With episode titles like “Hitler’s Drug Problem”, “How Nestle Starved a Bunch of Babies” and “John of God: Oprah’s Favorite Ghost-Channeling Rapist Surgeon” you know this podcast has some wild tales to tell.
Hosted by former editor at Cracked.com – Robert Evans, whose career currently includes hosting this podcast, and being an author at the investigative reporting site bellingcat.com, this podcast discusses some of the worst people in history, their backgrounds, and the aftermath of the things they got up to.
I first heard of this podcast when it was new, advertised on other shows under the iheart radio umbrella, but it wasn’t until the death of notorious lunatic John McAfee died, that I decided to listen to Behind the Bastards two-part episode on the subject, titled “John McAfee Is Not Funny Anymore”. They aired in early 2019, so well before he died, and I heartily recommend everyone listen to this remarkable account of a tech mogul who redefined burning the candle at both ends, setting the bar for eccentricity and privilege for what I suspect might be decades to come.
McAfee
Action Park
In 1978, a white-collar criminal by the name of Gene Mulvihill decides to get to the bottom of the age-old question: What happens if we build an amusement park with complete disregard for physics, and federal safety regulations? The answer is Action Park. The kind of park where rides were designed on the back of napkins by someone who doesn’t understand engineering, and the staff are inebriated teenagers. The kind of place where you have to pain the bottom of the wave pool white, so it’s easier to look for corpses.
Perhaps you wish to light fuel-soaked tennis balls on fire and launch them at workers? Or maybe getting drunk, disabling the speed governor on a go-kart and taking it for a spin on the interstate? How about rolling a cart with no functioning brakes down a track made of concrete, fiberglass and asbestos for a mile, with no safety precautions whatsoever, including not removing the rocks surrounding the slide? If none of these are your speed, perhaps Vernon NJ in the 80s just wasn’t for you. The episode detailing this stuff might be just the thing however.
There are also a few good documentaries on the rise and fall of Action Park.
King Leopold and the Congo
Ever thought to yourself: Other people shouldn’t have hands? Perhaps entertained the thought of stealing an entire country, looting it’s resources, and killing 8-15 million people in the process? Ever wanted to round off your day of genocidal greed by taking your tricycle to meet your teenage prostitute girlfriend?
Well, then you and Leopold II of Belgium have a lot in common.
This arch-bastard stole Congo, turned into a rubber- and ivory factory, and worked it’s population to death. Those who didn’t work hard enough had their hands or feet chopped off as punishment. Meanwhile, he fell in love with a teenage prostitute, who scammed him out of everything he had, and left his children without an inheritance. Probably just as well she did, to be honest.
The full story can be heard on Behind the Bastards, in a two-part episode Robert did on “King Leopold II – The first modern bastard”. A strong recommendation from me, and I’m now reading the book much of the book was sourced from, called “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild.