Drunk History (2013–…): Season 4, Episode 3 - Bar Fights - full transcript

AMBER RUFFIN: Carrie Nation was like,

"Alcohol is terrible,"
so she smashes this bar up.

But she be wrong, though,
'cause this shit is delicious.

KYLE KINANE: "They're all in Tennessee!

"I'm Andrew goddamn Jackson."

Get them giggles out.

Ooh, yeah!

CRISSLE WEST: The 1960s
is a very tumultuous time.

So Marsha P. Johnson smashed
that shit against the mirror and said,

"I got my civil rights!"

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]



Oh, what you're drinking tastes like poop.

- Mmm?
- Oh, apple poop.

[LAUGHING]

Not so great. What is that?

- Apple poop.
- It tastes like apples.

Yeah.

Hmm. I like it.

- It's okay. Yours is definitely better.
- Yeah.

You know, it's crazy,
I really thought that was gonna happen.

And I was like, I'm gonna do like, um...

What is it? The, um...

What's the fucking cartoon that does this?

- The... The Lady and the Tramp.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks.

[LAUGHING] Lady and the Tramp.



- "Alvin and the Chipmunks." All right.
- [LAUGHING]

Hello, I'm Amber Ruffin,

and today, we're gonna talk about
the saloon smasher.

DEREK WATERS: Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.

AMBER: [GIGGLING]
Our story starts in Kansas!

Carrie Nation married a man,

but he dies of alcoholism.

So, in 1900,

she prayed for God to tell her what to do.

"Jesus, let me know what I can do

"to stop people from drinking."

God said to her,

"Go to Kiowa, Kansas,

"not Iowa, Carrie,

"and I will stand with you."

And she did.

So, she goes to Kiowa, Kansas.

She brings, like, bricks and rocks

to smash up bars.

And that's when the real shit went down.

She was like,
"I don't want to strike you, barkeep,

"but I will break up this den of vice."

So...

- DEREK: "Den of vice"?
- This den of vice.

AMBER: The barkeep was like,
"That... This has never happened,

"so I don't know what
you're talking about."

[SLURPING]

Sorry, that was loud.

"You don't know shit,
because my husband

"fucking died of alcohol.

"P.S. I super-hate alcohol."

So...

Um, she smashes this bar up,

and this is the first time anyone has ever
fucking freaked out like a crazy person.

She smashes up all that shit.

She's smashing up, um,
all of his bottles of alcohol.

Well, it's fucking
illegal for him to have it.

And smashing is fun. [LAUGHING]

She smashed everything. [GIGGLING]

She comes out of his bar.
There's a huge crowd,

because people have never seen
anything like this.

So everyone's out there going,

"Yay! We like that that happened!"

And so she gains a lot of supporters.

At this point, it's illegal
to sell liquor in Kansas.

- [CHUCKLES] Those assholes.
- [CHUCKLES]

AMBER: So, Carrie goes to three other bars,

smashes their shit up too.

And then, finally, the
town marshal is like,

"Please stop. I'm going
to have to arrest you."

She goes... She gets arrested.

She is arrested for seven weeks.

So, she gets out of jail.

Um, she goes to two other cities in Kansas.

When she gets to Wichita, she says,

"Men of Wichita, this
is the right arm of God,

"and I am destined to destroy

"every saloon in your city."

She goes into the Carey Hotel Bar.

She smashes up every bottle of alcohol.

She smashes up every mirror, every window.

She smashes it good,

because Jesus told her to smash,

and when Jesus say "smash," she smash.

She does $3,000 worth of damage.

Now, during one of her smashies...

- Oh, I like the smashies.
- [AMBER LAUGHING]

I wanted to call it "smashies."

- I don't know that she did.
- [CHUCKLES]

A fan of hers gives her a hatchet.

Carrie is like, "Enough with the bricks.
Let's get to the real shit, a hatchet."

[LAUGHING] So, she goes up to this bar,

gets into the bar,

and smashes up every bottle of alcohol.

Every.

[LAUGHING] Ev-er-y, ev-er-y...

Everly Cleary?

"Every" is what you should say.
But I'm saying "ev-er-y."

That's weird.

So, she smashes up everything in the bar.

And she leaves the bar.

And she's out talking
to this huge mass of people, and it's like,

"Alcohol is terrible. Don't drink."

Everyone was like,
"Whoo, we're eating this shit up."

So, she's famous.

Now she is famous.

So, she goes around

the whole United States of America.

She tours. She smashes up bars.

And she never stops.

And a lot of people
try to write her off as a crazy lady,

because she's the only person saying,

"Hey, maybe alcohol is terrible."

But she be wrong, though,
'cause this shit is delicious.

[SLURPING]

So, she died in 1911.

And prohibition was passed in 1919,

due in large part to her, and her efforts.

But also, women's rights.

That was Carrie A. Fucking Nation.

Because she always advocated
for women's right to vote.

Thank you for fucking letting me
fucking vote, lady.

DEREK: Amen.

- Glad she smashed up these bars.
- DEREK: Yeah.

Bet it was cool. I sure like voting.

[SLURPING]

[BLOWING BUBBLES]
I've always been able to vote.

[LAUGHING]

I'm black. I haven't
been able to vote twice.

[LAUGHING]

In the name of Carrie A. Nation...

- Let's smash this shit.
- Let's smash.

One, two, three...

[GLASS SHATTERING]

To you, Carrie A. Nation.

All right, so we'll start.
You look into Tommy's camera.

Shut up, right now. Shut up, right now.

- DEREK: Do it your own way.
- Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

- Know that I mean this...
- Shut the fuck up.

[MICROPHONE THUDS]

Hello.

I'm Kyle Kinane.

And today,

we're gonna talk about Andrew Jackson.

[WHISPERING] The brawler.

Start early 1800s.

America.

Andrew Jackson's army,
they're in Tennessee.

He's a... An accomplished duelist.

Jackson's like, "Been a soldier
and a brawler my whole time.

"I'm a badass dude."

So, there's a couple brothers
named Thomas and Jesse Benton.

They're officers in Andrew Jackson's army.

These two brothers,
they're a couple rabble-rousers.

Couple troublemakers.

Thomas, he's power-hungry.
He wants to make it.

He just wants... He... He wants...

He wants... He wants it.

Becomes Jackson's right-hand man.

Jackson likes him so much,
he sends him to DC

Jesse Benton, still
in... Still in Tennessee,

part of the regiment,
gets into an argument with another...

Another fellow under Jackson's regime,

by the name of, uh, William Carroll.

Some old-timey argument.

"Jabber, jabber, jabber?
Jabber, jabber, jabber."

No end result.

"Well, we're not gonna
settle this with words."

"All right, let's meet in a field
and shoot at each other."

Duel.

- [LAUGHING]
- KYLE: So, that's it.

It's very inefficient.
It's very inefficient.

So, William Carroll
knew he was experienced.

He's like, "So listen, Andy, do me a solid.
I'm working under you.

"Could you be on the ones and twos for me?"

Andrew Dackson... Andrew Jackson says,

"You know what?

- "I'm your second. Let's go at it."
- [HANDS CLAP]

Duel!

So, the duel goes down.

Ten-pace duel.

Turn, spin, shoot. Poom!

Carroll gets his thumb blown off,

still gets one off,
shoots Jesse Benton in his ass.

Hilarious shot.

[BOTH SNICKERING]

People are... They're going...
They're... They're like,

"Well, did you hear about the duel?

"Jesse Benton's got an extra asshole."

[LAUGHING]

Ah, all right. All right.

Get them giggles out.

Ooh, yeah!

[CHUCKLES] The word gets all the way back
to Thomas Benton, Jesse's brother's...

You know, he's over there, DC.
He's hearing about this.

He's like, "What?

"Where I left, now they're laughing
about my name?

"And it's because Jackson
supported this other guy?"

Now, Thomas Benton,
Andrew Jackson's aide, is furious.

He's like, "It's Andrew Jackson's fault

"for even allowing
this stupid duel to happen."

So, he's not gonna stand for it.

He heads back to Tennessee,

to restore honor to his family name.

Andrew Jackson, back in Tennessee, he's...

He's hearing all this shit talk.

He's upset about all this.

"I'm Andrew goddamn Jackson.

"I'm gonna whip sense
into these Benton brothers."

Literally, he walks around for six weeks

with a bullwhip on his... On his belt loop.

Just some real passo-aggro shit.

[IMITATES WHIP CRACKING]

You know how whips sound.

Put in a sound effect.

Post-production.

Silent take.

Post-produc.

[DEREK CHUCKLING]

Okay, so, do you remember where you are?

They're all in Tennessee!

- [BULLWHIP CRACKS]
- Nashville!

September 4th, 1813.

The Bentons are holed up at a hotel.

Other end of the strip, Andrew Jackson,

and his good buddy,
John Coffee, they're hanging.

They all know why they're there.

They got beef!

Old-timey beef. 1800s beef.

Andrew Jackson's like, "Hey, John,

"your name is indicative
of morning activity, John Coffee.

"Let's go take a morning stroll.

"Let's go get my mail
from the post office."

[CLEARS THROAT] So they take
a little stroll around town.

Oh! Did it happen to take
a circuit... Circuit... Circuit... Uh...

Roundabout way in front of the hotel?

Benton brothers posted up, like,
"Yeah, we expected this much."

Andrew Jackson, he looks at them.

Then just says, "Defend yourselves,

"you damned rascals."

[BELCHES] That was the final moment.

Thomas Benton goes for the sidearm.
Andrew Jackson already has it pulled.

So Thomas, he goes back in the hotel.

Meanwhile, Jesse's coming around, sneakily.

There's Andrew Jackson.

What he doesn't see,
is Jesse's coming around the corner,

fires off at Jackson, bang, bang!

Jackson, he gets shot, twice...

In the wing.

Jackson goes to throw one off at Thomas.

The gun misfires. [IMITATES FARTING]

And it just farts out the musket.

Burns a hole in his jacket.

Coffee runs in.

Coffee fires a few shots at Thomas.

"Oh, I'm being shot at?
What's my safest bet?

"Let me just roll down these stairs."

He did that to himself voluntarily.

And... [SETS DOWN DRINK]

[CLEARS THROAT]

Now, we got another
Andrew Jackson supporter that just...

He jumps in out of nowhere.

Stokely Hayes, he comes in with a sword.

That's a rule, you don't bring
a knife to a gun fight.

This guy, he goes to stab Jesse.

The sword breaks
'cause it hits a button. Twing!

"What about a knife?
I'll just stab this guy."

Stokely Hayes tackles Jesse,

and this whole showdown,
it's a catastrophe.

End result?

Andrew Jackson was a president, who at...

At some point, shot at several people

in a non-battlefield situation.

DEREK: [LAUGHING] Keep going.

- I'll defend that later...
- Oh, just keep going?

Oh, thank... I appreciate your permission.

[CHUCKLES]

Where was I? Oh, crushing that story?

That's where I was? Crushing that story?

So, it's, like, 20 years down the road.

He writes a letter to Thomas Benton.

"Hey, last time I saw you,

"I think you left these."

Puts the bullets in a
letter, mails them off.

"You've had them long enough.
You keep them."

Mails them back.

That's...

That's how duels end.

KYLE: I want to eat.

DEREK: Mmm-hmm?

Stay tuned for more Drunk History.

That's nice. That's really nice.

- Fuck off.
- Okay. All right.

- To Marsha.
- Yeah.

I'm gonna paint my...
Oh, you don't have to chug that.

[LAUGHING]

- Did you think I was chugging?
- Yeah, I did.

- Oh, sorry. [LAUGHING]
- Just kidding.

[LAUGHS]

- I'm honestly so happy right now.
- DEREK: Me too.

- Hi! Just kidding.
- [LAUGHING]

Hello, I'm Crissle West,

and today, we're going to discuss
Marsha P. Johnson.

So, the story begins

in the middle of New York City,

in the Village, on Christopher Street.

And back then, you know,

New York had a growing LGBT population.

So, basically, the non-straight population

had a bunch of bars and stuff
in Greenwich Village,

and so, you know,
all the queer kids would go down

to the village and be, like,
"We're here to be ourselves."

But these people didn't have
a sense of community.

Like, this was a point in time

where you came out as being trans,

and you were just kicked out of the house.

Like, and nobody gave a fuck about you.

And that was kind of
what happened to Marsha.

Like, she was a queer person
growing up in Jersey.

Okay, so she would
get on the train in Jersey,

um, dressed as Malcolm,
which was her birth name.

And then, on the way over
from Jersey to New York,

transform into Marsha with, you know,

beer cans and pop cans, uh, for rollers.

And just like, "I'm
Marsha P. Johnson, bitch,

and if you don't
like it, you go to hell.

"Like, here I am, ho. What you gonna do?"

[LAUGHING]

DEREK: You have
the best laugh in the world.

- I love it.
- CRISSLE: Oh, God!

- Whoo! Anyways...
- Yeah.

So, the 1960s is a very tumultuous time
for the United States of America,

because every minority group imaginable
is tired of the status quo.

So, there was a group of officers
in New York City

called the Public Moral Squad,
which is ridiculous,

because when the fuck have morals
been a part of this goddamn city?

Like, this city is trash.

And the Public Moral Squad
took their orders directly from the mayor.

The mayor was like,
"I want you to go shut down

"the fucking gay bars.

"I'm sick of them motherfuckers

"putting they dicks
in other people's asses,

"and it's time to be over."

So, the night at Stonewall, June 18th...

Or 28th. June 28th.

[LAUGHING] I know it was one of the eights.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Oh, God.

So, that night, Charles Smythe

and Seymour Pine,

they walked into the Stonewall Inn,
and they said,

- "Hey, bitch!
- [CLAPPING]

"We here!

"This shit
is under motherfucking arrest.

"Sit your gay ass down,

"and wait for us
to verify your motherfucking ID

"with your fucking motherfucking genitals!"

[CRASHING]

[LAUGHING]

- Sorry, tree.
- [LAUGHING]

And the trans girls was like,

"Oh, no, bitch. We didn't ask for this."

And some people were, like, freaking out,
and trying to, like, go for the exits,

but the police had
barricaded the whole thing.

And Marsha says, "You know what?

"Today is not the motherfucking day!

"Today is the day
that I say no to this bullshit.

"Like, you all are not
going to continue to run us.

"To dictate what our lives should be like.

[STUTTERS] "To dish... to dic-trate

"what our lives are supposed to be like.

"You're not in charge any-fucking-more.

"We're here, and as long as
we have to pay taxes,

"you're gonna have to listen
to what the fuck that we have to shays...

"We have to... To shay.

"To say!"

So, Marsha P. Johnson stood the fuck up,

and she picked up a shot glass,

and she smashed that shit
against the mirror, and said,

"I got my civil rights!"

She had had enough
that motherfucking day.

So, during the Stonewall
riots that first night,

all these members of the gay community
started gathering outside.

Marsha, she's saying, like, "Oh, my God.
There's so many of, like, this...

"There's 500 of this...

"Of us."

By the time backup showed up
to Christopher Street, it was way too late.

Some of the rioters threw rocks and shit.

Others found bricks and shit,
and they were like,

"We're gonna fuck it up
by any means necessary."

- [DEREK CHUCKLING]
- [LAUGHING]

- Oh, God.
- DEREK: It was good.

I told myself I was not
gonna get drunk this time.

I don't know how I thought
that was gonna work.

- [BOTH LAUGHING]
- Okay.

So, the people at Stonewall
that night realized,

"There's a community of us.

"It's not just 20 of us
on fucking Wednesday night

"when it's half-off.

"There's a whole group of us
who are here in this gay shit,

"and you're not going to erase us

"from the motherfucking
conversation no more."

So, Marsha says,

- "Ultimately, humanness wins."
- DEREK: Yes.

- CRISSLE: "Ultimately, people win."
- DEREK: Yeah.

That night, and then the next one,
constitute the Stonewall riots.

And that is what got the whole gay-rights
movement in America started off.

DEREK: That gives me chills.

CRISSLE: It's the shot glass
heard around the world.

A few weeks later,

Marsha and her friend, Sylvia,

formed the Street Transvestite...
Reaction... Reaction Evolution.

Which is not words we...
We would use to gay...

Today, obviously,
it would be more like, street trans-vendor.

Transgender, I mean.

[CHUCKLING] Not trans-vendor,
that's not like shit.

[INHALES] Basically, Marsha and Sylvia

were out there in the '60s and '70s,

just trying to get these trans kids
a place to live.

- She really was a badass.
- DEREK: Yeah.

And so brave. Like, I would not
have been that brave in the '60s and '70s?

- I mean, it was bad enough being black.
- Right.

But add in a queer identity,
and then a... A queer gender identity too?

It was a lot. It was a
lot. And she still faced it.

But truly?

Black people deserve
to be on all this shit.

- Mmm-hmm.
- Black people and Sacagawea,

who needs to get off the goddamn coin,
and onto some fucking paper money.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

- Because this our shit.
- Yeah.

Bow down.

- Well, don't caress me.
- That's a Sublime song.

Don't test me on Sublime songs!

The song is called Please Caress Me More.

Okay. Sure.

That... I don't want to live it out!

- [LAUGHING]
- Don't live out...

I don't want to live out
Sublime songs on my kitchen floor.