From a man trying to travel to London in a human-sized hamster wheel to throwing an alligator through a drive-thru window, welcome to the state of the outlandish and bizarre.
The Sunshine State has been home to wackiness for decades, with memes and videos galore shining a light on what's been dubbed the "Florida Man."
There's even Florida man games featuring competitions ripped from iconic headlines, as well as TV shows like HBO Max's comedy series "It's Florida, man."
On "Florida Matters: Live & Local," host Matthew Peddie spoke with journalist and author Craig Pittman — who is a Florida man himself — to offer insight into the legendary phrase. He's written books like "Oh, Florida! How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country."
"Holy cow, Florida is the gift that keeps on giving," Pittman said. "I will never run out of Florida stories, quite frankly."
When did you start collecting these wild Florida man tales?
Pitman said his interest in these stories began in childhood. His parents would read the paper to each other and would see a story and go, "Wait till I tell you about this one."
"One that sticks out in my mind is the state legislator who is running for sheriff, who's a former gospel singer, and it turned out he was financing his campaign by smuggling marijuana," Pittman recalled. "He's a law and order candidate, but law and order for somebody else, not for him."
Why does Florida seem to keep spawning so many wacky stories?
Pittman explained that there are a number of factors. One is that in 1940, he said Florida was the least populated southern state, but now we're around the third-most populous. He explained that the state has had a big demographic change, and the population isn't evenly spread out.
He added that there are more people along the coast and along I-4, where the theme parks are.
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"So you put that many people in the smallest space, and cram them in that shorter length of time, and they're going to start chasing each other with machetes and arguing over whose dog pooped on whose lawn," he said.
Although the internet "Florida Man" meme began around 2013, Pittman traces it back to a man named Frederic Remington, who visited the state in 1895.
"He wrote about encountering low-browed cow folk who would kill each other over cattle that he said weren't even fit for a pointer dog to mess on, which sort of started the stereotype rolling," Pittman said.
He added he thinks it became more widespread after the 2000 presidential election, when Florida's elections were put under a microscope due to the recount between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
"People sort of went from thinking Florida was vacation line to Florida was the land of confusion and the land of craziness, where we became the punchline state," Pittman said.
Florida has also been a land of opportunity, but Pittman adds it's also the location where people repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
"I call Florida the land of 1,000 chances because people have screwed up elsewhere, come here and try to start over," Pittman said. "Probably the best example of that was Carlo Ponzi, the guy who actually invented the Ponzi scheme up in Boston, and while he was out on bail, came to Florida and got involved in a land fraud."
What are people missing by just focusing on "Florida Man" headlines?
Pittman said that although the wackiness helps create innovation, it can stray the focus away from how the Sunshine State has changed the world.
For example, he mentioned how Florida man, John Adams, invented the computer. He explained how Adams grew up in Mulberry and that his father was a phosphate mining engineer who carried a slide rule. This fascinated Adams and eventually led him to invent the computer, he said.
"If not for him, we'd still have to be playing solitaire using cards, rather than using our computers," Pittman said.
The author added that another foothold Florida has is politics and the environment. He said that things that happen in Florida tend to be used around the country and that we've gone from being a "purple state" where elections were a nail-biter to a "bellwether," which means the results consistently predict the outcome of a larger election.
Pittman said from his knowledge, every time the environment is on the ballot in Florida, it wins by a large margin because many people want to see land saved from development.
"They want to see a lot more of the natural Florida. They want to see it kept natural rather than being covered with pavement, and that issue draws more attention and more support than any politician who runs for office," he said.
What do books like from Carl Hiassan or Tim Doresy say about Florida's impact on popular culture?
Novelists Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey are known for their wild stories set in Florida. Pittman stated that Dorsey has told him that people accuse Dorsey of going too far in his writing.
"But generally, the stories they're objecting to are stories he took from real life — things that had actually happened. And they thought, 'Oh, you've made up something that's too outlandish.' Well, it actually happened."
Pittman also pointed out that Hiassen says he "doesn't make up anything, he just changes the names."
Overall, Pittman argues that these conditions that produce Florida weirdness also produce creativity.
"It's also the source of our invention, and that we should embrace that. We should let our freak flag fly high," Pittman said.
He said he's trying to fill the hole on "wacky Florida crime" stories now that Dorsey has passed away. Pittman said he has a book coming out called "Death of a Dolphin."
This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Matthew Peddie for "Florida Matters Live & Local." You can listen to the full episode here.
