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The Cliffs Notes on Cliffs Notes · 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, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is the brief
0:16
Speaker 2: overview of Cliff Notes.
0:20
Speaker 1: We're not going to do the Exhausted Encyclopedia documentary length
0:26
Speaker 1: Cliff's Notes episode.
0:27
Speaker 2: Nope, we are doing the brief overview of Cliff's Notes.
0:31
Speaker 2: I said it wrong the first time. It's never been
0:34
Speaker 2: cliff notes. It's Cliff's notes.
0:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the first thing we should probably say,
0:39
Speaker 1: because Jerry and the pre show banter even got it wrong.
0:43
Speaker 1: Even though I said, Jerry, we're doing an episode on
0:45
Speaker 1: Cliff's notes. She said, I used to get cliff notes.
0:49
Speaker 1: It's not cliff notes. I used to say cliff notes
0:51
Speaker 1: too in high school. But it is Cliff's notes, as
0:56
Speaker 1: in the person's nameless Cliff. As we'll soon found find out.
0:59
Speaker 1: It used to an apostrophe, then it just became cliffs
1:03
Speaker 1: two words notes without an apostrophe. Then it became cliffs
1:07
Speaker 1: notes all one word, but with that end capitalized.
1:10
Speaker 2: So stylish.
1:12
Speaker 1: But it has never been cliff notes.
1:14
Speaker 2: No, but everyone basically in the world calls it cliff.
1:16
Speaker 1: Notes, right, and we should tell everyone what this is.
1:20
Speaker 1: If you don't know, I do know that they went
1:23
Speaker 1: around the world a little bit, but it feels like
1:24
Speaker 1: a very American thing. It is a study aid. It's
1:29
Speaker 1: basically sort of I was about to say a cliffs
1:32
Speaker 1: Notes version of the book, because it's so in the
1:35
Speaker 1: lexicon now. But it's like if you went to read
1:38
Speaker 1: a book in high school in the eighties, like The
1:40
Speaker 1: Scarlet Letter, and you're like, oh God, do I really
1:43
Speaker 1: have to read the Scarlet Letter? You would go to
1:45
Speaker 1: a store and you would buy this yellow and black,
1:49
Speaker 1: very thin pamphlet. I don't remember how much they were then,
1:52
Speaker 1: they're only about eight ninety nine now. Yeah, And it
1:55
Speaker 1: would contextualize the work. It would summarize the work, give
1:59
Speaker 1: the character descriptions, basically everything you needed to know the
2:03
Speaker 1: night before to pass the test or write the paper.
2:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you said, it's entered the lexicon. Most
2:09
Speaker 2: people can recognize it just that from that yellow and
2:12
Speaker 2: black cover it looks like a minute Work album cover. Yeah,
2:16
Speaker 2: or Striper Striper, Yes, very nice. Maybe that's where Striper
2:19
Speaker 2: got it maybe. And then yeah, most people in America
2:24
Speaker 2: know what we're talking about. I do wonder how well
2:26
Speaker 2: known it is around the world, though.
2:28
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it ended up going to thirty
2:30
Speaker 1: nine countries. But it just feels like a very lazy
2:34
Speaker 1: American thing, especially for gen xers, to be like, I'll
2:37
Speaker 1: just get that and that's fine.
2:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's been long, basically from the outset, criticized
2:43
Speaker 2: for being this thing that students read and use instead
2:49
Speaker 2: of actually reading the material, the book that they're supposed
2:52
Speaker 2: to read. That actually ran a foul. I guess of
2:57
Speaker 2: what the guy who invented these things intent was. He
3:00
Speaker 2: always said, no, this is not what that's for. You're
3:02
Speaker 2: supposed to read the regular book. You're supposed to read
3:06
Speaker 2: the Scarlet Letter, Chuck, and whether you like it or
3:09
Speaker 2: not doesn't matter. And then you get the cliffs notes
3:12
Speaker 2: and you understand it that much more fully. That was
3:14
Speaker 2: the point.
3:15
Speaker 1: That's right. And of course we're talking about Keith Hilla Gas.
3:19
Speaker 1: Oh I'm kidding. Clifton Heath kill A Gas. His name
3:23
Speaker 1: was cliff a gentleman was a true corn Huskers. We'll see.
3:27
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen eighteen out in the rural
3:30
Speaker 1: sticks of Nebraska. His father was a mail carrier and
3:34
Speaker 1: he was a very smart kid, and I would assume
3:38
Speaker 1: a smart adult because he studied physics and math at
3:42
Speaker 1: Midland Lutheran College and then was going to grad school
3:44
Speaker 1: for physics and geology at the University of Nebraska, Go
3:49
Speaker 1: corn Huskers, Okay, but dropped out in nineteen thirty nine
3:52
Speaker 1: to marry a classmate named Katherine Gallbraith, at which time
3:56
Speaker 1: he got a job at Long's College Books as a clerk,
4:01
Speaker 1: and that company would later become the Nebraska Book Company.
4:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, long story short, Cliff Hill of Gas was
4:09
Speaker 2: a very smart guy. I saw that he was said
4:12
Speaker 2: to read five books a week basically his whole life.
4:16
Speaker 1: Or did he just read five quick summaries?
4:18
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just don't know because he's dead
4:21
Speaker 2: now and we can't ask him.
4:23
Speaker 1: That's right. But he worked at the NBC Nebraska Book
4:27
Speaker 1: Company up until World War Two when he went to
4:28
Speaker 1: the Army. He was a meteorologist for the Army Air Corps.
4:32
Speaker 1: So again, pretty smart dude ended up a captain and
4:35
Speaker 1: his wife, Catherine, worked as a clerk for the Manhattan Project,
4:39
Speaker 1: so she was sharp as attack as well.
4:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, I want to give big ups. Are we
4:44
Speaker 2: still saying big ups? Heck.
4:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, we're old people. We can say whatever we want.
4:48
Speaker 2: I want to give big ups to Olivia who helped
4:50
Speaker 2: us out with this, because there is not a lot
4:53
Speaker 2: of information on cliff Notes out there. Yeah, it's like
4:58
Speaker 2: it's just not out there. You can get like the
5:01
Speaker 2: like appropriately enough to brief overview of cliff Notes in
5:05
Speaker 2: its history, but to really dig in and get the details,
5:07
Speaker 2: you got to get out there. So thanks to her
5:09
Speaker 2: for that.
5:10
Speaker 1: She did it. I think she broke into the estate
5:12
Speaker 1: of the Hillo Gas estate and stole a diary. She did,
5:17
Speaker 1: I think so.
5:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then also I want to give big ups
5:21
Speaker 2: to Mental Flows too because they did some really good
5:22
Speaker 2: reporting on it, to some good digging.
5:25
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. All right. So back to Cliff Hillogas
5:28
Speaker 1: he was in the army. Then after the war he
5:31
Speaker 1: went back to his old job at the Nebraska Book Company.
5:35
Speaker 2: And we knew you'd be crawling back.
5:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he helped transform them into a wholesale textbook distributor,
5:44
Speaker 1: and he ended up sort of traveling all over the
5:46
Speaker 1: country buying and selling used textbooks. When a little trip
5:50
Speaker 1: to Toronto, Canada ended up being quite a good thing
5:54
Speaker 1: for the course of his life, right.
5:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on who you're talking about. It wasn't that
5:59
Speaker 2: good of a thing for named Jack Cole, the guy
6:01
Speaker 2: who we had dinner with in Toronto, who was a
6:04
Speaker 2: bookstore owner. And Jack Cole was like, hey, man, I'm
6:07
Speaker 2: gonna let you in on this business opportunity. I have
6:11
Speaker 2: these condensed pamphlets that basically are analysis of Shakespeare's place.
6:16
Speaker 2: I publish sixteen of them, and I think the quote
6:21
Speaker 2: from Cliff Hillogas was Jack Cole said yes, I know, yeah,
6:26
Speaker 2: he said, I want you to be the American distributor
6:29
Speaker 2: of these pamphlets, which I call Cole's Notes. And Clifton
6:34
Speaker 2: Hilligas said, all right, I'll give it a shot, and
6:37
Speaker 2: started selling these things, publishing them and selling them in America.
6:42
Speaker 2: And what happened from Cole's Notes.
6:44
Speaker 1: Chuck, Well, the first thing we should say is he
6:48
Speaker 1: took a great risk. And I'm not like, you know,
6:51
Speaker 1: weighing in one way or the other of the ethics
6:53
Speaker 1: of any of this. But Hillogas did take upon great
6:56
Speaker 1: financial risks. Huh. He got a loan for four thousand
6:58
Speaker 1: dollars to make this happen close to fifty grand today,
7:02
Speaker 1: and printed up thirty three thousand copies of these Cole's
7:04
Speaker 1: Notes himself, and he and his wife Catherine and their
7:08
Speaker 1: three young kids, like packed and shipped these things in
7:12
Speaker 1: their house, out of their home for a little while,
7:16
Speaker 1: and we're selling pretty good. And then what happened.
7:21
Speaker 2: Josh, Well, yeah, so they were paying royalties to Jet Cole.
7:24
Speaker 2: That was the setup, and within the first year, I
7:28
Speaker 2: guess Hilla Gas was like nuts to that, I'm just
7:32
Speaker 2: going to rename these things cliff Notes Cliffs Notes. So
7:35
Speaker 2: they went from Cole's Notes to cliffs Notes. I think
7:38
Speaker 2: the Cole was heard to say and Cliff was like,
7:43
Speaker 2: I can't hear you. I'm done in Nebraska. So I
7:46
Speaker 2: just see people gloss over this all the time like
7:49
Speaker 2: it's I just don't understand why it's not at all
7:52
Speaker 2: controversial because he clearly just took he just lifted the
7:56
Speaker 2: intellectual property of Jet Cole and took it as his own.
8:01
Speaker 2: To be fair, he re wrote and phased out the
8:04
Speaker 2: Cole's Note stuff, but the whole concept and even basically
8:07
Speaker 2: the name was the same.
8:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would argue that maybe the name is intellectual property,
8:14
Speaker 1: but I think in a court of law a judge
8:16
Speaker 1: would say, like you can't claim like doing a condensed
8:20
Speaker 1: version of a book as like an original idea that
8:23
Speaker 1: no one else can do, because there were summaries before this.
8:27
Speaker 1: They didn't invent the idea of a literary summary, you
8:31
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
8:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if law and Order has taught me anything,
8:36
Speaker 2: it's that you can't predict what a judge is going
8:38
Speaker 2: to rule.
8:39
Speaker 1: No, that's true, but and I do. I'm not like
8:42
Speaker 1: going to bat for Cliff. I'm just saying that I
8:44
Speaker 1: don't think that's one of those ideas you can say,
8:46
Speaker 1: like I hold the idea for condensing a long novel
8:49
Speaker 1: into a shorter version.
8:50
Speaker 2: No, I understand, And I'm not trying to like gun
8:52
Speaker 2: him down. I just hadn't gotten my gotcha today, so
8:55
Speaker 2: that was right.
8:57
Speaker 1: I do feel bad for Cole though, if it helps.
8:59
Speaker 2: I do too, and nowhere what his his his reaction
9:03
Speaker 2: was or what he did. I made up his quote
9:05
Speaker 2: of that was right. But yeah, everybody just walks right
9:10
Speaker 2: past that stuff.
9:11
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
9:12
Speaker 2: And I refuse to well people.
9:15
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone is called out online for doing
9:18
Speaker 1: something like this, but old old Cliff gets a pass,
9:20
Speaker 1: I guess because everyone got through school because of him.
9:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. So, yeah, this is not to
9:26
Speaker 2: paint him as a bad guy. If you want to
9:28
Speaker 2: know about him. He treasured letters that he got from
9:30
Speaker 2: students thanking him for helping them get through school, which
9:34
Speaker 2: you and I can attest. Getting a letter and email
9:37
Speaker 2: like that is really great. So I guess that makes
9:41
Speaker 2: us really great too. If I'm saying that that makes
9:43
Speaker 2: him a good guy, that's wonderful. That really worked out.
9:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sold a lot of these pretty quickly, though.
9:50
Speaker 1: I do like how Olivia, but he gradually phased out
9:53
Speaker 1: the original material, right, It seemed like that happened within
9:56
Speaker 1: that first year. Yeah, but he was I also couldn't
10:01
Speaker 1: find when he stopped paying the royalties. It was that
10:03
Speaker 1: during the first year or two.
10:04
Speaker 2: I'm guessing when it became cliff notes. He yeah, stopped
10:08
Speaker 2: paying royalty probably right.
10:10
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, between the start of when he started doing
10:13
Speaker 1: that in August of nineteen fifty eight and just yet
10:17
Speaker 1: six months six months later, at the end of that year,
10:20
Speaker 1: he had sold fifty eight thousand copies of these book
10:22
Speaker 1: summaries and pamphlets, and by nineteen sixty four, but six
10:26
Speaker 1: years later, he was doing it. He was doing all
10:28
Speaker 1: this on the side from the Nebraska Book Company. He
10:30
Speaker 1: was able to quit that job by sixty four, and
10:34
Speaker 1: just the sixties were a big decade period. He quit
10:36
Speaker 1: that job in sixty four. He changed the name in
10:39
Speaker 1: the sixties from Cliff's Notes without the apostrophe to cliffs Notes, Big,
10:44
Speaker 1: big deal. And then he got divorced in nineteen sixty
10:47
Speaker 1: six and got remarried.
10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Later on he got remarried to a woman named Mary. Yeah,
10:53
Speaker 2: and I guess he adopted her two kids. Another thing
10:55
Speaker 2: that shows he's a stand up guy. Really, the only
10:58
Speaker 2: blemish on his entire lifetime is how he treated Jack Cole.
11:02
Speaker 1: That's true. But did those kids biological father get royalties
11:07
Speaker 1: on those children?
11:07
Speaker 2: Named them Cliff's kids. They were originally Jack Cole's because
11:11
Speaker 2: he stole his wife Mary.
11:13
Speaker 1: Oh man uh, And everyone just glosses right over there.
11:17
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Sure, all right, we'll take
11:19
Speaker 1: an early break here because this one's probably a little
11:21
Speaker 1: bit shorter, and we'll talk about the early days of
11:25
Speaker 1: that company right after this.
11:38
Speaker 2: We los so much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff futi.
11:48
Speaker 2: So we should say, despite legendarily reading five books a week,
11:54
Speaker 2: Hilly guests didn't write any of the cliffs notes. He
11:56
Speaker 2: was more like the business guy. He Yeah, he had
11:59
Speaker 2: the ide you would put in scare quotes, and he
12:03
Speaker 2: was running the whole operation. He had the vision for it, right,
12:06
Speaker 2: So he hired other people and initially hired literature teachers
12:11
Speaker 2: like hardcore, like hardcore, like they have crew cuts and
12:15
Speaker 2: wear like army boots and stuff like that kind of
12:17
Speaker 2: lit teacher. But he realized something very quickly that I'm
12:21
Speaker 2: sure developed. A hardcore lit teacher who's been teaching the
12:25
Speaker 2: same books, been teaching a Scarlet Letter for I think
12:28
Speaker 2: we should not mention a single other book besides a
12:31
Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter in this episode. What do you think?
12:33
Speaker 1: Agreed?
12:33
Speaker 2: All right, let's give it a shot. These hardcore lit
12:36
Speaker 2: teachers who have been teaching a Scarlet Letter or the
12:40
Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter, sorry for twenty years. Technically I just named
12:43
Speaker 2: another book, Chuck for twenty years. These people know too much,
12:47
Speaker 2: They understand the book too well, they know all the
12:49
Speaker 2: details that they just get mired down when they're writing
12:52
Speaker 2: a synopsis or something. It's just too intense for the audience,
12:57
Speaker 2: which is high school and call it reads usually undergrad readers.
13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, well, pump your brakes. I'm trying
13:05
Speaker 1: to sell these to lazy kids, exactly like broad Overview. Please.
13:11
Speaker 1: He ended up with grad students, mainly saying that they
13:13
Speaker 1: did the best work, which makes sense too, that's right.
13:18
Speaker 1: But we mentioned the iconic yellow and black design. That
13:22
Speaker 1: was something Cliff thought of himself. I remember the Mountain
13:28
Speaker 1: Cliffs even being on the editions I had when I was,
13:30
Speaker 1: you know, a student in the eighties. I don't think
13:33
Speaker 1: they have that anymore, but they have these yellow and
13:35
Speaker 1: black stripes. They just it looks. I mean, it's a
13:38
Speaker 1: genius branding move, just to do that simple little thing.
13:41
Speaker 1: Because Cliff's Notes were so identifiable from from across a
13:46
Speaker 1: bookstore the night before a test or something, you could
13:50
Speaker 1: zoom over to that, that spinning rack of yellow and
13:53
Speaker 1: black pamphlets.
13:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would. You'd walk in the bookstore and they'd
13:57
Speaker 2: call to you, don't bother come by, Yeah, exactly. So
14:02
Speaker 2: one of the big things. I didn't know this, but
14:04
Speaker 2: one of the big reasons Cliff Notes became the brand
14:07
Speaker 2: that it is today, which is to say iconic, is
14:10
Speaker 2: because they advertised a lot in the sixties and they
14:14
Speaker 2: very wisely went to where their readership was. They advertised
14:17
Speaker 2: in seventeen, they advertised in Playboy, they advertised in well,
14:22
Speaker 2: the Scholastic Journal. I don't know how much of a
14:25
Speaker 2: return on investment they got on that. But they also
14:28
Speaker 2: advertise in college newspapers bingo. Yeah, and so like if
14:31
Speaker 2: you're if you're going to high schoolers and college kids
14:35
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, we have something that you it's going
14:39
Speaker 2: to keep you from having to read a scarlet letter,
14:41
Speaker 2: the scarlet letter, like don't you want that? And they say, yes,
14:46
Speaker 2: I want that so bad. Like it just it just
14:49
Speaker 2: rooted that business and simultaneously made it take off like
14:52
Speaker 2: a rocket.
14:53
Speaker 1: That's right. And you would open up the scarlet letter
14:55
Speaker 1: Cliff notes and it would say the letter is a
14:58
Speaker 1: the end.
14:59
Speaker 2: That's why I keep a scarlet letter.
15:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably could is it is literally a A for awesome, No,
15:08
Speaker 1: not quite. One thing Cliff had in his corner was
15:11
Speaker 1: all his work for the Nebraska Book Company and being
15:14
Speaker 1: a traveling salesperson and all these relationships he had with
15:17
Speaker 1: bookstores because he owned the market for this eighty percent
15:22
Speaker 1: of the market for guides to literature belonged to Cliff.
15:26
Speaker 1: Because that was just it. I mean I think I
15:30
Speaker 1: think for a long time, I mean, competitors would come along,
15:33
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that, but I think he had
15:35
Speaker 1: a number of years, maybe even decades, where everyone was
15:40
Speaker 1: just like, well, no, there's already cliff Notes, Like why
15:43
Speaker 1: even bother m.
15:46
Speaker 2: He owns it, right, That wasn't enough to keep people
15:50
Speaker 2: from coming along as competitors. But it does seem like
15:53
Speaker 2: they really didn't start to emerge until much much later
15:56
Speaker 2: in history. Yeah, like decades and decades on.
16:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
16:00
Speaker 2: One of the things that cliss Notes have long been
16:04
Speaker 2: criticized for, though, is like they write they write the
16:08
Speaker 2: book on the scarlet letter, and that's that. Like what
16:13
Speaker 2: you are reading could have been written by a grad
16:16
Speaker 2: student in nineteen sixty eight, even though you just bought
16:21
Speaker 2: this thing like last week. That's not the case any longer.
16:25
Speaker 2: It's changed hands, and as it's changed hands several times,
16:28
Speaker 2: they've definitely been dusted off and brushed up in all
16:31
Speaker 2: those idioms. But for a very long time it was
16:35
Speaker 2: like this is really old fashioned stuff, especially like the
16:39
Speaker 2: language they use, the points they're making a lot of.
16:42
Speaker 2: One of the things that cliss Notes was known for
16:45
Speaker 2: is putting works of literature specifically the Scarlet Letter into
16:50
Speaker 2: a historical context, and that can change as people understand
16:55
Speaker 2: history more. But if you don't go update it, it's
16:58
Speaker 2: the understanding of it.
17:00
Speaker 1: Eighteen sixty eight, Yeah, for sure. You know we mentioned
17:04
Speaker 1: the sixties. You just mentioned sixty eight for crying out loud. Yeah,
17:09
Speaker 1: being a kind of a big decade for the business.
17:11
Speaker 1: It was toward the end of that decade that things
17:13
Speaker 1: got a little rocky. It was around nineteen sixty nine
17:16
Speaker 1: that a couple of things happened to sort of dampen
17:21
Speaker 1: the business, I guess a little bit. And this is
17:23
Speaker 1: something I didn't know, but apparently starting in nineteen sixty
17:27
Speaker 1: nine and through the first, you know, bit of the seventies,
17:30
Speaker 1: the classics people are like, Hey, all these new teachers
17:33
Speaker 1: came along and're like, hey, we don't need to read
17:34
Speaker 1: the Scarlett Letter anymore. We're going to read another unnamed
17:37
Speaker 1: book that's a little more current. And so the classics
17:40
Speaker 1: kind of fell off a little bit. And apparently a
17:42
Speaker 1: lot of high schools and colleges started the past fail thing.
17:46
Speaker 1: So a kid wasn't as incentivized to ace a test,
17:50
Speaker 1: they were just incentivized to pass a test. So They're like,
17:53
Speaker 1: I don't even need the cliff notes. I can just
17:55
Speaker 1: kind of fake my way through and pass this thing.
17:57
Speaker 1: As a result, they dropped about a million bucks a
18:00
Speaker 1: year in sales up until like the mid seventies, when
18:04
Speaker 1: they were like, oh my god, what were we thinking.
18:06
Speaker 1: We got to put the scarlet letterback on the reading list,
18:09
Speaker 1: and we have to grade these kids according to their grade.
18:12
Speaker 1: This past failed thing is not doing anyone any favors.
18:14
Speaker 2: It's chaos.
18:15
Speaker 1: It's chaos.
18:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Not only did they drop a million in sales,
18:18
Speaker 2: they dropped a million units in the middle.
18:21
Speaker 1: I thought that was sales.
18:22
Speaker 2: No, Like, the number of sales that they made dropped
18:26
Speaker 2: from two point eight million to one point eight million.
18:28
Speaker 1: Oh, I was pretty sure that was dollars. But and
18:31
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you're positive that it's units, I will
18:34
Speaker 1: move on.
18:34
Speaker 2: Seventy eight percent positive.
18:37
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Well that tracks because I was twenty two
18:39
Speaker 1: percent pots okay.
18:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Cliff Hill of Gas was like, you hippies
18:46
Speaker 2: right for that huge loss in sales for the mid seventies. Yeah.
18:51
Speaker 2: So there was another stumble that they made Cliff's cassettes,
18:54
Speaker 2: which was a good idea if you ask me, totally.
18:57
Speaker 2: It was cliff Notes, but in a cassette version that
19:00
Speaker 2: your kids could pop into their Walkman and walk around
19:02
Speaker 2: listening to you.
19:04
Speaker 1: Want to be lazier in?
19:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You don't even have to walk around. You
19:07
Speaker 2: can lay there and listen to this stuff with your
19:09
Speaker 2: eyes closed, in your hands soaking in Paul Mallin.
19:13
Speaker 1: If you don't want to read the Scarlet Letter, and
19:15
Speaker 1: you don't want to read the forty seven page summary,
19:18
Speaker 1: how about you just pop in that cassette and lay
19:20
Speaker 1: on your bed and smoke some.
19:22
Speaker 2: Grass, yeah, and listen to Ed Asner tell you what
19:25
Speaker 2: the Scarlet Letter means.
19:28
Speaker 1: Oh boy, was that planned or did you just come
19:30
Speaker 1: up with that ad?
19:31
Speaker 2: I just came up with that.
19:32
Speaker 1: Oh that's so great. This was only about a six
19:35
Speaker 1: month thing. It did not go over well despite being
19:37
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea that got me thinking about just
19:40
Speaker 1: audio books or books on tape and when that was
19:42
Speaker 1: a thing. Apparently that started in nineteen thirty two. Oh yeah, yeah,
19:47
Speaker 1: the American Foundation for the Blind opened up a recording studio,
19:51
Speaker 1: So it was a thing, but I feel like it
19:52
Speaker 1: didn't really take off until much, much, much later.
19:55
Speaker 2: Until the Walkman. Did you have a Walkman by the way.
19:59
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, of course I did.
20:01
Speaker 2: Nice. I did too. I associated specifically with my cassette
20:06
Speaker 2: of Huey Lewis and the News.
20:07
Speaker 1: Sports one of the great records of all time.
20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really good.
20:12
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever had a disc man.
20:14
Speaker 2: I didn't either.
20:16
Speaker 1: I think I went straight from Walkman to cheese. I
20:22
Speaker 1: guess iPod as far as walking around.
20:24
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I never had an iPod. I went from
20:28
Speaker 2: Walkman to iPhone.
20:30
Speaker 1: I guess I had the first iPod.
20:34
Speaker 2: Wow.
20:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, I had the first, not the you know,
20:38
Speaker 1: not Steve Jobs's iPod, but you know, the first, the
20:41
Speaker 1: first edition. I still have it. It still works.
20:43
Speaker 2: Oh do you really? Wow, that's really saying something.
20:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I put pictures of it on my Instagram not
20:48
Speaker 1: too long ago actually, because I found it, charged it,
20:50
Speaker 1: and I just put up the opening screen because you know,
20:53
Speaker 1: the first Walkman had everything in alphabetical order just on
20:56
Speaker 1: the screen when he opened it. Yeah, and boy it
20:59
Speaker 1: was eight, eight or nine bands locked in time from
21:03
Speaker 1: I guess like two thousand or something whatever that was.
21:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have one of those.
21:09
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm gonna get you a maybe a Nano
21:12
Speaker 1: no need.
21:13
Speaker 2: Those things were tiny though. They were like the size
21:16
Speaker 2: of a thumb of steak.
21:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, or a square of chocolate.
21:20
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, there you ca Yeah, we'll keep going right.
21:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mentioned Hillograss was a true corn Husker. He
21:28
Speaker 1: kept that company in Nebraska. He felt very strongly about
21:32
Speaker 1: that and donated ten percent of its profits to Nebraska organizations.
21:37
Speaker 1: Was a big curator of the art, So the Museum
21:39
Speaker 1: of Nebraska Art was a big one that benefited from
21:42
Speaker 1: his stealing that idea from coal and they have. If
21:45
Speaker 1: you've ever looked up, like, hey, what does this guy
21:47
Speaker 1: look like? Anyway, you might see a bronze statue of him,
21:50
Speaker 1: and that is from that Museum of Nebraska Art.
21:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's standing up in some bushes like a creep
21:55
Speaker 2: with a book open.
22:00
Speaker 1: What else? What happened in nineteen eighty three?
22:02
Speaker 2: He this is this? This? I think this also kind
22:06
Speaker 2: of puts a certain like that it paints a picture
22:08
Speaker 2: of this guy. That's what I'm trying to say. At
22:12
Speaker 2: age sixty five on the dot, he retires, Okay, yeah,
22:16
Speaker 2: like that's just the kind of guy he was. But
22:18
Speaker 2: he didn't actually retire. He just stepped down from company
22:21
Speaker 2: president to the head of the board of directors. Yeah,
22:25
Speaker 2: and he still went into the office every day.
22:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he instead of calling him mister hilligas they said,
22:31
Speaker 1: you can come a cliff.
22:33
Speaker 2: Right, he would show up in like a smoking jacket
22:35
Speaker 2: and ascot after he retired.
22:37
Speaker 1: Exactly, but he'd still called the shots.
22:39
Speaker 2: Right. But that's just I mean, I can totally because
22:42
Speaker 2: don't forget he was trained in geology, math physics, like
22:46
Speaker 2: he had a certain way of looking at things for sure.
22:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. That a couple of years later, in nineteen eighty five,
22:51
Speaker 1: that was a Chicago Tribune article. So this is mid eighties.
22:55
Speaker 1: They had a staff of about twenty five people, and
22:58
Speaker 1: they had published two hundred and twenty five five guide
23:00
Speaker 1: books or book guides rather sixty million copies in circulation.
23:06
Speaker 1: And yes, I nailed it, thirty nine countries in circulation,
23:10
Speaker 1: and apparently there were some countries that used them to
23:12
Speaker 1: help teach American English in different.
23:15
Speaker 2: Countries, sure, especially the English used by Americans. In nineteen sixty.
23:19
Speaker 1: Eight, that's right. By the end of the eighties they
23:22
Speaker 1: were taking in about eleven million bucks a year, which
23:25
Speaker 1: is pretty good. Scratch it, just about twenty eight today
23:28
Speaker 1: twenty eight million. Yeah, that's even better scratch, And by
23:31
Speaker 1: the end of the millennium in nineteen ninety nine, at
23:36
Speaker 1: the age of eighty one, he sold it off. He
23:40
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I'm eighty one. I want to
23:42
Speaker 1: live out my remaining years as a super rich guy
23:46
Speaker 1: and not just a medium rich guy. So he sold
23:48
Speaker 1: to IDG Books, who was a publisher of the Four
23:51
Speaker 1: Dummies guides that everyone knows, and he sold for only
23:55
Speaker 1: fourteen million, which kind of surprises me. Fully retired and
23:58
Speaker 1: sadly died a couple of years later at eighty three
24:01
Speaker 1: from complications of stroke.
24:03
Speaker 2: I've always wondered what that is like guys in particular,
24:07
Speaker 2: retiring and then dying like very soon after that. It's
24:10
Speaker 2: kind of a thing. And even if you don't die,
24:14
Speaker 2: you can, like a lot of people just get like
24:16
Speaker 2: really sick for a while afterwards. And I don't know
24:20
Speaker 2: if it's like you've been running on adrenaline last five
24:22
Speaker 2: years or what the deal is, but it's like when
24:26
Speaker 2: you finally your body finally resets, like I don't have
24:28
Speaker 2: to go to work anymore. Something happens to you.
24:31
Speaker 1: Are you saying this personally to me? So I, yep,
24:35
Speaker 1: can consider this as I.
24:36
Speaker 2: Wait my future retiring choke.
24:40
Speaker 1: It was bought and sold a few more times, though.
24:42
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, John Wiley and Son's bought
24:44
Speaker 1: the brand. They changed the name this time. This is
24:48
Speaker 1: when they squashed it together as Cliff's Notes with the
24:50
Speaker 1: Capitol NY. Then Houghton Mifflin Harcourt bought it in twenty twelve,
24:56
Speaker 1: and then Course Hero bought it in twenty one.
24:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to courts heroes a online tutor. Essentially,
25:04
Speaker 2: they have courses and their heroes for it.
25:08
Speaker 1: And one final thing before we take the break, is
25:10
Speaker 1: it is I think the New York Times and the
25:12
Speaker 1: Early aughts did a report and they found that it's
25:16
Speaker 1: not just lazy high school kids that are buying these books.
25:19
Speaker 1: They found out it's lazy adults in book clubs. They
25:23
Speaker 1: want to participate in the book club, but they maybe
25:26
Speaker 1: don't have the time to read the Scarlet Letter, so
25:28
Speaker 1: they'll get the cliff Notes so they can go and
25:30
Speaker 1: have some wine and talk about the abridged version.
25:33
Speaker 2: Right, you can tell the ones that read the cliff
25:35
Speaker 2: Notes of the Scarlet Letter because they're the ones who
25:37
Speaker 2: thought it was really good.
25:39
Speaker 1: That's right, And it's also the yellow and black is
25:41
Speaker 1: sticking out from their fanny.
25:43
Speaker 2: Fact, they have a little piece of it in their teeth.
25:46
Speaker 1: Right, all right, shall we take our second break? Yes,
25:51
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be back and pick up on where
25:53
Speaker 1: we are today with Cliff and his notes. We loss
26:08
Speaker 1: so much stuff from Josh and Shook.
26:13
Speaker 2: Still fui.
26:18
Speaker 1: All right, as promised, we're going to talk about Cliffs
26:20
Speaker 1: Notes today. You can still buy these pamphlets. Like I said,
26:23
Speaker 1: I looked up online if you want to buy the
26:26
Speaker 1: scarlet letter and hold it in your hand. I think
26:28
Speaker 1: it was eight ninety nine somewhere a little less. But
26:30
Speaker 1: they're kind of in that ballpark.
26:31
Speaker 2: Aren't they used? Though they're not newly printed.
26:36
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean they saw them on Amazon
26:39
Speaker 1: that still could be used.
26:40
Speaker 2: I guess that was my take that they're used, But
26:43
Speaker 2: who knows.
26:45
Speaker 1: Maybe I do know that their main source of income
26:47
Speaker 1: now is the website that offers most of this stuff
26:54
Speaker 1: for free, which is weird that they also have a
26:58
Speaker 1: fee model.
27:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can subscribe to Cliffs Notes today for
27:04
Speaker 2: I think nine dollars a month or thirty six bucks
27:07
Speaker 2: a year, and you get all of the free stuff,
27:11
Speaker 2: but you can also download it as a PDF, so
27:13
Speaker 2: if you learned better by like reading on print or
27:18
Speaker 2: on paper, you would need to do that. But they
27:21
Speaker 2: also have other stuff too. There's like much more in
27:24
Speaker 2: depth guides and analysis and stuff like that behind their paywall.
27:27
Speaker 2: So it's not like you're just a total sucker for
27:29
Speaker 2: paying for free cliffs Notes, because they have a bunch
27:32
Speaker 2: of stuff that's not just free.
27:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I got, we're not going to go through
27:36
Speaker 1: this list, but Olivia was kind enough, I think because
27:38
Speaker 1: she needed to fulfill a word count to list out
27:42
Speaker 1: what you get in the actual free version of let's say,
27:46
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter. And my take is that you get
27:50
Speaker 1: a pretty good like summary and chapter by chapter thing
27:54
Speaker 1: and character analysis and all that stuff. But it's just
27:58
Speaker 1: even a lesser version than the more or robust paid monthly.
28:01
Speaker 2: Right, and I mean it's even more. It's like there's
28:05
Speaker 2: pretty good detail in it. Like for their their analysis
28:08
Speaker 2: of The Scarlet Letter, they talk about how the Scarlet
28:11
Speaker 2: Letter fits into dystopian fiction in general, yeah, or how
28:16
Speaker 2: Big Brother in the Scarlet Letter can be compared to
28:18
Speaker 2: Hitler stallin yeh, or when hester Prinne develops news speak,
28:24
Speaker 2: what all that means.
28:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, an a biography of George Orwell, the writer
28:30
Speaker 1: of the Scarlet Letter.
28:31
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. I went
28:34
Speaker 2: in and poked around, and it is a lot of
28:37
Speaker 2: free stuff. Like you could write a numerous really good
28:41
Speaker 2: slam dunk papers on the Scarlet Letter just from the
28:45
Speaker 2: free stuff that they have available. So I'm a little
28:48
Speaker 2: curious too what their business model is, because it doesn't
28:50
Speaker 2: really make sense to me unless it's a portal two
28:55
Speaker 2: course Hero. Now that I think about it, I'll bet
28:58
Speaker 2: it is. I'll bet they get you with the free
29:00
Speaker 2: stuff and then they get you into course Hero, and
29:03
Speaker 2: they turn you upside down and shake you by your
29:05
Speaker 2: ankles until all the change falls out of your pockets?
29:08
Speaker 1: Do you want to be a better student for nine
29:09
Speaker 1: books a month? So we should talk a little bit
29:13
Speaker 1: more about the elephant in the room, which is that
29:15
Speaker 1: this is just a way for kids to cheat. I mean,
29:18
Speaker 1: the other elephant is we haven't discussed our own cliff notes.
29:21
Speaker 1: Cliff notes use I will volunteer my own. You don't
29:25
Speaker 1: have to answer, I've never used them. Okay, Well, go
29:28
Speaker 1: ahead and just make me look bad right before I
29:31
Speaker 1: say that I leaned on them.
29:32
Speaker 2: No worse than that. I never I didn't even bother
29:35
Speaker 2: to use the cliff notes. I didn't read the material either.
29:37
Speaker 1: Oh.
29:38
Speaker 2: I was just a really, really lame high school student.
29:42
Speaker 2: In high school, I was not good at all. I
29:45
Speaker 2: didn't blossom until college.
29:47
Speaker 1: Okay, I do remember that now. But you were setting
29:49
Speaker 1: me up to look like a chump.
29:50
Speaker 2: I No, I didn't saved you, thank you like hester
29:53
Speaker 2: I did it in the Scarlet Letter.
29:56
Speaker 1: That's right. I did use cliff notes, not exclude. I
30:01
Speaker 1: was always a believer, and this is not right, kids
30:04
Speaker 1: of I love to read. I was an English major,
30:07
Speaker 1: for heaven's sake. No, so I love to read, but
30:11
Speaker 1: I wanted to read what I wanted to read. Emily
30:14
Speaker 1: still sort of challenges me, not on just reading, but
30:20
Speaker 1: like Chuck only does what he wants to do, that
30:23
Speaker 1: kind of thing. That's not the best trade, everybody, you
30:26
Speaker 1: should not be like Chuck. But I wanted to read
30:29
Speaker 1: what I wanted to read. I didn't want to read
30:31
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter. So I got the cliffs notes and
30:35
Speaker 1: you know, probably peruse the Scarlet Letter. The books that
30:39
Speaker 1: I was like, I totally want to read that I
30:41
Speaker 1: can't think of another book.
30:42
Speaker 2: Title, the Scarlet Letter.
30:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would read that Scarlet Letter. I wouldn't read
30:47
Speaker 1: the one they assigned to me. So I did use
30:49
Speaker 1: cliff notes. I did that was in high school. Did
30:51
Speaker 1: not use them in college as an English major because
30:53
Speaker 1: I felt like it was time to get a little
30:55
Speaker 1: more serious and I chose that major willingly, so I
30:58
Speaker 1: should probably do the work. And that was only work
31:01
Speaker 1: in college I really really enjoyed was reading and writing.
31:04
Speaker 1: So I didn't use him in college. But all that
31:07
Speaker 1: to say, the elephant in the room is like, is
31:09
Speaker 1: this just for lazy kids? And you mentioned that Hilligas
31:12
Speaker 1: was like no, but how would he enforce that or
31:15
Speaker 1: encourage that?
31:16
Speaker 2: Rather with a stern note? Yeah, at the beginning of
31:19
Speaker 2: every copy of cliff Notes, he had a little note.
31:24
Speaker 2: His signature was next to it too. He said that
31:26
Speaker 2: a thorough appreciation of literature allows no shortcuts, and students
31:31
Speaker 2: who use them to avoid reading the actual material or
31:36
Speaker 2: having to go into class for discussion groups about the
31:41
Speaker 2: material are denying themselves the very education that they are
31:45
Speaker 2: presumably giving their most vital years to achieve. And I
31:49
Speaker 2: feel like he took a bit of an utopian approach
31:52
Speaker 2: to how he viewed his customers. But surely there was
31:56
Speaker 2: some out there. I do wonder if there was a
31:59
Speaker 2: single cliff Notes buyer who read that note and was like,
32:04
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to change my wage. I'm
32:07
Speaker 2: abusing these things.
32:09
Speaker 1: I doubt it, but I'm sure there were students like
32:11
Speaker 1: I did, at times where a book was a little
32:14
Speaker 1: over their head and they used the cliff Notes as
32:16
Speaker 1: intended to help with the book.
32:19
Speaker 2: I saw also that some teachers did that. They actually
32:22
Speaker 2: suggested cliffs Notes for some students, which meant that your
32:26
Speaker 2: teacher thought you were a dip stick.
32:29
Speaker 1: Well. Teachers also were on record as using it for
32:33
Speaker 1: lesson planning, sometimes because they didn't want to read the
32:36
Speaker 1: scarlet letter either.
32:37
Speaker 2: That's really hilarious. That's so missus Kravopple, it totally is.
32:43
Speaker 2: And then a lot of them actually used cliff Notes
32:45
Speaker 2: for the opposite reasons. They would know like like, if
32:49
Speaker 2: you're a high school English teacher, there's a handful of
32:53
Speaker 2: the scarlet letters that you've assigned during the year, and
32:56
Speaker 2: you assigned the same scarlet letters over and over again,
32:59
Speaker 2: year after year, so you probably know the cliffs Notes
33:03
Speaker 2: on those things. By heart, so you can very easily
33:07
Speaker 2: pick out when somebody is not only using the cliffs Notes,
33:10
Speaker 2: but way worse than that, it's actually plagiarizing the cliffs Notes.
33:14
Speaker 2: That was the low laziest thing you could possibly do.
33:18
Speaker 2: Prior to chat GPT writing your your paper for you.
33:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is coming from two gen xers, and we
33:25
Speaker 1: wrote the book on how to get away with lazy.
33:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't even read the material or the cliffs Notes.
33:30
Speaker 2: That's pretty lazy.
33:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Certain universities took charge. In nineteen ninety seven, Villanova
33:37
Speaker 1: pulled cliff Notes from their college bookstore. Other bookstores maybe
33:42
Speaker 1: didn't sell them, but they're the only one that Livy
33:44
Speaker 1: could find at least that actually pulled them off the shelves.
33:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were famously sent in a hit squad that
33:50
Speaker 2: ended up trashing the bookstore and tore up all of
33:52
Speaker 2: the cliffs Notes. And when they left, they threw flash
33:55
Speaker 2: bang grenades into the bookstore as they take.
33:57
Speaker 1: Off, and yellow h Hut Cliff did not like this,
34:02
Speaker 1: and they took out a full page ad. I guess
34:04
Speaker 1: he was passed away by this point, but the company
34:06
Speaker 1: didn't like this, and they took an ad in the
34:09
Speaker 1: Villanova student newspaper called it censorship, and the college just
34:13
Speaker 1: like they can still mind these things anywhere. This is
34:15
Speaker 1: sort of a symbolic gesture calm down.
34:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, we kind of touched on and we didn't say
34:20
Speaker 2: it like overtly, But there were a lot of teachers
34:23
Speaker 2: out there who were okay with cliff Notes, and some
34:26
Speaker 2: who even encouraged their use. That seems to have come
34:29
Speaker 2: along like a generation after cliffs Notes came out, which
34:33
Speaker 2: is not coincidental because a lot of those people who
34:36
Speaker 2: grew up to be English teachers and English professors used
34:39
Speaker 2: cliff Notes when they went through school themselves, so at
34:43
Speaker 2: the very least they had a certain fondness of it,
34:45
Speaker 2: and at best they were like, this is actually super
34:47
Speaker 2: helpful as a reference material.
34:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And if you have a set of
34:52
Speaker 1: cliffs Notes that you have read recently from later in
34:56
Speaker 1: the company's story, you're like, hey, man, I didn't see
34:59
Speaker 1: any note from cliff saying these aren't shortcuts. Ps enjoyed
35:03
Speaker 1: the shortcut. This didn't have anything in it. I think
35:07
Speaker 1: the minute he sold that company, they were like, let's
35:11
Speaker 1: get rid of that note. Yeah, it's a real dragon.
35:14
Speaker 1: Not only that, like our advertising should actively encourage the
35:19
Speaker 1: fact that this is a shortcut.
35:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much what they did.
35:23
Speaker 1: Let's own it.
35:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did own it. I think they kind
35:26
Speaker 2: of walked it back a little bit, so there's like
35:30
Speaker 2: a watered down version of his note essentially saying the
35:34
Speaker 2: same thing. But they definitely did. They said the the
35:38
Speaker 2: unspoken part out loud. I guess is how they put it.
35:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Is this Here's the big question though,
35:45
Speaker 1: and I'm glad Livia posed this question, like is it
35:47
Speaker 1: bad to use cliffs notes and the very idea of
35:51
Speaker 1: like do kids need to read the Scarlet Letter or
35:57
Speaker 1: is the only reason they're reading the Scarlet Letter to
36:00
Speaker 1: just not look like a dipstick when someone brings up
36:03
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter, like do you just need to be
36:05
Speaker 1: acquainted with this stuff as a cultural touch point in
36:10
Speaker 1: life or to get a Jeopardy answer correct or I'm sorry,
36:13
Speaker 1: Jeopardy clue correct.
36:17
Speaker 2: Man.
36:17
Speaker 1: We almost got our membership provoked. And you know this
36:22
Speaker 1: is me speaking. I think, yeah, like you should read
36:25
Speaker 1: these books, and a lot of people are on record
36:26
Speaker 1: saying yeah, I mean, not necessarily just a scarlet letter,
36:29
Speaker 1: but it's called I believe there's a literature scholar from
36:33
Speaker 1: the University of Kentucky named Alan Nadell that calls it
36:38
Speaker 1: the labor of witnessing, Like to actually read the thing
36:43
Speaker 1: is the thing. It's not reading the Wikipedia, I think
36:47
Speaker 1: that was. She found a redditor East t X Josh
36:50
Speaker 1: that said, it's like reading the Wikipedia on Beethoven's ninth
36:53
Speaker 1: but not listening to it. There's something about experiencing the
36:57
Speaker 1: thing that is different and valuable.
37:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and reading all this chuck made me realize
37:04
Speaker 2: how much I missed out by not reading all those
37:06
Speaker 2: books in high school. You still can, buddy, right, So
37:09
Speaker 2: I went on a couple of like I searched books
37:12
Speaker 2: you should read before you die, and that brought up
37:14
Speaker 2: humorous lists, and there's some that appear on all the lists.
37:18
Speaker 2: And I'm still searching for which the Scarlet Letter I'm
37:22
Speaker 2: going to read?
37:23
Speaker 1: Right, but single book?
37:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have any recommendations for one to start with,
37:27
Speaker 2: let me know.
37:28
Speaker 1: Well, you know it would be fun. As our mutual
37:31
Speaker 1: friend Joey Siara of the Henry Clay People who are friends,
37:36
Speaker 1: who wrote that and performed the theme song to our
37:38
Speaker 1: television show and still a good friend. I'm going to
37:40
Speaker 1: see he's going to Glengarry with me this weekend.
37:42
Speaker 2: Very nice.
37:42
Speaker 1: He is a Moby Dick aficionado and collects copies and
37:46
Speaker 1: versions of that, and he said that is the best
37:50
Speaker 1: book of all time. He said, it's not my favorite book.
37:52
Speaker 1: He said, it's the best book.
37:54
Speaker 2: You mean the Scarlet Letter, the one with the Great
37:56
Speaker 2: White Way.
37:57
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, I got the name wrong. I'm so sorry.
38:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, yeah, I saw that one and I
38:03
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know, I read It'd be fun
38:06
Speaker 2: if we both read that, Okay. I have a feeling
38:08
Speaker 2: you're going to be like, you're still reading that two
38:10
Speaker 2: years from now.
38:12
Speaker 1: But well, let's put it this way. Joey gave me
38:15
Speaker 1: a copy probably two years ago, and it sits untouched.
38:18
Speaker 2: Okay, Shell, all right, do you give me a two
38:20
Speaker 2: year head start and then you start and we'll finish
38:22
Speaker 2: at the same time and talk about it.
38:24
Speaker 1: I gotta put down this Mike Campbell book of Tom
38:27
Speaker 1: Petty and the Heartbreakers, and the Rim one before that,
38:30
Speaker 1: and the mud Honey one before that I'll read is
38:32
Speaker 1: these rock books. I need to put them all away.
38:35
Speaker 1: And by the way, those are all called The Scarlet Letter.
38:38
Speaker 1: My story in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
38:40
Speaker 2: Right, and also Chuck, I mean, if rock and Roll
38:43
Speaker 2: rot your brain reading about rock and roll really does?
38:48
Speaker 1: Should we mention one more point that teachers make or
38:52
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that a problem with study guides. Some people
38:56
Speaker 1: are like, hey, these study guys just give you one
38:59
Speaker 1: lens look through to view this thing. And what you
39:02
Speaker 1: need to do is read the book and go to
39:04
Speaker 1: a class and hear it from a teacher. But some
39:06
Speaker 1: people say, yeah, but that teacher is just looking at
39:08
Speaker 1: it through their lens. I disagree. As an English major,
39:11
Speaker 1: in my classes, the teacher would present perhaps their analysis,
39:15
Speaker 1: and then say this is what other people think, and
39:18
Speaker 1: what do you think?
39:19
Speaker 2: Right? And you have to have read the cliffs Notes
39:22
Speaker 2: to say you think. What else you want to talk
39:26
Speaker 2: about any of these parodies or spin offs or competitors?
39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we can just mention kind of quickly.
39:32
Speaker 1: Spark Notes became the biggest competitor in like nineteen ninety nine.
39:38
Speaker 1: There's one called Schmoop found it in two thousand and
39:40
Speaker 1: eight that became a pretty good competitor.
39:42
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. I went and read some of their stuff.
39:44
Speaker 2: It's much more loosely written, like what's up with YadA
39:48
Speaker 2: YadA YadA. Oh really, what's up with that letter?
39:51
Speaker 1: A interesting? I do want to mention this one spoof
39:55
Speaker 1: at least Thug Notes.
39:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great.
39:58
Speaker 1: Did you watch any of these?
40:00
Speaker 2: That's the one on Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde.
40:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think give me the car letter Man.
40:05
Speaker 2: I got it too. We both went.
40:07
Speaker 1: Down Thug Notes.
40:09
Speaker 2: I was talking about the movie.
40:11
Speaker 1: Oh right, right, right. It's a YouTube series from comedian
40:13
Speaker 1: Greg Edwards. He plays a character, a PhD named Sparky Sweets,
40:18
Speaker 1: who summarizes a commentary on one hundred different books. They're
40:22
Speaker 1: generally about five minutes long, and it's a comedy thing,
40:25
Speaker 1: you know, it's thug Notes. He does African American vernacular
40:29
Speaker 1: and breaks down these books in a fun way, in
40:33
Speaker 1: a very quick way. But he's got three point one
40:36
Speaker 1: four million subs, and if you watch one of these,
40:38
Speaker 1: like you did, you will soon learn like it's a joke,
40:41
Speaker 1: but he's laying down some real truth on some of
40:44
Speaker 1: these as well.
40:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like when you finish watching one of these
40:47
Speaker 2: thug Notes, like you understand what that book was about,
40:50
Speaker 2: like fully, Like he does a great job with it.
40:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's just this whole stick to it. That's
40:56
Speaker 2: pretty awesome too.
40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. I watched a few of them, but the one
41:00
Speaker 1: on the Scarlet Letter by George Orwell. At the end
41:03
Speaker 1: in the analysis, he explains he talks about censorship and
41:08
Speaker 1: book burning and stalinism and double talk and all that
41:10
Speaker 1: stuff in a very fun way. And I can only
41:14
Speaker 1: think that, like, there might be young students that identify
41:18
Speaker 1: with with Greg Edwards and what he's doing, that it
41:22
Speaker 1: might provide a little real insight and inspiration, I hope. So,
41:26
Speaker 1: even though it's.
41:27
Speaker 2: Just a joke, did you say that? Did you say
41:29
Speaker 2: the name of his character on thug Notes?
41:31
Speaker 1: I did?
41:32
Speaker 2: I love it. I guess that's about it.
41:34
Speaker 1: Huh, that's all I got on cliff Notes.
41:36
Speaker 2: Okay, I think man. Hats off to us, Hats off
41:39
Speaker 2: to Olivia, hats off to Mental Floss, Hats off to
41:43
Speaker 2: Sparky Sweet's PhD. We made it through cliffs Notes.
41:47
Speaker 1: Hats off to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
41:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hester Print too. Yeah, let's see, since we
41:53
Speaker 2: took our hat off to hester Print, of course, that
41:56
Speaker 2: means it's time for listener mail.
42:02
Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is about Broadway. My name's Reagan. I've
42:05
Speaker 1: been a listener for ten years. My husband Paul, and
42:07
Speaker 1: I love to listen to you guys while we cooked dinner,
42:10
Speaker 1: and we listen to reruns on long car trips. I'm
42:13
Speaker 1: writing in Because Broadway the Broadway episode because I am
42:16
Speaker 1: a theatrical costume designer and I wanted to offer some
42:19
Speaker 1: more insight about previews that you guys were discussing. Previews
42:23
Speaker 1: have a cool function where they are actually used by
42:25
Speaker 1: the production team to keep changing, like Josh said, and
42:27
Speaker 1: fine tuning a show based on audience feedback, especially on
42:30
Speaker 1: a brand new show. New lines and music may even
42:33
Speaker 1: be written and added during the process. Changes can also
42:36
Speaker 1: include restaging and cutting or adding technical elements like costumes
42:40
Speaker 1: for props. However, Chuck was right and that toward the
42:43
Speaker 1: end of previews the show will be frozen by the director,
42:46
Speaker 1: which means no further changes are allowed to be made,
42:49
Speaker 1: and it's after that time that critics will be invited
42:51
Speaker 1: to attend during previews after they're frozen before opening night.
42:58
Speaker 1: Got it so that totally clears it up. Thanks for
43:00
Speaker 1: doing such a great job covering Broadway. Really touched me
43:03
Speaker 1: to hear about the theater world on my favorite podcast,
43:05
Speaker 1: because I listen to you guys almost daily in the
43:06
Speaker 1: costume shop. And that is from Reagan McKay, interim costume
43:10
Speaker 1: shop manager at the Roundhouse Theater.
43:12
Speaker 2: Wow, that's awesome. I think we talked about the Roundhouse Theater,
43:15
Speaker 2: didn't we.
43:16
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar.
43:17
Speaker 2: I hope we did. Thank you very much, Reagan. We
43:20
Speaker 2: love it when we hear from experts in the field
43:22
Speaker 2: about an episode we talked about, especially when they say
43:24
Speaker 2: we got it right. And if you want to be
43:27
Speaker 2: like Reagan and send us an email where you're like, hey,
43:29
Speaker 2: I know what I'm talking about, and you guys did
43:31
Speaker 2: a good job. We love that kind of thing. You
43:34
Speaker 2: can send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
43:40
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
43:43
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
43:48
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.