This is the memory palace. I'm Nate Demet.

They took a lion cub from the newbie in desert and they put them in the movies.

They called them Jackie, trained him to sit and come on command, to rear up, to look fierce but not beefy.

They kept him well fed so he wouldn't eat anyone.

And they made Jackie chase Tarzan through the jungles of the Los Angeles Arvoretum.

Menace Jane from the edge of the shallow concrete pond dressed in pomfrons and ferns.

Around the corner from the Ursaat suburbs on the MGM back lot, where he scampered about for the cameras until some director called Cut.

And had sufficient footage to make it appear that Jackie was chasing Laurel and her hearty.

In some morning in 1927, he was led out of his cage.

Led through the lot where the showgirls and sequins shuffled off to their 715 call.

Walked amidst extras and togas and capyats.

And was led to a soundstage where he hopped up on two crates.

One for his back paws, one for his front paws.

Looked into the camera, leaned into a microphone.

In a rod.

That roar would be heard hundreds of times a day at thousands of movie theaters across the movie Mad World.

It was the late 1920s and the movies were it.

They were the thing you did.

Everyone, every demographic, everywhere.

There were 20,000 theaters in the US alone.

There were vast movie palaces, with velvet curtains and guilt ceilings, balconies and orchestras and loges and tuxedo duchers in every big city.

And there were silver screens and folding chairs and storefronts and old Vodville halls in just about every hill and holler.

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