The True Story O Brother, Where Art Thou Was Based On! (Malcolm's Recent Family History)

I recently discovered that the Coen Brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou? was actually based on a true story involving my family! In this video, I share the fascinating tale of how my great-grandfather tapped a popular 1930s musical group to help a politician he supported win a Texas governor's race against a candidate with ties to the KKK. I talk about the real-life people and events that inspired the movie's characters and plot, and reveal details that weren't included in the film. From the crazy water crystals business to Papio Daniel's flower company, learn the true history behind one of the Coen Brothers' most beloved movies!

Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Hello, Simone. And today is a very interesting episode for me because something very weird happened to me last week. There is a movie that I have liked, , since I was a kid. Cause it came out when I was in middle school. I want to say, Oh brother, where art thou? And when I first saw it, I was like, it is very weird how many similarities it has to stories my family told me about my great grandfather.

Malcolm: But, I discounted these similarities for three reasons. One, it was very clearly based on the Odyssey. Two, it was very clearly based on the Bible and themes of biblical redemption. So I was like, okay, there's already so much content in this. It couldn't possibly also be based on a true story. And three, the whole thing takes place in Mississippi and all the stories I were told about took place in Texas.[00:01:00]

Malcolm: So I ignored it. Well, a few days ago, I was Googling some of the characters from it. And they're like, oh yeah, Papio Daniel was based on a real Texas politician and I was like, like a huge wave hitting me. I was like, oh shi all of it was true? All of it was based on my great granddad? That is insane! And, and, and what's insane is I actually looked to see if there were YouTube videos covering this and there weren't.

Malcolm: And I assume that part of it is due to how nuanced and niche this history is. It's all about it. Texas gubernatorial election in the in the the 1930s, I think but it is it is also like surprisingly accurate to the plot of the movie. So I am going to combine both what I was able to find in terms of historical evidence of what went down, as well as evidence from family oral tradition into essentially what happened here [00:02:00] and what is the true iteration of the story in oh brother where art thou if you were to to take it out

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm: so the first thing to note is is just so you know that like i'm not Making up that this is actually based on this Papio Daniel was a real Texas politician.

Malcolm: He was a, a Texas governor and in the movie, he is the politician that attempts to use the popularity of this musical group to win office. In real life. What happened was, is, is my great grandfather, who was a radio station owner and a business magnate at the time, tapped Papio Daniel, who was the star of a musical group, to try to defeat a candidate who was supporting the Klan's interest in a Texas election.

Malcolm: So the fact that this was a Klan group versus [00:03:00] an anti Klan group is accurate. What is mixed up in the storytelling is the who the different characters are. Papio Daniel, while the, the politician is named Papio Daniel, he would probably better be named. Carr P Collins, who is my ancestor, and he was somebody who wanted to have a political fight with a specific other somebody, and he tapped a musician to win that political fight.

Malcolm: So, now we're gonna go back. First of all, you gotta understand the origins of this political fight. Why was he so, so, so angry? at this other candidate. Why did he need this other candidate to lose? And why was he looking for somebody to run against him? So we're going to go back three generations for this.

Malcolm: But first, Simone, you saw the movie recently. What'd you think? You hadn't seen it in a long time. It's,

Simone: it's a great movie. It's holds up incredibly well. And it's one of those movies that's stylized, but not in a way that makes it stuck in time or dated, [00:04:00] which I quite like.

Malcolm: Yeah. Well, and you also didn't think our fans would care about this episode at all.

Malcolm: I

Simone: really, yeah, I, I, I failed to understand why this is interesting or why this matters.

Malcolm: I think it's good evergreen content. If you have a family history that tells a part of history that other people haven't heard. It's interesting to

Simone: you and nobody else cares. Everyone,

Malcolm: nobody else cares. Apparently it was interesting enough to other people that they made a movie about it.

Simone: I don't know. There's so many interesting, historically accurate elements of the movie, I think things that they throw in that they make important that they. It's a very nerdy, it's a surprisingly nerdy movie where people, the people who created it from clothing to products, to cars, to what people were.

Simone: How people spoke, I think was very obsessively done. It was almost, it was like it was made by some obscure man in Japan. Who's one obsession was depression era, like South middle Texas, you know, [00:05:00] like just a crazy otaku who like nailed it.

Malcolm: But better than how much it's localized to Texas culture, which really shocked me as a kid.

Malcolm: Cause people said it was Mississippi culture, but you know, digging into it, it's very clearly more model on Texas culture. But anyway. Which is where it actually, you know, the historical figures and the historical fight took place. So we're going to go three generations earlier than the events of the movie.

Malcolm: So, Warren Collins was the brother of if you have seen the Free State of Jones the, the second main character to the, to Newton Knight, the guy who like wrote the, the rules for the Free State of Jones. And 15 of his relatives, so either brothers or kids of his, his brothers were part of the 50 founding members of the Free State of Joe.

Malcolm: So it was basically one family. So one of the brothers from this family went to Texas and started a different separatist group that was trying to create a different separatist state. It was called the Texas Jayhawkers. And this is where the Kaiser burnout comes from when they tried to. to [00:06:00] kill these people.

Malcolm: And there's many interesting stories that I could go into if this does well about my ancestors. So this guy, there's this famous story. He was, he was leading this group of anti confederates. And they had captured a lot of their, their people and they were going to execute them. And so he pretending to be somebody else comes into the camp and he gets them all drunk and he drinks a lot because, you know, I guess everyone in my family drinks a lot and he did a jig that it was apparently so captivating that it distracted the confederate guards while they let everyone lose.

Malcolm: But if you watch the Free State of Jones, because I think a lot of people, they see something like the Civil War and they don't understand why there could be so much intergenerational hatred between groups and so much intergenerational hatred between the descendants of these people and people like the Klan.

Malcolm: And if you watch that movie, I think by the end of that movie, you'll be like, oh, I can understand why they would really hate the Klan for multiple generations. You know, these people were horrifyingly killing their friends and stuff like that. Really evil and terrible. Anyway, [00:07:00] so after him, his son and I'm going to be putting up Wikipedia pages for all of these people today.

Malcolm: I'll have Wikipedia pages. His son ran, he was a Texas politician specifically like state senator. He really focused on issues like Anti well, he, he focused on issues like prohibition women's rights, trying to get women to vote and trying to get people a five day work week and other workers rights issues.

Malcolm: So, he won the state senate, but then he tried to run for governor as an anti Klan candidate, and he lost. And to understand how much this grudge goes, I know there were assassination attempts by the Klan on my family. I mean, certainly both of these people, but even, even to their kids, and we can get to that later in the video.

Malcolm: So anyway then his son was Car P. Collins. Car P. Collins owned a chain of radio stations across Texas. And he did some pretty shady stuff with his radio stations. For example, the limit for radio stations at the time was 5, 000 hertz, and he would broadcast them at 50, [00:08:00] 000 hertz by putting them just south of the border on the, the Texas Mexico border and they could apparently be heard as far north as like Chicago or L. A. Which is absolutely insane. So he had a reason to want more like political power.

Malcolm: He made his money on something called crazy water crystals. So he had this idea. He, so these water wells in this place called Mineral Wells, Texas and he had this idea of, okay, well, these wells are supposed to have healing properties. They're like widely known for having healing properties and he saw on the sides of the wells that there was like a powder accumulating and he goes, oh.

Malcolm: I can dehydrate the water in these wells and create a powder that is cheaper to ship than the water itself. So he, he widely shipped this powder and he was known for having a laxative like effect. In the ads that they would say, they'd say it could clean you out like a ramrod. And so then he used the money he made from this to one by the town and they created a like a resort out of this town which actually sort of fell apart after Aspen became popular and Plains became popular because then you [00:09:00] didn't need to drive to the town before like the Dallas elite for a period and the and the Austin and Houston elite to a lesser extent this was like where they would all go and then it became Austin.

Malcolm: But anyway, yeah. And you can find some old pictures. I might find one for this where you can see just how big this town was compared to what it is now in terms of the people that would go and so anyway, then he used that to buy up radio stations that he could use to broadcast this product.

Malcolm: And within those radio stations, one of the people who would broadcast was a guy called Papio Daniel. And Papio Daniel was doing this broadcasting to promote his flower product. And he, he owned a flower mill. And he really was, was just doing his band to promote his flower product. And you can actually see this in, in, in the the name of his band. The White Crust Doughboys. So on the in the, in the show, they were called the Soggy Bottom Boys. The real name of the band was the White Crust Doughboys. So this guy, he became very popular apparently, especially among [00:10:00] wives who lived at home and stuff like that.

Malcolm: He was a very early sort of a populist character, but he was actually from Ohio and he didn't have any political ambitions. But my great granddad, he. The guy who is the former railroad commissioner was running for governor and he knew this and he knew this guy had really close ties to the Klan. And I'll put some pictures of evidence for this on screen.

Malcolm: But yeah, and he didn't want him to win the election, but he also knew from his father that the wrong way to approach this and I really believe in this idea of like intergenerational lessons. was to try to run yourself. What he should do is he should find somebody who seemed to have popular appeal and run that guy for office.

Malcolm: So he found Papio Daniel in the right, in the light crust dough boys. And you'll see this actually at a scene through over there, where Arthur, the character who is named Papio Daniel, you keep hearing him pushing flower or pushing his flower company at various parts and like ads. So they're, they're really tying it back to this.

Malcolm: Like he's very clearly based on the real [00:11:00] character. But Papio Daniel had no reason to run. He had no interest in running. So, the, the, the other guy said, okay, well, my, my, my grandfather, Carr P Collins, he, he had to convince him to run in some way. Right. And he goes, well, I bet this would be great for.

Malcolm: flower sales. And there's actually historical evidence that this did happen. So he convinced him to run to increase flower sales and he was running on this incredibly populist ticket. Very similar to a proto trump and actually reason magazine did a piece on both Carr P Collins and papio daniel saying this was like the proto trump.

Malcolm: This texas governor raised. And so he got him to run and he would drive around in his car to all these things. And all, all of these towns and promote himself and everything like that. And he was doing an okay job. But you know, it was still a pretty tight election , so when he would go around, I love this.

Malcolm: He, he wasn't actually interested in any of the issues. So whenever anyone would ask him a question and he didn't really want to answer it, he'd go, strike up the band, [00:12:00] Leroy!

Malcolm: And Leroy was his one of the guys in the band and they'd start, they'd start playing and everyone would go wild because they were a really popular hillbilly band at the time. The other name for the band was the Hillbilly Boys. And so they, they, the people would go wild and they'd love it. And so this is how he, he just did his campaign.

Malcolm: So heading to the end of the campaign, it's right before election day. And something you need to know about Texas laws at the time, there was a poll tax at the time, like a 2 tax that you would pay to vote. What this also meant is that they had records of who had voted and who had not voted. So it turned out his entire life, Papio Daniel had never voted and his wife had never voted.

Malcolm: They never paid this poll tax. And the Dallas Morning News was going to run this big hit piece on him for this, the day before the election. Or it's two days before the election, but like right before it, like it would have ended his election and my great granddad, Carpie Collins, he'd been running the campaign and everything like that freaked out.

Malcolm: And so he drives up to Wichita, which is where Pepe [00:13:00] O'Daniel was living at the moment. He banged on his door. He's Oh my God, we're, we're dead. We've got to do something about this. And Papio Daniel goes, no, I got this covered. You don't need to worry about anything, son. You know, he's I got this covered.

Malcolm: And keep in mind, you know, my granddad had been bankrolling this entire campaign. So he and then Papio Daniel Papio Daniel goes, what you need to do is you need to talk to everyone you know, in the press, you need to have them at this concert I'm going to hold that night. So he puts on this big concert.

Malcolm: Okay. Simone, you haven't, you haven't heard any of this, have you?

Simone: No, this is totally new to me.

Malcolm: I mean, you knew parts of it. I'm

Simone: sure about it. I knew about the crazy water crystals. This just checks out with your family history though.

Malcolm: Yeah. It seems like something they do. So put on this big event and then Papio Daniel, he comes out of this event, he goes, I'm So I actually don't know if this is public that people didn't know that this was all planned and in response to a news story that was going to go live the next day.

Malcolm: And he goes I'm a man of the people, you see his, his whole campaign was based on the [00:14:00] 10 Commandments. He, the, one of my campaign promises, it's the 10 Commandments. I'm just going to follow them. That's, and he ran his campaign on the 10 Commandments. And he would do crazy stunts, like he'd go out and shoot a bison.

Malcolm: And then he. The bison for everyone who's at the campaign rally, but at this particular rally he goes I'm going to tell you how much I believe in the little man. This poll tax, it is used so that only rich men can vote so that the elite can control you. And I believe that so much that my entire life, my wife and I.

Malcolm: We have never paid this poll tax. We have protested this our entire life going into this election. And apparently the crowd just went wild for this. They loved this assertion because of course it was all his audience, all his fans and the press was all there. And so instead of being able to run this piece that was Papio Daniel has never even voted before it's Papio Daniel spent his entire life [00:15:00] protesting the poll tax with his wife.

Malcolm: And so it went really well. And so Papio Daniel, he wins the election. He keeps this Klan member out of, out of the governorship of Texas. So you got to understand with the Klan I mean, his dad's generation, that was one era of resurgence of the Klan, but the 1920s. That was the second resurgence of the Klan.

Malcolm: So it made a lot of sense that these guys would be connected. So it was really important to him that he prevented them from gaining political power. Because that's been one of my family's goals for a long time, is fighting this type of stuff. And... And he won the election and he was governor, I think, for two terms and then he actually tried to rerun later, but when he tried to rerun later, he actually ran on a segregationalist platform, like a strict segregationalist platform, and my granddad didn't want any part of that, so he didn't support him, and he just fell flat on his face the moment out the gate, because I don't want to say that he had actually been masterminding the whole thing, but I think the evidence is pretty clear here that he was the reason that Papio Daniel was and so that is the actual [00:16:00] story of the Soggy Bottom Boys or the White Crust Sourdough Boys.

Simone: But there was no then a criminal affiliation with the band that your families... politician of choice

Malcolm: used? Well, so both of them were kind of hucksters in their own way. I mean, the Yeah, but

Simone: they weren't like, they hadn't broken out of

Malcolm: jail. No, they had not broken out of jail. No. It was that one person tapped them specifically to beat another person specifically due to their clan affiliation.

Malcolm: And the, the, the they were very sort of narcissistic band members who were sort of hucksters and con artists. Yes. But there was nothing more than that. Okay. Interesting. You find this boring?

Simone: I just, I don't think people find other people interesting, but I'm not the best at modeling people. Let's be honest here.

Simone: So

Malcolm: I think people find hidden history interesting and an episode we'll do [00:17:00] later. Which is actually really interesting tied to all of this. Is that these individuals in this story were actually supposed to be in the Illuminati. So there's this document that was created in the 1980s called the Bloodlines of the Illuminati, you know, I'll put a post of this, it's even on the CIA's own website.

Malcolm: And my dad was supposed to be one of the people who led the Illuminati, specifically his mom, the grand madame of the Collins family. And she was supposed to be one of the core 12 leaders of the Illuminati. And that this family had been tapped for the Illuminati. And it's, it's very interesting to go into the history of how this could have happened, like hypothetically, if the Illuminati actually existed.

Malcolm: And I just, I just love how cinematic my family might've always been the wealthiest family, but they were cinematic.

Simone: They lived. Dramatically.

Malcolm: Dram yeah yeah yeah yeah from 30 Rock, right? I've checked and there is no Oscar for living dramatically. I really hope somebody makes a movie about us. We've got a lot of movies about our recent

Simone: family history.

Simone: I think they've [00:18:00] already made oh you mean this generation. Yeah, no,

Malcolm: I mean there's a few recent movies about my family. Yeah, I'm talking about our generation. We just

Simone: need your brother to run for office at the same time that you do. So that there's this amazing colorful rivalry. I feel like that would be We're planning it.

Simone: We're planning it. There's enough there, you know. And your brother is hilarious. And, you know, wicked smart. Oh, he's

Malcolm: an amazing person. Anyone who likes the show, they love him. He'll be a good

Simone: character. He's, yeah. He's unstoppable. He'd have to be played by Chris

Malcolm: Pratt, though. They work together, too. Like us.

Malcolm: They have a company together. They've, they've been successful together. I also think it's also interesting with anything like these movies or these shows, you know, you can see them and you're like, what actually happened, you know, descendant wise, you know, long story to these characters, to their families.

Malcolm: And I guess we're sort of a in state. That's, that was what happened.

Simone: So if Chris Pratt would play your brother, who would play you? James Franco? I feel like James Franco is weird enough to be able to do a

Malcolm: you. Who's [00:19:00] James Franco? I don't know.

Simone: I don't know he's kind of creepy, but I feel like he has the flexibility and he's pale.

Malcolm: Oh yeah, he could easily play me. He could do you.

Simone: But Chris Pratt is obviously your brother, so that's done. Oh yeah,

Malcolm: so people who think that she's joking here my brother looks like...

Simone: No, he doesn't look like Chris Pratt. Your brother looks more like a, I don't know, a Ken doll or David. Like a combination of Michelangelo's David and a Ken doll.

Simone: They're, they're catalogued for one way, you know, that's that's, that's how it goes, you know, but but like the, the mannerisms are very similar between Chris Pratt. Yeah, the

Malcolm: mannerisms are very Chris Pratt y. Yeah. He's got this sort of Adorable doofiness to him. No, there's that.

Malcolm: Well,

Simone: there's a, there are things that he does with his eyes that are very subtle.

Malcolm: But well, they remind me much more of Chris Pratt in what's the show? 30 Rocks. Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. Yeah. Chris Pratt and Parks and Rec has a very similar mannerism and vibe to my brother, but my brother is actually like a very successful business person.

Malcolm: That's why I think he'd be a great politician. He reminds me a [00:20:00] lot of George Bush, you know, he

Simone: has to run. He has to run. And so, so yeah, it's done. It'll happen. And then there will be the story. You just have to be very entertaining about it.

Malcolm: So I got to tell, sorry, quick story about, no, I won't. I won't tell this story, but my brother has a lot of his.

Malcolm: heroic stories about him. He's put himself in enormous physical danger to protect other people multiple times. And I really, you know, he's he's

Simone: the golden boy. Like he is, you know, like he could be the next Kennedy,

Malcolm: you know, like not by like our family standards. I mean, they always thought I was smarter than him.

Malcolm: Your, your

Simone: families are, everyone is a golden boy in your family, but anyway. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that stuff's fun. I like thinking about who will play your

Malcolm: brother. I know. Okay. Well, let's, let's, let's, we'll create enough content so that people have something to go on when we compete against each other and they can get all the drama.

Malcolm: All right. Well, I love you, Simone. And I appreciate you indulging me in this video and we can see if anyone cares [00:21:00] about historic events.

Simone: Well, I look forward to watching whatever movie is based roughly on your existence. So I will be very dead, but maybe my descendants will have some. Pointless podcast episode where they discuss it.

Simone: So looking

Malcolm: forward to it. Oh, pointless podcast. I'm green, green daddy, Malcolm Collins. He did this

Simone: silly podcast. I should also note though, that Malcolm's family also has a penchant for. doing this, like one of his, his older family members has like murals and portraits all over their house of like family members.

Simone: So I think even you had in one of your childhood houses, a mural in your bedroom showing you and your brother in space suits. So there was a lot of,

Malcolm: We did the walls were painted with a space theme and it was me and my brother in space was like I had Like a remote device and we had our dog, but the dog was a constellation.

Simone: Oh, that's cute. No, I do have to say the, the Malcolm Collins family is very like smug and full of [00:22:00] itself, but like the frustrating thing is it's rightfully so they're just that good. So it's like someone who like walks by a mirror and can't help but seduce themselves in it. But you don't blame them because they're that sexy.

Simone: It's that, that is Malcolm's family. Very interesting stuff. So yeah, I guess we'll, we'll see who is correct and you will, you know,

Malcolm: you will. Oh, and I should also probably mention here that the, the son of the guy who I'm talking about in the story ended up becoming a U S congressman. And there you go.

Malcolm: So he went back into politics. He then tried to get his son to go into politics. He didn't go into politics, but he, the family really tried to get him into politics. And yeah, anyway, love you. Love you too. Fantastic conversation.

Simone: Enjoyed it.

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