Weird Laws: Tennessee

Diving deep into Tennessee's quirkiest laws and most baffling borders. Ever wondered why you can't wrestle a bear at a circus or what's with the skunk law? Settle in for 3 minutes of southern charm and hilarity. Will you make it through without scratching your head?

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----Next Shows----
10/10 - Little Rock, AR - Loony Bin
10/11 - Memphis, TN - Growlers
10/12 - Huntsville, AL - Standup Live
10/15 - Nashville, TN - Zanies
10/16 - Knoxville, TN - Yee-Haw Brewing
10/17 - Greensboro, NC - Comedy Zone
10/18 - Raleigh, NC - Goodnight's
10/24 - Charlotte, NC - Comedy Zone 10/25 - Greenville, SC - Comedy Zone
10/26 - Atlanta, GA - Laughing Skull (2 shows)
11/4 - Wesley Chapel, FL - Side Splitters 11/5 - Tampa, FL - Side Splitters
11/8 - Tallahassee, FL - Fire Betty’s
11/9 - Gainesville, FL - High Dive 11/10 - St. Augustine, FL - Cafe Eleven
11/18 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Broward Center for Performing Arts in the Abdo New River Room
12/13 - Panama City, FL - Capt. Anderson’s Event Center
12/22-23 - Orlando, FL - Improv

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[MrAdamArce]

The bear one actually makes sense. Wrestling a circus bear would probably have the circus abusing the bear, de-clawing it, and other things to make sure the performer is always the winner. Fight a bear in the wild and your either stupid or lucky to survive lol

[Tadicuslegion]

"it's legal to wrestle a bear outside of a circus?"
Yeah, cause 9/10 times it's that bastard Yogi trying to steal my picnic basket!

[hellomoron]

Tennessee borders are like a cross between pre-gps local directions, and a scavenger hunt connect-the-dots from hell.

[curryman]

The skunk thing also makes a lot of sense. Transporting wildlife across borders is generally frowned upon. Look what spotted lantern flies are doing right now.

[tommiegirl]

Yelled "The Table is back!" and the kids in my life came running. We missed you crazy, Ben. My southern guy understood every bit of those borders, but I felt the Gov's "Oh my God" at 2:43 on a soul level. 😂

[Jarakin]

The bear things sounds like a weirdly worded law against bear baiting. Which, if you don't know, was an old kind of public entertainment that amounted to "lets all get together, have some beers, and watch someone torture a bear to death"

[ovni]

The northern border of Tennessee has a funny story behind it! So they had two teams, one working west to east and one working east to west. The West to East team started at the Mississippi and was slow and methodical in their work, which is why that portion of the border is a perfectly straight line. The East to West team started in Appalachia and... Well they wanted to get the job done as quick as possible, and some people claim they got chased by Native Americans at one point. Point is, East to West team rushed their work, so if you look at most of the border, it's got all these little wonky bits in it, tiny little divots and curves, and they ended up *miles* north of the West to East team, which is why you have that weird dogleg in the border in the Land Between The Lakes region.

[CinderTheSkulldog]

As someone who lives in Tennessee, I will say that the laws are VERY weird, and definitely need like, another 2 parts

[AFN]

The ice cream one is actually about stealing horses, and makes total sense

[iwontliveinfear]

That skunk law is because of Alabama. Mainly Huntsville, The Marshall Space Flight Center, The Redstone Arsenal, and the Apollo program.
They were test firing the rocket motors for the Saturn 5. When they did the first ever test fire, every skunk within 5 miles of Huntsville got startled and released its stink.
So from that point on, before every firing, they would contract a bunch of animal control people and temps to round up as many skunks as possible and just dump them off on the other side of the Tennessee River, which also happens to be the Alabama/Tennessee state line.

[sh]

Welcome back Ben!

Also, the GA/TN border is WEIRD near Chattanooga. Going up from GA on the interstate, you leave GA, enter TN, and...you'd think that was it, right? Nope. Then you leave TN, re-enter GA, and then leave GA and re-enter TN a SECOND TIME. All while staying on the same interstate going north. It's crazy making

[brianroberts]

Fun fact: the ice cream in the back pocket law was (and maybe still is) a real law in Las Cruces, NM. It was apparently at one point used to steal horses. "No, I didn't steal this horse, it just followed me home because I had ice cream in my back pocket."

[ladykoiwolfe]

"I'll put one in...your secret family's house"
Feels like there's way too much thought put into that statement. How many secret families are there in Tennessee?

[juliaastarina]

Tennessee got serious sass, hahaha. I'd love to see him in a rather long banter with Florida or California.

[martymartin]

I saw the notification and I immediately clicked on it. Man, it is good to have The Table back!

[mysteryman]

When you do Arizona’s laws, be sure to check out the border between Coconino and Yavapai counties. See if you can figure out what it was drawn to follow.

[jonm]

As a Georgian I went on a backpacking trip and we tried to find the rock. It had rained maybe an eighth of an inch a full twelve hours prior and the trail had about six inches of mud. We started out anyway and soon came across fellow hikers coming from the other direction who said that the mud only got worse and they couldn’t find the rock. Long story short we turned around. Maybe someone should go check in with the rock and make sure it wasn’t swallowed by three states’ legislatures worth of bureaucratic nightmares.

[Tharr-cxuq]

Been a min. Thanks for the content man. Keep up the hard work.

[Photorah]

Man I like these. Some states got real weird stuff. Like Oklahoma pornography is allowed unless it shows penetration and that's only one step better than Alabama's laws on the same subject

But my favorite one that I've enjoyed my life is In Riverside California it is illegal to walk past the mission inn with a lunchbox
They also had one regarding elephants on main Street kind of like San Francisco's but I believe it's been superseded by a state law now.

[Kolopiomo]

I feel like he missed covering how all the Pentecostal Snake Churchs are completely legal. And also the time that those people up in Elwin lynched a circus elephant... but oh well...