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The Happy Place of Saturday Morning Cartoons · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: there's Jerry, and we are practically perfect in every way
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: here on Stuff you should Know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: That's right. I'm just a bill, only a bill.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, have you ever been to Capitol Hill?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh? I'm just sitting here on Capitol Hill.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Do you remember we did a whole episode on Schoolhouse
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Rock once and you had Bob Nastanovitch.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: John Yeah, a Pavement who. By the way, I finally
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: met him in real life. Oh yeah, yeah. I was
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: at a hard Quartet show, the New Supergroup with Matt
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Sweeney and Stephen Malkmus and Emmit Kelly and Jim White
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and in Atlanta and I turned around in the Bridy
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Playhouse lobby and Nastanovich comes strolling in and I was like, hey, man,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, uh, and I'm sure he gets hay
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Manned a lot, so he had he has, you know,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: his guard up. Actually he didn't. He was nice, but
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, I said, it's Chuck from Stuff
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you should Know. It's like good to finally meet you
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: in person. And he He's like, oh, hey, man, and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: we chatted for a minute and it was great.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Oh that's cool. He remembered you.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Huh yeah, yeah, we've emailed and texted here and there.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, gostcha. Well that's great, Chuck.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So that's my bobn Thestandovich story.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: That's a great one. That's about as good as a
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Bobnistandovich story.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Get yeah. I mean I got to meet a pavement guy.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So that was like the bucket list complete.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So I guess I guess I can't think of a
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: segway from bucket list. I mean, I guess it would
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: be an uncrossed off thing on my bucket list to
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: build a time machine and go back to nineteen eighty
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: three and watch Saturday morning cartoons again. How's that?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: What I mean?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: What was your routine in your house?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Baby, yeah, let's hear.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I don't ever recall having to worry about my sisters
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: trying to change the channel like it was Saturday morning cartoons.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It was all me, yeah, oh okay morning. Yeah, it
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: was great.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So they were watching.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: No, Amanda's five years older than me, Karen was thirteen
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: years older than me. Oh yeah, so she either one
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: of them had much interested in Saturday morning cartoons when
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I did the interested and overlap.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were close enough. Scott's three years older, Michelle six,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: so we overlapped a bit, and our routine was it was,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Saturday morning cartoons, but it was always a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: race to the big yellow chair to see who could
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: claim that first.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: That's you sat in a chair. I sat like three
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: feet from the TV on the ground, cross leg in
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: front of it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were one of those guys. Yeah, for sure,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because you weren't blocking anybody.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: No, it was totally cool. It was just me. I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: love it yep with my et cereal.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, parents sleeping in Yep, for sure.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I Actually I can't say what anyone else in the
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: house was doing during eight am to twelve pm every
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't remember watching them, like the whole block,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: but maybe I did.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. Except I know we've
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: talked about it before. I don't remember what episode, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Thunder the Barbarian I would miss it. I would get
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: to watch like the first seven eight minutes and then
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: my mom would be like, it's time to leave for
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: swimming lessons, and it was such a bummer. Yeah, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I know I've talked about it before on the show
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: because a listener was so kind that they bought the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: complete series of Thunder the Barbarian and mailed it to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: me where that I could see it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah was it VHS?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: No DVD? Man? They really they've styled me out, so
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: thank you.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So all right, let's get into this because I'm sure
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: we're going to pepper our own favorite cartoons that we
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: watched throughout this, right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I might mention a cartoon or two, you never know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, I mean you were into this, right, like for
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: years and years you spent Saturday mornings watching cartoons, right, Oh.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, as you've reminded me over and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: over through our lives. I am a bit older than you,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: so there will be some overlap. But also, you know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: as evidenced by like your love of like the Gi
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Joe stuff that was a little bit after when I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: was into that kind of thing. So there'll be some
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: misses here and there too.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry you left out the adjective superior Gi Joe stuff.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is a fun trip down memory lane though,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and big thanks to Julia for this.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, So for those of you who were
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: born after the mid nineties or even the early nineties,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I guess because it took a few years to come
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: to realize that there was such a thing as Saturday
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: morning cartoons and then get into them, you might not
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: really get what we're talking about. Maybe you've heard of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning cartoons, like exers love to talk about it
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: all the time, clearly, but it was a very special thing,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: like a point in time every week where essentially every
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: child in America and I've read also Australia had their own,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the UK had their own to an extent, the Canada,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: other countries in Asia had like Saturday morning cartoons. And
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: you came and you sat down and you watched four
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: straight hours of cartoons, yeah, peppered with ads directed to
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: you a five, six, seven, eight nine year old and
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: loved life. And that was like your time in the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: week because like you said, parents tended to sleep in
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: during that time. They were totally happy with their kids
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: amusing themselves for the first four hours of the morning,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: watching TV and eating sugary cereal, and like it's there
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: was a real loss when it went away, Like I
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: was well out of watching Saturday more and cartoons by the.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Time we went away same.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: But I remember feeling like a real like sense of
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: like younger kids and like subsequent generations, like really missing
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: out on something that we were in retrospect, really lucky
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to have.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I'm sure the counter to that
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: could be like, yeah, bruh, but we can watch anything
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: we want, whenever we want, all the time, including Saturday morning.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But and not to say like, oh, things were better then,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: but there was something special about a block when you
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: didn't have choice like that, Yeah, dedicated to you, aim
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: squarely at you for a certain amount of time, saying
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we see you, kids, and we want to sell you things.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It's true. Like when I read about, you know, just
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: how shamefully bad the commercialism was in the eighties, I
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: still am like, I don't I don't care. Like I
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: loved all I loved every minute of it.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the commercials, this will see, we're not that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: much different than the content. And I saw this in
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: action when when Ruby was younger and she would watch
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: commercials with the same fervor. And I'll be like, yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I guess I did the same thing. You know.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I remember when we first started podcasting, with ads the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: whole the whole idea was, yeah, just all of a
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: sudden start talking about the products, so no one gets
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that you're talking, you're giving an AD. And we were
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: both like, we're not doing that at all. And that's
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: where the idea for the the fan submitted jingles came about.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Was to make sure everybody knew an AD is coming.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: We're not just suddenly going to start talking about how
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: great Ore Casper Mattress is, you know.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Right, because I love cartoons and I love printer ink.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Now that you mention it, yeah, I do too.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And you know, I've got one of those Epsen printers
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and they have like a tankless or a bottomless tank
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: where you just refill the cartridges. You don't even have
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: to go buy new cartridges, do they? Yeah, Epsin.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I wonder I people are going to suspect that's real
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and not a bit.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: No, it's a bit.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Everybody should send you some though, you know. Yeah, But
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about is a span of time of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a few decades, about sixty five to two thousand ish,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: although you will see there was some one straggler at
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: least beyond two thousand and cartoons had been around but
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they had mainly been in movie theaters, like they would
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: play them before, Like you get to like a fancy
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: movie theater and they'll be like an organ player and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you would see a cartoon and maybe a newsreel. The
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: first sort of regular running TV cartoon was something called
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Crusader Rabbit in nineteen fifty Yeah, just ran for a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years. But the first big breakout was the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Mighty Mouse Playhouse. Mighty Mouse had been around since nineteen
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: forty two, but it made its big Saturday morning television
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: debut in nineteen fifty five on CBS.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that changed everything because prior to this, there
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: was Saturday morning programming apparently all the way back to
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: the days of radio. If you were a kid, you
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: would tune in either after school or on Saturday mornings
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: to hear your favorite program. So they were well aware
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: that this is when kids listened and then eventually watched TV.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: But if you were a kid on Saturday morning, you're
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: probably watching like some clubhouse style show where, yeah, some
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: local dude who might or might not be dressed as
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: a sag clown is interacting with puppets in the studio audience.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: It's nothing but kids, there's a single camera, it's produced
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: by your local TV station, and like that's what you
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: watch because they were so dirt cheap to make. And
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: then when Mighty Mouse came along, it basically showed these
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: things are maybe a little more expensive than that clubhouse
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: style show, but they're way cheaper than like The Lone
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Ranger or Our Gang or some of the other stuff
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: we're showing on Saturday mornings. And there's something else that's
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: really really important to remember. We talked about it. I
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: think in our political cartoons episode. Cartoons are a super stimuli.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: They hit our brains differently than watching Alfalfa or The
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Lone Ranger or that sag clown, who are live action,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: real life people. The kid is differently. They capture our
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: attention differently, And so Mighty Mouse essentially showed like, hey,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: you want to like get into a kid's brain and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: sell them stuff, Yeah, this is the way to do it.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Cartoons are the wave of the future.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, way do you get a load of droopy?
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Droopy was great, wasn't they.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although I don't remember stuff like that Saturday morning,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I remember stuff like Droopy more of like afternoon after
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: school kind of hours. But cartoons became a big deal
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: shortly after they hit the small screen and in nineteen
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: sixty and this is one of those little weird factoids
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that I think some people might not realize is that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Flintstones is actually a primetime show. A lot of people
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: do know that, but a lot of people don't. So
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was The Bugs Bunny Show at first, the Jetsons and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the New Adventures of Johnny Quest. They were all primetime
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you know, major network, which is to say, either ABC,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: CBS or NBC. This is pre Fox. Even there were
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: only three and not too long after nineteen sixty seven
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: was when they said, you know what, we got to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: consolidate all this stuff to Saturday morning. And that was it.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It was a new thing. And like you said, it
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was pretty cheap to make, especially, I mean some of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the cartoons were better than others. There were some that
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: were really cheap and kind of poorly made, where like
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: just the mouths moved and stuff like that. And it
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was the same person voicing every character like kind of clearly.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And they were like, Hey, what we can do here
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is we've got these kids. We got this captive audience,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: tons and tons of kids named Josh Clark, sitting three
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: feet in front of their TV Chris Cross Apple sauce,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and that means we can sell them toys and sugar.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, And they were already doing this, I mean those
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: clubhouse style TVs. The guy would do like what the
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: original podcast ads were supposed to, just suddenly be talking
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: about a brand new toy that he loves. Right, yeah, right,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So they've been doing this before, but again, cartoons, they
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: just were operating on a different plane. And I think
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six was a pivotal year according to I
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: found a pretty good article about this by a guy
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: named Paul FP. Pogue It's great name on encyclopedia dot com,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: and he basically says nineteen sixty six was the It
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was the year because that was the first year where
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: all three networks showed cartoon blocks on Saturday mornings, and
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: from that moment on until I would argue the late nineties,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: really he was a golden age for cartoons on Saturday mornings.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you you know, you didn't have
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a DVRs or TVO or anything like that to record stuff. Obviously,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you didn't really even have VCRs to record things. You
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: probably just had the one TV at least until kind
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: of mid to late seventies is when multiple TVs really
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: started showing up a little bit more unless you were,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you know, like the rich kid, and so you had
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to figure out in debate with your siblings if they
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: were around, what to watch by reading most you know
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of people got TV Guide, but we did
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: not pay for that because we didn't pay for extra
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: things in our family.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, but you know, we.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Had the local paper which had the TV listings, and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: so you pour through some made arguments that you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: it had kids reading on Saturday morning as a result,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and you would, you know, sometimes there were real Sophie's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: choices to be made on what to watch.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Right and the reason why. And this is what's hard
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: to understand if you're like gen Z or even like
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a late millennial. There was no choice in what you
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: were watching. When you said on Saturday mornings, the networks
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: that you were watching were showing you the shows that
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: they decided they wanted to run. So a show you
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: watched was on a specific time, on a specific network
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: on a specific day, in this case Saturday morning. So
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: you just sat down and I think there was something
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: about not having that choice that made it even more
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: enjoyable so long as the stuff was good.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they were serving us exactly what we wanted.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I never had any complaints, did you No.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: The only complaint I had that I didn't have three
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: TVs that I could watch. Yeah, them all at the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: same time, or even better sequentially.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And while this was all, you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: kind of fun and games are not all fun and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: games mostly fun and games, there are people out there,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of smarty pants, people who have made
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: arguments for things like, Hey, it introduced a new generation
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to the Beatles, because I certainly remember watching that Beatles
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: cartoon when I was a kid. Oh yeah, Yeah. I
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: came out in sixty five, but by you know, it
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: was still running somewhere because I watched it, and that's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: where I kind of got my love of the Beatles.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It introduced kids to, you know, concepts like what might
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: happen in the future with the Jetsons. There's a historian
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: named Joel Rhodes who said that the cartoons perform what
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the scholars call the bardic function. Yeah, as in like
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: medieval bards and people would sit around and listen to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the stories and it would give kids on the playground,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: like they knew the same jokes, they had same reference points.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It bonded a generation.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Because they were all watching the same thing on the
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: same day at the same time. So, yes, that was
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the culture for kids. That's where you got your culture largely,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I mean not entirely. There was Mad Magazine after all, right,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: but like that, that was because there wasn't choice, because
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: you couldn't be like, hey, have you seen Black Dub No,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that, but have you seen Time Crimes?
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: It's a great right, Like those conversations didn't happen. It
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: was some kid yelled out like exit stage left. Every
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: kid on the playground just cracked up because they knew
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: exactly what they were talking about. And if you don't
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about, just look up cartoon exit
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: stage left.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, it was that snaggle buss. Yes, okay,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I get some of those confused sometimes.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Now you nailed it, but you nailed We also.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Uh hammered this home in the Schoolhouse Rock episode. But
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: we do have to mention that how pivotal school House
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Rock was and literally teaching kids things about history and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: about politics and civics and government and math and English
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: like you name it. It was all there and like
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: real learning, like legitimate awesome learning, awesome stuff.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good episode. I remember I cracked
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: myself up and we almost like had to take our
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: younger break. Yeah, if I remember correctly.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the joke?
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I think I did some weird impression of Chuck Jones
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the Loony Tunes guy.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I gotta listen to this one now.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe we.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Should put Schoolhouse Rock as our select on Saturday. Oh
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that's a great idea when this one comes out, the idea.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a wonderful idea.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Chunk Jerry, make a note of that. And then now
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I'm doing the flintstones hammering something into a stone tablet.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I looked up The Great Kazoo because anytime I hear Flintstones,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I think Great Kazoo. Yeah, and did you know he
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: was He was an alien who was banished from his
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: planet for creating a doomsday device.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that part.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I didn't either.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I remember him floating around, but yeah, that's right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: And being extremely condescending.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, it's a real George dum Shall we
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: take a break yeah, let's take a break, all right.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Whenever you call me a dumb dumb that means I
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: have to go reset. We'll be right.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Back, Chuck. There was one other thing that, one other
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: place you could find out what was running at what
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: time on what network, Saturday Morning Cartoons. It was the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: annual ad, full page ad in the comic books in
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the fall that announced like the Saturday Morning Cartoons line up.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, huh, I didn't know that.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I was going to say, go look them
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: up because they're very nostalgic, but they're just awesome. They're
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: just so great, and they would tell you what time
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: it was on and then it was all starting in
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: two short weeks and you just couldn't wait.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Well, and how sweet that you could publish a one
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: time thing and that was the lineup.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Right, Like, it's not changing, no, for sure, although apparently
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: they would change lineups in spring for shows that weren't working,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: but more often than not you were seeing largely the
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: same shows.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I remember that's when things would change
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: sort of mid season. That was always disconcerting.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And one other thing I just barely touched on.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It was there was a subtext to it all this
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: started right after summer ended, so you had all summer
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: to have a great time. Summer stops, school starts, and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: then Saturday Morning Cartoon kicks off a new season.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I love it. The fall TV season. So
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: we mentioned advertising. This is going to be a big
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: part of this episode because it really goes and lockstep
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: with Saturday Morning Cartoons and all children's programming of all time.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But at one point, you know, like I mentioned, they
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: realized they had a captive audience. They could sell them
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: toys and sugar. But the lines started to blur in
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies between content and advertising in such a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: way it was sort of like the beginning of In fact,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I'm curious when that people started using words like IP
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: intellectual property, because now we would just call it IP.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Back then, it was like, hey, we got the Jackson five,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: they are a successful musical group. Let's give them a cartoon.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: We got the Osmond's kids, love the Brady Bunch, Let's
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: do the Brady Bunch kids. We got the Flintstones, Hey,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: let's give them a cereal. And things started just kind
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of crossing streams such where yeah, like we would just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: call that IP today, it's like, let's take a thing
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and exploit it in as many different ways and sell
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: it in as many different ways as we can.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Right, yes, exactly. They were cartoons starting, like you said,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the seventies became marketing tools, and at first it was
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to basically extend the advertising power of an existing TV show,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: like all the ones you listed right and more. Yeah,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: But then they started saying, like, hey, we have this
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: line of greeting cards. The care Bears started out as
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: a greeting cards line, so did shirt Pales as a
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: matter of fact. Yeah, And they would say, like, people
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: are going crazy for these mugs with these adorable characters
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: on them, because care Bears did have the loveliest animation
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: potentially of all time of all Saturday Morning cartoons.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: And then they said, Okay, mugs are not enough, Greeting
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: cards are not enough. Let's like really blow out this
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: ip if they were calling it that, and turn it
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: into a kids show and then start selling like dolls
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: and figures of these cartoons to the kids watching these shows.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And you could take something like the care Bears as
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a greeting card line and turn them into a hot property.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we'll read through a few of these.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: That was a pac Man TV show of course, that
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was good, which was an arcade game. Of course. There
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: was a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon that was pretty good
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: role playing game. I don't think I ever saw that
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: there was let me see here, obviously the Transformers, yeah,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: long before they were not so great Michael Bay movies.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: They were toys and then a cartoon. And as you'll see,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: some of these things kind of it's hard to remember
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: which one came before the other or if they were
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like developing toys just to sell a cartoon or developing
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a cartoon just to sell toys. It kind of except
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: for you know, Rambo and Chuck Norris, which were actual
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: shows in nineteen eighty six, Rambo The Force of Freedom
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and Chuck Norris Karate Commandos Double K. I think the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the one that started out
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: as a show just to sell the.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Toys, right, Yeah, they were basically co developed at the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: same time. Was part of a grand scheme. I know.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Jim and the Holograms was a cartoon before the toys,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: about a year before the toys. Okay, there were Smurfs
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: when the Smurfs came out, that was a big deal. Yeah,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: because there was there was like was it one hundred
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: or one hundred and one Smurf with Papa Smurf, and
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: they made little like really collectable size action r well
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: not action figures because they weren't action at all, but
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: just little figures of the Smurf. You remember those, Yeah,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: you could smurf them all And yes, exactly, I'm pretty
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: sure they had like a hundred different ones that you
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: could collect, and people went bonkers on those things because
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: they were just so cute and you could put them
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: on your desk or you could play with them or
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: do whatever. If the Smurfs came first, and I think
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: that they really kind of helped kick off that genuine
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: like we can really market the heck out of these
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: cartoons if we make figures based on these.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, see that that's a slight divide. I was a
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: little bit old for Smurfs, a little bit old for Smurfs.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Full stop Smurfs is still pretty good.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, they're still making those movies. Man, those one out
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: last year, wasn't there.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I have not seen you mean, like the CGI movies. Yeah, yeah,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I've not seen them. But yeah, I think they've got
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: several out.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's the same thing. They're still smurfing
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at the box office.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: That's great. And then there were other ones like Strawberry Shortcake,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: My Little Pony. Well, like you said, the lines between
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: did the cartoon come first, did the toys come first,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: it really doesn't matter because they were all part of
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: the same package. By this point were well into the eighties,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: which not coincidentally was the deregulation minded Reagan era, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: cartoons at this point had evolved into half hour essentially
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: commercials for the actual toy, and in the most pronounced cases,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the actual commercials were for the toys in the cartoon
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that the toys were based on.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got some stats here because in the late
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: seventies of the FTC, and we're going to talk about
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the FCC and the FDC quite a bit, because parents
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and the government started to get a little upset. Basically,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: they saw the writing on the wall, and in late
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: seventies they released numbers by the FTC that highlighted what
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: they called it like a real health problem for this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: programming companies every year and this was back then in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the seventies, spent five hundred to six hundred million dollars
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: on ads targeted to children. Of all the foods being
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: advertised to kids, two thirds, I'm surprised it wasn't more
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: than this, honestly were highly sugared products.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: It was by my Josh math calculations, it was over
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: ninety five percent.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels about right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for real, because of all the foods. But even
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: of all the ads, chuck, most of them were first
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: sugared foods. There was a study or that Trade Commission
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: study looked at some data that looked at nine months
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy five nine even the whole year looked
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: at seven five hundred and fifteen ads. Seven and eighty
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: two of those ads were for sugary foods ninety five
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: point seven percent.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Was there anything for good food? Uh?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Yes? Actually there were four four ads over nine months,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: four different ads for meats, vegetables, milk or cheese, and cheese.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And I think meats maybe had zero, so vegetables somehow
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: was basically carrying that. And I would guess all four
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: of those were different V eight ads or fruit juice ads.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Who was the guy? It was like the the dairy
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: counsel or something. The guy that danced around and sang
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: about cheese.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I think it was uh time for Timer. Was he
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: like a big circle with real long, skinny legs in
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: the That was Timer?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that was what was? That? Was that the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: dairy Council.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I know. He was actually a respect to the government
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: actually doing something in the late seventies, which we'll talk about,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: which was so he's a good days to kind of
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: counteract this stuff. Yeah, it was a good thing.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: He talked about eating proteins and stuff rather than sugar.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: God, what a very weird He looks like Twinkie the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Kid a little bit.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I couldn't put my finger on it. Chuck, You're
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: absolutely right, that's who it was, all right.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So the writing's on the wall. These studies are coming
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: out and people are saying, like, really, four ads for
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: good food and seven thousand plus for sugary stuff, and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: so people started getting upset, not just about the ads though,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but about the content. Cartoon violence is a real thing.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Every time that was an adult in a cartoon, they
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: were buffoons and morons.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Or they had like an evil plot that the kids
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: had to foil.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, like they were bad people like Scooby
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Doo kids were. They were always foiling the adults evil
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: plan exactly. They were never going against fellow whatever. I mean,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: how old were they even.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: They were late teens, maybe even for those high school Yeah,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I think they were bumming around to college. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I think it was right before college.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Okay. Consumerism, of course was very much glorified in the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: cartoons and the ads, and by the late sixties, you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: jumping back a bit, there were there were groups that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: were forming The Action for Children's Television got together, there
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: were lobbying the FCC. Obviously they regulate the media on
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: not cable as we'll see, but just regular TV. And
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they were saying like, hey, this is this stuff is
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: we got to pull this back some like we're getting
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: out of hand with what we're feeding children four hours
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: at a time every Saturday.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this was, like you said, the late sixties.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: It started to really kind of pick up in the
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: seventies because the reason why is more and more research
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: was funded studying what effect television had on kids, and
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning cartoons were a deep focus of those studies too.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: There was a nineteen seventy five study from the National
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Science Foundation. It was a metas funny analysis. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: and they said, Saturday morning cartoons are creating conflict within
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: families because kids are going to their parents saying I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: want this, the parents say no, and then the kid
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: gets upset and starts arguing in that. Yeah, that's internal
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: family conflict. Familial conflict. And this same one of the
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: surveys found that kids, I think a third of kids
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: reported arguing sometimes when their parents said no, Six of
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: them argued quote a lot. So the reason why Saturday
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: morning cartoons in particular were causing this conflict is because
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: there were so many ads for so many kids products
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: that kids saw every Saturday that it increased the frequency
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: of kids asking for stuff, which increased the frequency of
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: being told no, which increased the frequency of arguing in conflict.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Parents didn't like that. Of course, they
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: also didn't like that. They learned that and they did
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you know, studies on this too, and they found that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: young kids or kids in general, basically couldn't tell the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: difference between cartoons and ads because sometimes it was the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: literal characters from the cartoons selling you something. Sometimes it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: was kids playing with toys and showing you the action
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: of the toys and kids just love watching that. And
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the old you know, the younger you were, you really
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: couldn't tell the difference. Once you got a little bit older,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you could tell the difference just by the link and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: be like, well, those are the short cartoons.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah, because these ads were all like there
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: would be a mini cartoon within the ad, you know,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: like Frank and Berry would almost fall into a pit
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: or something like that. Count Chocula would have to come
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: turn into a bat and rescue them or something like that,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: and then they both end up eating their cereal. That Like,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: if you're a little kid, you're like, this is great.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: This is some weird short that they just put in
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: the middle of the show.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: But it's not an ad, and I'm hungry all of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a sudden for that cereal.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Mom, I want some Count Chocula.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: That was actually apctured really well in a Simpsons just
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: this almost in a side where Itching and Scratchy are
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: up for a cartoon award and one of the other
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: one of the other cartoons in the running for Best
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Writing in a Cartoon Series was Action Figure Man. The
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: How to Buy Action Figure Man episode where it just
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: shows the little kid and goes, Mommy, I want it.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: He's pointing to the action vase, like not even an
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: ad that was the episode.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: That's really funny.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they nailed it on that. They nailed it like
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: snaggle Puss.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They always do. So the long and short of all
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of this past few minutes is that kids didn't know
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that they were being sold things right, and parents didn't
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: like that. I think the authors of the paper were
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: fairly kind when they said, certainly, most advertisers do not
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: deliberately set out to confuse or mislead children, nor to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: promote unsafe, unhealthier, social, socially undesirable behavior, which was very
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: naive I think. But maybe they were just trying to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: soft sell it.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Right, So you put all this together that again started
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: in the sixties, is kind of agitation. And also this
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is where this is the climate that Sesame Street grew
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: out of and probably made Saturday morning cartoons look even
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: worse because it showed you could make kids shows that
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: didn't poison their minds. And then it picked up in
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: the seventies and by nineteen seventy eight, the Federal Trade
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Commission said, hey, we need to do something about this.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: We're not going to do anything about it, but we're
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: going to make some recommendations. Through their staff report on
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: television advertising to children, they said, we should ban all
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: television advertising for any product whatsoever that's directed at very
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: young children.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: That's a big one, right, so you can kiss.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: My buddy goodbye. Right, ban advertising directed to older children
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: for sugar products, which makes sense. But the thing they
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: predicated this concern on just cracks me up, because those
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: things can pose serious dental health risks. Like that was
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the extent of the concern with sugary products back then.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, could rat your tea, right, yeah, I mean that's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: what you heard. That'll write your teeth, not like just
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: eating tons of sugar is not good for you.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Right. I remember having like a we did a module
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: that included a play and some other stuff in third
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: grade that was sponsored by Crest. There's a big Crest
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: like cutout stand up and like we just in class,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: we just did this whole thing about brushing your teeth
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: with Crest brand toothpaste. It was like that pervasive.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: We make holes and teeth. Do you remember that?
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, but I can't place it.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It was oh man, I mean, I think it was Crest,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: but it was again a cartoon that Crest was running,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and it was the cavity something that they had to fight,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and that was what they would chant, we make holes
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and teeth.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that might have been one of the things that
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: kicked this off.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so. And then the final requirement was advertisements
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: directed to older kids for other sugar products that they
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: could you know, put TV would be balanced by ads
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: for other nutritional products or health disclosures at the end
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: of the sugar product ad.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: That's where Timer came from.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I gotcha.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: That's also where bod Squad came from. Don't drown your food,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: remember that one. Oh yeah, there was the cool thing
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: about Schoolhouse Rock is they'd already been doing this for
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: half a decade by the time other networks started to
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: do something about it by running these cute little cartoon PSAs.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: So essentially they were ten to fifteen maybe up to
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: thirty second commercials that the networks had to run that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: were cartoons too, So they appealed the kids, but they
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: rather than telling kids to buy fruity pebbles, they were
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: telling kids to brush your teeth or to exercise your
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: chompers with things like carrots and apples, that kind of stuff.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Right, should we take a break.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the rest of these. There's some other
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: stuff that you just kind of take for granted. I
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: didn't realize came out of an actual deal between the
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: networks and the FTC.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was also and all this stuff I didn't
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: remember necessarily in the moment, but once I started reading
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: about it and studying it and obviously watching on YouTube,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: it like washed over me. NBC had one to grow
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: on from eighty three to eighty nine, and that was
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: just usually some famous person sort of giving some life
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: lesson advice and they'd be like, well, that's one to
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: grow on. H what else weld? Nancy Reagan of course,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and just say no to drugs. You can forget that.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Betty White taught you who to call in an emergency.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, called Betty White, right exactly.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Because Betty White could handle basically anything. She was just
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that kind of person. There was also the more you know,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: with the star that went over your head. That was
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the nineties on NBC and all of the NBC stars
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: at the time, because remember NBC ruled the airwaves. Yeah,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: must see TV Thursdays.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they had.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Their stars basically doing thirty second spots which are PSA
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: and about how to, how to you know, maybe get
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: into teaching, maybe stay in school, just little life lessons
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: like that. There were a bunch actually about abusive parents
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: and how not cool it was for a dad to
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: beat up on a mom. Oh yeah yeah, real like
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: kind of rugging and raw stuff here there, but presented
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: in these vignettes that kind of got through to kids,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: although you can tell they were geared towards slightly older kids.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And then of course you're beloved. G
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I Joe talked about stranger danger and always finished with
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the famous line, now you know and knowing is half
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the battle.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: And you've seen those parody videos of that before, right,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. Oh there's about thirty or so
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: maybe more parody videos that are just totally off the
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: wall but hilarious where they just take out the sound
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and put in their own sound and vocals and edit
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the stuff up, kind of mix it up so that
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: they're just it's just amazing. Look up g I Joe
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: PSA parody videos and you'll thank.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Me later, or just watch probably any episode of the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: family guy. Yeah, probably, he did a lot of this stuff.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he did.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Shall we take a break, yes, all right, we'll be
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: right back with more on Saturday Morning cartoons. All right. Oh,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, I remembered it was the Cavity Creeps.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Oh great memory, Yeah, it just pop back.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: So before we left, we talked about, you know, some
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of these things they were doing to offset the effect
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of cartoons. It's called pro social programming, and it came
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: about because of an actual deal that was made. There
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: was an FTC hearing in nineteen seventy eight where Kenneth
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of Quaker Oats was up there because you know, they're like, hey,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Captain Crunch is rotting our kid's teeth out and you
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: make it. And he actually like he didn't think they
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: were the problem. He thought the content was the problem.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: But he did come out and had a statement basically
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: where like he said, you know, I think we do
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: need to change what's going on in our cartoons and
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: change the way our society is using this medium to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: communicate with kids. So it took a lot of nerve,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I think for that guy to say that, But he
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: didn't blame the ads like I said. So they struck
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a deal. Basically, hey, you can keep these ads if
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you add this other programming that we were talking about before.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently the way that I took it, it
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: was a very crafty thing to do by blaming the
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: content because it took the onus off the sugary product.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Advertisers and everybody started looking at the cartoons themselves, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the cartoons were probably like, hey, hey, we're not nearly
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: as bad as fruity pebbles, but okay, we'll start doing
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: something about it. The I guess cartoons themselves started to
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: get a little more pro social, like this is where
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: fad Albert came from, I believe. But then also those
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: PSAs that we were talking about, that was the advent
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, but this is late seventies. I think
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: that was seventy seven seventy eight. Ronald Reagan would come
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: along in the nineteen eighties and sort of just deregulate
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the United States as a whole and said, FCC stand
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: down and don't worry about this stuff. They didn't officially,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, there were recommendations anyways, and not laws. So
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a recommendation is only good if you sort of follow
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: up on that, and the FCC started not to in
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the eighties, they kind of didn't try in some cases.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I think between nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety they actually
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: saw a rise in the number of violent acts per
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: hour on Saturday morning cartoons from eighteen point six to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: twenty six point four per hour.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty nuts. But it gets even more nuts
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: when you compare it to what was on prime time,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: what the adults were watching. Oh yeah, between nineteen eighty
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: and nineteen ninety, it pretty much held steady at just
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: five to six acts of violence per hour as opposed
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: to the twenty six per hour on cartoons.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, it's cartoon violence, but it's still
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: it's not all Roadrunner falling off a cliff like a
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: lot of it was, you know, depicted, like you know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: there was a Rambo cartoon like I mentioned, right.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there there is research. And I'm not taking
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: a position on either way because people have said, like
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: violent video games caused violence, right violent, this is like
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the predecessor to all that stuff, violent cartoons caused violent kids.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: One of the I guess arguments of that is that
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: even if it was cartoon violence like Roadrunner, it still
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: desensitized kids to the consequences of violent acts, right because
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: there was accompanied with humor.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So the eighties were kind of the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: most unchecked time, it seems like. Yeah, and the nineties
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: come along and finally they were like, all right, we
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: got to do something. Congress steps back in and the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Children's Television Act of nineteen ninety required the FCC to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: enforce those original FTC's recommendations in nineteen seventy eight and said,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you got to reinstate restrictions on advertising during children's television
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and enforce the obligations of broadcasters to meet the educational
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: informational needs of the child audience. And a couple of
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: years later, NBC was like, all right, I'm done, it's
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: not even worth it anymore.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Get this. Yeah. Although one good thing that came out
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: of this is this was the origin of Saved by
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the Bell because NBC went all in on slightly older
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: kids team programming on Saturday mornings, and the flagship of
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: it was Saved by the Bell so much they shoot
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: they showed two episodes of it Mourning New Ones.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, this is also where you got things
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: like the Mighty morphin Power Rangers, and of course pee
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Wee's Playhouse was a little bit before this, or was
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: it in the nineties.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Was that the German pronunciation? Did I say pee Wee's
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: play Hoss?
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Did I p's PV's play House?
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Perfect? Yeah? I think that was like eighty five or
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: something like that.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, I never watched pee Wee's Playhouse. I know we
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: talked about this, but I guess I was fourteen by then,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: not that you I mean there. I could watch it
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: today and probably really love it because pee Wee defies
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: age groups. But it was just one of those things
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that maybe at the time I didn't know about it
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and didn't think it was for me or something. I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: don't know, I have no excuse.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wasn't into him either for sure. But I
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: did get to see his live version of the pee
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Wee's Playhouse.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Oh you went to that?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: So there were a few other consequences of this, but
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: the big one, the upshot, was that the government Congress
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: essentially nanny stated Saturday morning cartoons out of existence. Yeah,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: because of these rules, they just weren't profitable anymore. There
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: were certain restrictions on advertising. You could only show so
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: many ads during kids programming like there was. There was
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: just a lot that took away the profit drive that
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: made Saturday morning cartoons so attractive, right, Yeah, there were
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of other factors too that put the writing
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: on the wall, not the least of which was the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: rise of cable TV, which you mentioned was outside of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: the purview of the FCC for a long time, and
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: from what I could tell, even today, networks are required
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: to show three hours of educational programming geared toward geared
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: to kids. So if you ever are up on a
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Saturday or a Sunday and you were watching say By
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: the Bell reruns like I don't know some people do,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: it would say it would flash like a logo that
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: says EI, and it would say this program has been
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: labeled educational and informative. That's because of the government mandate
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: that they have to run three hours of shows educational shows.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I guess a day, maybe maybe a week, because I
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: only remember seeing it on certain times of certain days.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: But there were mandates that said you have to show
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: educational programming, and that's why you see that today. But
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Cable that didn't apply to and so not only did
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Cable not have to show and take up valuable real
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: estate with educational programming that nobody wanted to watch unless
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: it was saved by the bell. There were also cable
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: networks that were geared exclusively two kids. That wasn't just
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: on Saturday mornings. These were twenty four hour a day
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: children's programmings like Nickelodeon in the beginning, the first iteration
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: of the Disney Channel.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and stuff like the WB and CW two. Those
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: weren't exclusively kids, but I feel like most of that was,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: and like through teen years, basically you also had the
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: rise of like even though I love my Atari and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, it wasn't anything like what was to
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: come with at home gaming. That certainly put a dent
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: in things because now kid could just get up on
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning and play whatever. You know, new system was out,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: DBRs came along, and then, you know, so you didn't
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: have to crowd around the TV at a certain time. Together.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: They all just started getting out of it. I think
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I mentioned NBC got out in ninety two, CBS got
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: out in ninety seven, and ABC Wow. ABC hung on
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to Saturday morning cartoons till twenty ten.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, for sure.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Bad No.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I think WB and Fox had only stopped just a
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: couple of years before. But again, it seems like the
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: whole thing peaked and ended by the late nineties, very
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: early two thousands. And from what I saw, the last
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Saturday Morning cartoon block shown in the United States happened
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: on September twenty seventh, twenty fourteen, on the CW. And
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: the last cartoon show that was shown in the history
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of Saturday Morning cartoons was Yu Gi Oh Zexol, which
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: is nothing I was ever into, but I know there
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: are a lot of kids who just like drooled with nostalgia.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: And that was the last Saturday Morning cartoon ever shown.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: There's a little piece of trivia for you.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Wow did they did they have a lone bugler play
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: taps afterward?
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: They should have? For sure?
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Man, what a what an end of an era? For sure?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But it also I mean when I look back
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: or look at all of this info, and I'm like,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I was smack dab in the most manipulative stretch of
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Saturday Morning cartoons. Yeah, and it makes me wonder, like
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: what had I been watching in the early seventies, or
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: had I been watching in the nineties or two thousands.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: After like all of these restrictions, How different would would
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I be?
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I can recite a specific fruity pebbles ad
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: that they used to show around Christmas. Yeah, now, yes,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: So I think Fred no Barney was pretending to be
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Santa because he wanted to slide down the chimney and
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: get Fred's fruity pebbles and he said ho ho ho,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I'm hungry. And then he slid down and he found
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Sana was already there and he goes, Sanna, my pebbles,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: and Fred goes your pebbles, Barney. And this would like
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: get in my head as an earworm, and it does
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: still sometimes today where like for days it'll just be
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: going on a loop in my head.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: That's so funny.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And I can even top that chuck. Okay, As I
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: was thinking about it today, I was highlighting, like my
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: notes for today and I started drooling. So like that's
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: how that's the Pavlovian response that was teen to me
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: for fruity pebbles thanks from the Morning cartoons in the air.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Oh I love frddy pebbles. Not as good as Captain
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Crunch Peanut butter to me, that's my all time favorite.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: But boy, I love some prudy pebbles.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Did you ever have that Etty cereal that I mentioned earlier?
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever had that. I mean we
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: didn't good, we weren't. You know, we didn't get a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: lot of that stuff.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: If you could afford cap'n Crunch peanut butter, you could
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: afford Et.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but Captain Crunched peanut butter was a rarity, and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: oftentimes it was the the generic brands of all that stuff.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: So instead of fruity petals, it was like fruit stones
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Fruit tonsilstones.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly gross.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. As far as peanut butter cereals, go Et
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: was the best. I think.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Oh it was peanut butter, yes, And it was.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Not peanut butter and chocolate. It was just peanut butter
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: because remember Riese's pieces were ET's face. Oh of course candy.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: And it had like a glossy coating to it too
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: that somehow maybe even more sweet peanut butter. It was
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: so good.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Was it uh ET's head or something?
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: No, I don't remember what it was, but it was
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't think it was. Were they and teas?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Just ask if it was eas and teas.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: It may have been, but on the box it was
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: obviously just a big picture of et.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I bet you they could bring that back and people
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: would like it.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I would buy all of it.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I think it I'm looking now, Buddy, I think it's
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: eas and teas.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: It's so good, Chuck. It was so good that. And
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: remember the lemon lime bubble Yum where it was like
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: a lemon center wrapped in lime outside. Yeah, those two
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: things are like. That was the pinnacle of my childhood
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: as far as eating stuff goes.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a great Hubba Bubba guy generally. I
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: found that they had the best tensile strength for the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: biggest bubbles, for sure, but I would also do Hubba
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Bubba or Bubbleicious and bubble Yum too.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, bubble Yum probably had the least bubble blowing ability.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Hubba Bubba definitely had everybody else beat.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: One last question. Did you have a license plate that
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: you got out of a honeycomb box that you put
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: on your bike?
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Oh? You bet, your sweet Bippy, I get.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Me too, buddy. Yeah, I don't remember what it said,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: but I'll bet it was bitchin and pro America.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't even like Honey Cereal, so that they
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: got you to buy stuff just because you wanted to
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the prize.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. And I'm sure you learned all about the
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: license plate being in the box of Honeycombs on Saturday
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Morning cartoons.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and man, the nostalgia's coming hard now. But if
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: you weren't sitting down for Saturday Morning cartoons, you would
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: just have your bowl in front of you. Of course,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: if you're at the kitchen table eating cereal, what were
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: you doing.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Reading the back of the cereal box? You got it
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: so good, which is probably another ad for something else too.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or like a puzzle or a word find or something.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're lucky. Yeah, we should probably stop because
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I'm getting dizzy about a faint.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I'm drooling now.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: If you want to know more about Saturday Morning cartoons,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: I have a great little piece of advice for you.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Some saintly humans have put entire three four hour blocks
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Saturday Morning Cartoons, complete with ads, the original broadcasts on
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: YouTube and all sorts of other video play sights. And
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: if you want to just lose yourself, go watch some
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: of it. You will love it. Amazing, Chuck said, amazing,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: which means it's time for listener mail.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this gross's cockroach story. Ever. Hey, guys,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: not to be a one upper, but I believe I
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: might have the worst cockroach story on Earth.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yikes.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: A few years ago, I would let my little three
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: legged best friend Trip. I guy, he's got a little
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: tripod dog. I love those mm hm out on the
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: front porch because he loves laying on the porch at
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: night to listen to the bugs. He's the best dog
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: one could dream for. But on this night, he let
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: me down for the first time ever for not protecting
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: me as I opened the door to let him out.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: As I turned around to walk back inside, I felt
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: something hit my head and start crawling. Quickly ripped off
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: my hoodie and threw it to the ground. I searched
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and search but ultimately couldn't find the culprit. After a
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: few minutes of searching, I decided to open the front
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: door to see if Trip wanted to come back in.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Right as I began to call out for him to
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: come inside, a roach the size of a Mulano cookie
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: buzzed around from inside the house and flew directly into
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: my mouth. Oh my goodness, yes, all the way into
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: my mouth. I quickly spit it out and tried my
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: best to smash this thing into oblivion. But Saliba only
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: made him stronger, I guess, as he evaded me with
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: ease and flew off into the warm summer night sky.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I think about this far too often, and wouldn't doubt
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: if it only added to my ongoing anxiety. He had
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning that we help with anxiety for
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Buck so and that his wife appreciates that. So part
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of the reason for Buck's anxiety might be recounting this
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: roach story for real. Again, Thank you, guys for the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: years of joy, knowledge, and last, may your mouths be
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: free of paraplanita Americana for forever and longer.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Nice. Thanks Buck. That's a good email.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good writer.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I can image, Yeah, I can imagine that there are
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: some people out there listening that are like, what does
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: he mean a flying cockroach? Yes, indeed there are flying cockroach. Yeah,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: cam palmetto bugs, and they're giant and they're flying, and
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: their cockroaches and apparently if your Buck and you got
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: your mouth though open, a milano sized cookie cockroach is
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: going to find his way right into that gaping hole horrific.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I think I already said thanks again, Buck, but that
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: was such a good email it's worth saying again. So
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: thanks again, Buck. And if you want to be like
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Buck and send us an email, send it off to
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.