasters make the big money.

All right. So we are not going to say Vaseline from this point. Oh, Oh, petroleum jelly. But all right. Yeah. Again, in your pamphlet, the fellow who put this product together and created the Vaseline of today. Wasn't he a bit of a, if not a snake oil salesman, certainly a traveling showman. He was. So you're thinking in a, uh, Robert Augustus Cheesborough, neither German nor Greek. Dr. Dr. Cheesborough. He liked to go by doctor or professor sometimes, you know, going back, it's hard to know that he had any actual titles at all. So I think of him as Mr. But he did go by Dr.

Professor, the professor. The professor and Marianne. Sometimes he would go by Marianne. Yes. Yeah. So we can just call him Marianne if that's simpler. Yeah. We won't get charged for that. Wonderful. The way he got into show business in the first place, Claire, was as a traveling oddity, you know, that it was like the, um, he himself was an oddity. He was an oddity. Claire, he was born without the top layer of the epidermis. So he was really, you would look at this man and not see a man. You would not see a body. You would see basically a six foot two oozing sore.

Oh my gosh. That was Dr. Marianne. That's more of a grotesquerie really than an oddity. In those days, you know, with the folks were, well, I was going to say a little more close-minded about different types of people, but really could we not argue that they were a little more open-minded? Well, they were open-minded if you were clothed. And in this case, he was not. The clothes would actually stick to his openness and kind of clot up. Right. Yeah. So you can just imagine one of these traveling shows coming through town. Unfortunately. Yes. You know, they'd gather a crowd and then they'd throw back the tarp on the wagon and there would just be, it was like a, an eel basically quivering in the sunshine.

I'm just, I'm, I'm glad to hear nobody made him into a pie back in those days. Well, I'm not saying they didn't. Oh my gosh. So Dr. Marianne realized that each time he was exposed to sunshine, a little bit of his money-making body was being crisped away. Oh my gosh. This is really something. He realized that with each display of his own body, he was actually losing some of his own body and losing future ability to make that money-making display. Right. And it was that clear that drove him to have a need to discover a way to keep his body visible, but protected.

So you're going to say that their traveling caravan ended up on those oil fields of Pennsylvania? I don't need to say it. You said it. Oh my gosh. You know, humankind had known about oil since ancient times. The whales. The whales knew all about oil, Clare. I'm talking about the people of whales. Yes. The Welsh, absolutely. Oily people, very oily people. And you know, we, we call it Welsh oil for a reason. Yeah, because it's from Wales. So finally, and lastly, poor Mr. Dr. Robert Marianne Cheesborough Augustus III died a very unfortunate and sad death. All he wanted, Clare, was something soothing to cover his skin with.

Yeah. So he could carry on these spectacles that he made of himself. Right. And of course his spectacles were smeared with Vaseline in the later days, but he really didn't think it through very well. You know, when you first smear Vaseline onto your skin, it does soothe. It does feel nice. I've got some on my lip right now. Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. But he did not stop his exhibitions. They'd throw back that canvas. The sun would beat down. The clear glistening Vaseline served as nothing less than a greenhouse or a magnifying glass. Oh. And that eel skin of his would just sizzle up.

It drew crowds, you know, it smelled so good. Quite an aroma for the folks gathered around. Yeah. It was like frying up onions, you know, and selling the hoagie. Well, those greenhouse gases that he was emitting by that point. That was the first smokestack, Clare. The Welsh had to discover it right then and there. So he was eaten by a hungry crowd and I guess he went out the way that he wanted to, you know, covered in something shiny and smelling good. I do remember reading that some members of the crowd were disappointed in the flavoring that the petroleum jelly provided.

Right. And so there was some oregano and mustard seed thrown in just at the last minute, which, you know, I think Dr. Marianne would have appreciated. Oh, I'm glad to hear it. And I like to think so myself, you know. He was a born innovator and a dyed Epicurean. So thanks and hats off to Mr. Marianne. You know, if he had just put a hat on Clare, it might have avoided the whole problem. Oh my gosh. Words of advice for the next generation of Vaseline lovers. I went ahead and spent the 50 cents. It's worth it sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, thank you so much for coming on.

This has been really a slippery one to get the knowledge. You're free to leave the studio. Thank you so much for coming on. I noticed that you are wearing spectacles that have a little bit of a film. Oh, my nose. Oh gosh, it's hard to see the door. Thank you so much listeners for joining us today. We've had Mr. Dan O'Sullivan, an expert on petroleum jelly known as Vaseline and the Dr. Marianne Robert-Cheeseburg who brought it to us. Stay safe. How do I get out of here? Stay expertise. My eye. The expertise spelled wrong podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome.

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