"Why don't we all just like, be together?

"We'll just be like a unit."

And Katharine's like, "Maybe I'll meet someone

"I actually like, like you guys are my brothers,

"and I don't really feel like that about you guys,

"and I don't think I should feel like that about you guys."

They're like, "No, no, no, no, no.

"Let's just stick together and be like a thing."

(dramatic music)

- Hello, I am Paget Brewster,

and today we are going to talk about the Kellogg brothers.

In 1876, Dr. John Kellogg created a sanitarium

in Battle Creek, Michigan,

except he was an orator in the Seventh Day Adventist church.

He tells his patients no sex, no meat,

no alcohol, no sugar,

no anything prurient or sensual.

(bleep)

Aren't you guys tired?

Psh, shh! - Can I?

All right.

- He tells his patients, "You need to take

"at least two solid, ropy poops per day."

In 1880, Dr. John reaches out to his younger brother, Will,

who he beat up the whole time he was growing up,

and he says, "Hey, leave that broom company.

"I got to this, you know, sanitarium spa thing.

"There's over 1,000 people a week here,

"hanging out, swimming and doing stuff.

"You should just come and, you know,

"help me out with everything."

And Will says, "Okay, I gotta get the (bleep) outta here."

Will, he's just sort of this sad little whipping boy

for his big famous brother, John.

He actually said, "I use my brother

"as a foot warmer in the winter."

I don't even know what that means.

Like, he beat him up and he stuck his feet

under him for the, anyway.

He has to shave him.

He actually has to call his own brother Dr. Kellogg.

And has to run the kitchen,

and has to run the books.

So, Dr. John tells his younger brother Will,

"Hey, make something that people want to eat,

"because no one wants vegetarian food.

"So, you do this cause I'm busy.

"I gotta, you know, do lectures and stuff."

So Will, whose bookkeeping office

is next to the kitchen.

One night, he's trying to make

this stupid vegetarian (bleep).

He leaves the dough out.

He comes in the next morning,

and the dough that he left out has molded.

And he's like, oh goddamnit, (bleep) is moldy.

(bleep) it, I'm on a budget.

And he puts it through the grinder anyway.

And the small amount of mold

made that dough flakes, cornflakes!

And he's like, oh, oh (bleep),

oh we made, I made a cereal!

So he tells John, John comes down oh, you know,

and then they start producing this cereal, cornflakes,

like cornflakes that we all know,

that Will discovered with mold.

One week, C.W. Post, this industrialist is visiting,

and John says, "Oh, you should see

"the cornflakes we're making.

"We're making our own cereal."

And Will is saying, "Oh, no, don't, I made that.

"Don't you say," and...

Oh, oh, I'm not talkin' right.

All together, but close enough.

C.W. Post steals it, sells it,

makes a million dollars.

So Will's like, "(bleep) you man,

"you (bleep) me, you (bleep) us!

"If we add sugar, we can sell the cereal."

And John says, "You can't put sugar on it.

"That's not Seventh Day Adventist.

"Who do you think you are?"

Will says, "Oh, you know, you know who I think I am?

"I think I'm the guy who invented (bleep) cornflakes.

"I'm gonna put sugar on 'em and sell 'em and (bleep) you."

So he takes his cereal, and he sets up

the Kellogg Toasted Flakes Company.

Will makes it a million dollar enterprise.

He's like, I'm putting sugar on my (bleep), you!

The younger brother now finally comes out

of his older brother's shadow,

and becomes a huge American industrialist.

The brothers sue each other back and forth for 10 years.

I want the name of Kellogg's.

I want the name of Kellogg's.

I want the name of Kellogg's.

No, I deserve it.

I made the, whatever.

So, Will, this younger brother,

wins the name in federal court.

I'm gonna burp.

- [Derek] It's okay.

- I hope it's just a burp.

Will is a huge industrialist in the United States.

He invents a bunch of cereals.

Meanwhile, John loses all credibility.

In 1943, John is on his death bed.

He writes to his younger brother,

having not spoken for the past 20 years.

And he gave it to his social secretary, or whatever.

He had no family.

His only family was Will.

She never sent it, but Will eight years later, also dying,

blind, was told on his deathbed,

"Your brother wrote a letter

"eight years ago saying,

"I'm sorry, I screwed up, I apologize.

"I treated you as a lesser man,

"when in fact I was the lesser man."

Essentially that's what he said.

I read it, but I can't remember entirely.

But that's essentially what he said.

Sorry.

Will sat up on his deathbed, and said "Good God,

"why didn't anyone tell me about this before now?"

And he died!

(dramatic music)

That's just awful. - Yeah.

- That's the (bleep) worst.

(cereal crunching)

Yeah, but right?

Like, Will was right.

You wanna put some sugar on 'em.

- Yeah, it is lacking sugar.

- Otherwise it's just mold.

Mold flakes.

That's good.

- How's it going?

I'm Hollywood's J.D. Ryznar, and today

we're gonna talk about the Fox sisters,

and all the ghosts they talked to.

- I'm gonna prove you wrong on that.

- So, our story begins in the 1840s

in the small farmhouse of the Fox family.

And it's a spooky house.

They hear sounds at night, and knocks on the door.

Phantom steps on the stairs.

(fist knocking)

And young Maggie and Katy Fox

run into their parents' room and say,

"Mom, Dad, there's a fricking ghost in our room!

"You gotta come check it out."

And the mom runs into the room,

and the girls are like, "Ghost, are you there?"

Tap, rap, ghost, are you there?

Rap two times for yes, three times for no.

And the ghost goes (knocks twice),

and the mom's like, "Oh my, holy smokes!

"It's a ghost in our house!"

What they learned from the rapper,

once they figured out a special code,

was that this ghost was a peddler

who was murdered,

and buried in their cellar.

And the mom, she starts bringing neighbors over

and everybody was like, "Oh my, these girls

"can talk to ghosts and the spirits of the dead.

"This is the real deal!"

So, fearing for their daughters' souls,

Ma and Pa Fox send Maggie and Katy off to live

with their sister Leah in Rochester, New York.

And when Leah saw their skills with communicating to ghosts,

she was like "I'm gonna be your manager,

"and we're gonna make a lot of money!"

So she invites the press, and the press comes,

and they're skeptical.

They're like, "These ghost girls can't talk to ghosts.

"This is garbage."

But Maggie and Katy are so good,

they convince the press,

like your sister has three dead babies.

And he's like, my sister has three dead babies,

I believe you!

And all the sudden, everybody believes it.

And the Fox sisters were the first people ever

to be called mediums.

And so, this new thing called spiritualism

lights a blaze across the United States of America.

But wait, stop the reenactment,

because guess what, Derek Waters?

It's all bullshit.

(J.D. babbles)

You ever see "Wayne's World?"

- [Derek] Of course I've seen "Wayne's World."

- That's what they do when they do a flashback.

We're gonna do one now.

This is gonna be good.

Make the picture look wavy.

(J.D. babbles)

So, here's what really happened.

Maggie and Katy are pulling pranks on their parents.

On April Fools Eve, the girls are tying apples to strings

and making sounds up the stairs.

Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

Katy says to Maggie, "You know how you can snap your toes

"Like you snap your fingers?

"You should do that, and they'll think it's the ghosts,

"because they're dumb!"

So they were cracking their toe knuckles,

and snapping their toes like this.

And that was the raps the ghosts made.

These little kids were (bleep) with their mom.

Next thing they knew they're making money,

but Maggie says to Katy like,

"Hey, this is not quite a good idea,

"'cause we're kinda foolin' people into this."

And Katy's like, "We should keep doing this

"'cause this is fun!

"We're making people believe anything they want,

"we're making people feel good."

(blows raspberry)

It's 1888.

Once the girls got super rich,

rippin' people off with their fancy ghost stories,

they just drinkin' booze and talkin' to each other,

going like, "I feel so shitty that we're rippin' people off

"and makin' 'em feel good about talking to dead people."

And so, Maggie sells tickets to a show at a theater

where she's gonna expose spiritualism as a fraud.

People file in, they're like,

"Let's hear what's happened."

So Maggie takes the stage in this theater

and is like, "Here's how we do it."

And she takes off her stocking,

and she's like, "I click my toes, like this."

(snapping fingers)

I can't do it.

If I could do it, I'd be making $1,000 a week

as a stupid medium making people think

they're talkin' to their dead babies.

Boop, boop, boop!

Give me $1,000.

Boop, boop, boop, give me another $1,000.

Boop, boop, I'm rich.

Maggie gives this big presentation.

She gives away all her secrets.

At the end of her speech, she says

"Spiritualism is the greatest curse mankind has ever known."

And the audience is like, (bleep) her,

we like talkin' to ghosts.

Spiritualism has taken off at that point,

and so basically what Maggie Fox has done

is made her and her sisters irrelevant.

So after Maggie realizes that her life is nothing

once she's not a medium,

she just drank a bunch of booze 'til she died.

(J.D. slurping)

(J.D. sighs)

(eerie music)