Some Thoughts on Baby Brains

Leah and I, along with intreped producer Conrad Quilty-Harper and cameraman John Porter, went deep inside the 1-800-AUTOPSY compound in Downtown LA to bring you the following chilling Mahalo Daily.



I can honestly say it was the only interview I have ever conducted that was interrupted by the sentence: "I'm sorry, I have to go to children's hospital to remove a baby's brain." Well, okay, the second interview...but that's still pretty rare.

I think the episode's really entertaining and informative, but we couldn't really capture the ridiculous scope of this place in one 5 minute podcast. The company, in addition to performing autopsies, also rents out equipment and space to TV and film productions replicating autopsies. And they turn coffins into couches. The guy who owns it was a forensic investigator for decades, and is just kind of grimly fascinated in this stuff, so the whole place is something of an autopsy museum. There's one room that's a replica of a 1920s embalming room. It's seriously like walking into an Alan Moore story.

ATTENTION BOING BOING TV: I love experimental animation as much as the next guy, but you should mix it up more with some visits to peculiar, real-world locations. You all could get 2 weeks of shows out of the coffin couch factory. Maybe we can put some steampunk goggles with brass fittings on one of the skeletons, if it would make you more comfortable.