Big Time Whoopsies

Liam returns to Big Time Whoopsies to hear Eric tell about the time an auto maker offered a car to whoever won the AL Batting Title and everyone lost their minds.

Special thanks to Joe Posnanski and his Baseball 100 project, the primary source for this story.

Special guest Katie Wright of the Major Casts Network’s own Bret Easton Hell Yes joins Eric McAdams to hear the first BTW told in many a moon: the story of the most expensive war simulation the United States military ever did.

Click here to see the Twitter thread Eric mentions, and click here for an article about a certain fake reporter that Eric mentions.

Chris Compendio of AP Marvel returns to Big Time Whoopsies to hear Eric tell the tale of Woodstock. “But Woodstock was a success, wasn’t it?” You ask in a trembling, infantile voice. Well, my dear, stupid child, the first one may have been, but do you know about the second or third? How about the ones that came after that?

Anna Mei returns to Big Time Whoopsies to face her fears of dying alone in a blizzard, by hearing about a whole mess of people who died alone in blizzards. Mount Everest has so many corpses to talk about, and Eric only has so much time in the podcast!

We have a very special episode of Big Time Whoopsies today: a reverse! Ben returns to BTW to tell Eric a story about Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the United States, and its surprisingly devastating consequences.

Here’s a link to the picture Ben talks about. It’s adorable.

Here’s something you may not know about Eric, Tom, and Liam, the co-founders of the Major Casts Network: they’re all from Washington, DC, and therefore they all have stories of times when the DC Metro didn’t work. Come listen to Eric tell the story of the DC Metro, and also mispronounce “WMATA” a lot.

Here’s a link to the article Eric mentions as the main source for the story.

Make sure to support the Major Casts Network on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/majorcasts

Lily returns to learn all about the Year of the Four Emperors, a very important year in Roman history! And it turns out there’s a twist, as Eric tells her more about Roman emperors than she ever bargained for!

Content warning: as with most stories from ancient Roman history, there’s a lot of mention of murder and suicide in this episode.

Auspicious (adjective): Conducive to or indicative of future success.

Andrew returns, this time with his friend Jack! They go with Eric on a trip to WWII-era Holland, where the Dutch government has just found out one of their national treasures was sold to a Nazi by a man named Han van Meegeren. But not all is as it seems–it’s twist after turn in this episode, every single one dumber than the last.

We continue our journey through 19th century China with a look at the God Worshipping Society, a group of Christians with some wild beliefs who had a way bigger impact on the country than you might expect. Liliane returns to hear Eric tell the tale of Hong Xiuquan and his many, many followers.

I would like to apologize for whatever mistakes I made in the pronunciation of Chinese names, as I’m sure there were several.

Ah, the joys of test-taking. Who doesn’t like writing an essay under immense pressure? This week on Big Time Whoopsies, Major Casts co-founder Liam Senior joins Eric to discover the highs and the lows of the Chinese civil service exams.

Edit: I kind of garbled the list of works students were expected to know by heart, so click here for a more complete look. Also, the main source for this episode is China’s Examination Hell by Ichisada Miyazaki, translated by Conrad Schirokauer. You can find it here.