Bonus Episode - Grisly Trophies, Evil Cowboys, and Questionable Mascots

December 30, 2025·37 min·3 clips

Buffalo Bill lived like a reality star, crafting his life for fame long before social media existed.

Grizzly trophies open the door. In this bonus episode, the host answers listener questions after the Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild West series. Patreon comes first, with a clear nod to the community that keeps the show alive, then the conversation moves into touring and historical spectacle. James Bailey matters because his circus setup, including circus trains, helped keep Buffalo Bill's Wild West moving while he took a cut of the profits. The deal got heavy. Buffalo Bill was often in financial peril, kept borrowing from Bailey, and still had a successful show. By 1906, Bailey technically owned a two-thirds share in the Wild West, mostly because Bill mishandled the money. Barnum never met Buffalo Bill, but the host still sees P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill as closely linked, and, in his view, cut from the same cloth. Then Yasser complicates the easy answer. His Patreon comment pushes back on calling Buffalo Bill a charlatan and compares him to a modern history re-enactor. That shift gives the episode its spark. Re-enactment is not always exact history. Sometimes it is a staged version of how something could have gone. The host says the comment gives him real food for thought and admits he has a soft spot for historical re-enactors. The episode keeps a warm tone, even while it talks through debt, mythmaking, performance, and the listeners who found the show during COVID and stuck around.

As heard by us

A Patreon question turns Buffalo Bill's myth-making into a thoughtful test of historical reenactment.

Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West shows anchor this bonus conversation, as Patreon questions pull Our Fake History back toward the fraught line between historical myth-making and reenactment.

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Why you'd press play

Press play when a listener's soft spot for Buffalo Bill makes the myth-maker feel harder to file away as just a charlatan.

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