E769 - Shocking Carnival Exhibits and Cambrian Nightmares

What do carnival sideshows, government paperwork, and half-billion-year-old nightmare creatures have in common?

In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore three very different corners of history where certainty was offered in place of understanding—and where things were far stranger than advertised.

First, they step into the vanished world of early 20th-century hygiene exhibits: traveling carnival attractions that promised education but delivered fear. Set up alongside Ferris wheels and midway games, these sterile tents used wax models, shock imagery, and moral absolutism to teach the public what would happen if th...