Latest / Ridiculous History / The Sinister Side of Little Orphan Annie, Part One: Parents Were Terrified
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
- 0:27Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
- 0:30Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's have a big hand
- 0:33Speaker 1: for our one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams.
- 0:38Speaker 1: I am Ben. I'm a big I think you can
- 0:41Speaker 1: clap for yourself. Max, you've fully support Yes, Yes, that
- 0:46Speaker 1: is my rider die Mr Noel Brown himself, the one
- 0:50Speaker 1: and only. I am Ben Boland. We're hurtling headlong toward
- 0:55Speaker 1: the end of one the beginning of two. Uh. This
- 1:00Speaker 1: is the time of year when a lot of people
- 1:02Speaker 1: in the US, regardless of their personal religious beliefs, are
- 1:07Speaker 1: living in Christmas Land. Right. We've we've just gotten over
- 1:10Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving hump. Hope everybody had a good one, and
- 1:14Speaker 1: now for the next. For the next few weeks, everything
- 1:18Speaker 1: is gonna be Christmas. Right. It's gonna be the Mariah
- 1:22Speaker 1: Carey song again, right, and all the all the old hits. Yeah.
- 1:27Speaker 1: People have really strong opinions about that Mariah Carey song.
- 1:29Speaker 1: Like there's some jukeboxes that won't let you play it
- 1:32Speaker 1: more than once, you know, any given night. I've seen
- 1:36Speaker 1: memes about it. It's very divisive. I mean it's obviously
- 1:39Speaker 1: a stone called banger, But do I want to hear
- 1:41Speaker 1: it like ad nauseum throughout the Christmas time? It does
- 1:43Speaker 1: kind of suck some of the joy out of the
- 1:45Speaker 1: song when it's beaten to death, you know. Yeah, And
- 1:48Speaker 1: and television shows will have themed Christmas episodes your Saturday
- 1:53Speaker 1: Night Lives, your Simpsons and so on. You will also
- 1:57Speaker 1: see a lot of nostalgia, and you'll see things become
- 2:02Speaker 1: singularly important, like every every parent in the audience today Again,
- 2:07Speaker 1: whether or not you celebrate Christmas, you've heard the same stories.
- 2:11Speaker 1: They come back, insert toy here is the new hot thing,
- 2:14Speaker 1: and thus it is impossible to find, you know, an
- 2:17Speaker 1: Elmo that wants you to tickle it, which no one
- 2:19Speaker 1: thinks it's creepy for some reason, but everybody needs one
- 2:23Speaker 1: and they did. That was a frenzy around that weird toy. Uh.
- 2:27Speaker 1: It's one of those things where it's like, I think
- 2:29Speaker 1: the frenzy just comes from the exclusivity, right, Like you
- 2:33Speaker 1: gotta wonder is it manufactured? Do they not make enough
- 2:36Speaker 1: of them on purpose? So there would be this like
- 2:39Speaker 1: massive hysteria around what is ultimately a pretty obnoxious toy.
- 2:44Speaker 1: The novelty of which would probably wear out pretty quick
- 2:46Speaker 1: for most kids. You don't even see them around anymore,
- 2:49Speaker 1: Like I've never run into one, like in a thrift
- 2:51Speaker 1: store or anything, which surprising. Maybe they are covenant, maybe
- 2:53Speaker 1: like people just held onto them. And and it is
- 2:55Speaker 1: still continues to be an item of great pride that
- 2:58Speaker 1: you that you got one, you know, yeah, like a
- 3:01Speaker 1: badge of of capitalist honor, you know, like you wouldn't
- 3:04Speaker 1: see a purple heartner thrift store. Maybe that's uh, maybe
- 3:08Speaker 1: that is an unfair comparison spoiling, which would be sad
- 3:13Speaker 1: but not. Yeah. And and so we were talking a
- 3:18Speaker 1: little bit off air about different things that happened in
- 3:21Speaker 1: the nostalgia wave of American Christmas. And we notice, of
- 3:26Speaker 1: course that there are the same movies that pop up.
- 3:29Speaker 1: People watch them almost ritualistically with their loved ones, family
- 3:33Speaker 1: and friends. There's one film without the most creative name,
- 3:38Speaker 1: but it's definitely a classic this time of year. It's
- 3:40Speaker 1: called a Christmas Story, and the Christmas Story plot concerns
- 3:45Speaker 1: the adventures of a young man named Ralphie Ralphie Parker,
- 3:51Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff goes down here. It's kind
- 3:54Speaker 1: of tough to spoil this one, NOL, I think because
- 3:56Speaker 1: the story is so quin essentially like established culture, but
- 4:01Speaker 1: we're we're using poor Ralphie as a tangent here, I
- 4:04Speaker 1: believe a segway or just just kind of like a
- 4:08Speaker 1: setting the stage kind of situation. You know. It's funny
- 4:10Speaker 1: been um here in Atlanta, I think this might be
- 4:13Speaker 1: at our neck of the woods center kind of thing.
- 4:15Speaker 1: But on TBS every year, they for for many many years,
- 4:20Speaker 1: they would play a Christmas story for like twenty like
- 4:23Speaker 1: on a loop leading up to Christmas, like over and
- 4:26Speaker 1: over and over and over again. So I'm pretty sure
- 4:28Speaker 1: I've seen the entirety of a Christmas story, just not
- 4:31Speaker 1: in the right order. Like I I know everything about
- 4:34Speaker 1: that movie literally more more like backwards than front words,
- 4:37Speaker 1: but I absolutely know everything that happened. But I don't
- 4:39Speaker 1: think I've ever sat down in one go and watched
- 4:42Speaker 1: a Christmas story. Oh fun. So so you have a postmodern,
- 4:50Speaker 1: you have a post experience non linear. I love it,
- 4:54Speaker 1: and it is ultimately a postmodern kind of story because
- 4:57Speaker 1: it's a retelling of an era sort of stylized kind
- 5:01Speaker 1: of fantasy version of the nineteen fifties, um, you know,
- 5:05Speaker 1: with Ralphie and his brother and the you know, his
- 5:09Speaker 1: father and the leg lamp that was like, what was
- 5:11Speaker 1: that He got that as a prize or some sort
- 5:14Speaker 1: of clearinghouse sweep steaks or something like that, this major reward.
- 5:18Speaker 1: I just remember that, but I don't remember quite how
- 5:20Speaker 1: he got it. Yeah, it's um, it's weird, like a
- 5:23Speaker 1: love letter to this period of time, definitely through rose
- 5:28Speaker 1: colored glasses. It's uh, it's believed to be set in
- 5:32Speaker 1: nineteen forty, but there are a lot of anachronisms in
- 5:35Speaker 1: there because it's really it's really more about the vibe,
- 5:38Speaker 1: like the Norman Rockwell esque vibe of how people viewed
- 5:42Speaker 1: America at the time. And it heads up, folks, this
- 5:45Speaker 1: is a two part episode. This is gonna be a
- 5:48Speaker 1: wild ride. We're gonna go some weird places, will return
- 5:51Speaker 1: to a good place. But we are very proud of
- 5:54Speaker 1: ourselves for making sure you know it's a two part episode.
- 5:58Speaker 1: In advance. Thank you Max, Thank you Uh Nolan. I
- 6:01Speaker 1: would like to accept this award on behalf of all
- 6:04Speaker 1: the other episodes that accidentally became two parters. Major award,
- 6:09Speaker 1: this major award. And there's this thing, No, there's this
- 6:13Speaker 1: thing that happens there. There's so many iconic moments in
- 6:17Speaker 1: a Christmas story that you almost just remember them as
- 6:20Speaker 1: moments rather than like one long narrative. You know, he
- 6:24Speaker 1: gets his tongue stock, he curses in front of his parents,
- 6:27Speaker 1: you'll shoot your eye out, etcetera. For a big part
- 6:30Speaker 1: of the movie, he has this quest two interact with
- 6:34Speaker 1: his favorite radio program, the equivalent of like his favorite
- 6:39Speaker 1: TV show, and his favorite radio program is something called
- 6:44Speaker 1: Little Orphan Annie. Uh and Max Nolan, I have a
- 6:49Speaker 1: clip of this the Little Orphan Annie radio show that
- 6:53Speaker 1: we'd like to would like to just drop in play that.
- 6:56Speaker 1: For us, it was the Little Church Balls Want Long?
- 7:03Speaker 1: Who do you see? It's a little yesterday. Remember Mr
- 7:13Speaker 1: Flint was trying to sell stock in the new Bridge
- 7:16Speaker 1: to Jake at the emporium. But and he convinced Jake
- 7:19Speaker 1: you ought to think the matter over before he went
- 7:21Speaker 1: into debt to buy stock. But here it is the
- 7:23Speaker 1: next day after school and Annie and joy of walking
- 7:26Speaker 1: across the snowy field pard the river to see the
- 7:28Speaker 1: new bridge. She'd see any it sure did seem good
- 7:31Speaker 1: to get back to the old school again, didn't I'll
- 7:34Speaker 1: say it? Did you? Gee? The kids were awful glad
- 7:36Speaker 1: to see it's worth it, and I was awful glad
- 7:38Speaker 1: to see them. Wow, gee, Willakers, that was an awful
- 7:43Speaker 1: team Ben, Where did you dig that one up? Whole wowser? Okay,
- 7:49Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, I just I think we buried the
- 7:51Speaker 1: lead there little bit. She's trying to convince somebody not
- 7:54Speaker 1: to go into debt to buy stock. That's that's that's
- 7:58Speaker 1: the conflict, that's the central const like in this episode.
- 8:01Speaker 1: This episodes from nineteen thirty six. So yeah, I didn't
- 8:04Speaker 1: want to spoil the whole thing, but yeah, I'm glad
- 8:06Speaker 1: that stood out to you guys as well, the concept
- 8:10Speaker 1: of like what do children worry about? Yeah, so this
- 8:18Speaker 1: was a theme. I mean, this is something that that
- 8:20Speaker 1: played throughout the series. Um, you know, it originally was
- 8:23Speaker 1: a comic strip that was based on subject matter that
- 8:26Speaker 1: went even further back to a five poem called Little
- 8:30Speaker 1: Orphans Annie by James Whitcomb Riley. I think it maybe
- 8:34Speaker 1: it wasn't based on that exactly, but originally the comic
- 8:38Speaker 1: was going to be called Little Orphan Auto Um, but
- 8:40Speaker 1: a friend of the comic strip creator, Harold Gray, was
- 8:45Speaker 1: convinced to change the name and the you know, the
- 8:47Speaker 1: gender of the of the main protagonist to Little Orphan
- 8:50Speaker 1: Annie based on the I think popularity of that poem.
- 8:54Speaker 1: But it was all about like strike breaking and like
- 8:57Speaker 1: it was very anti Roosevelt policies. You know, it was
- 9:01Speaker 1: very interesting. And then it was like clearly you know,
- 9:04Speaker 1: meant for kids, I think, but I mean adults like
- 9:07Speaker 1: the Funnies too. There's a lot of an interesting kind
- 9:09Speaker 1: of like buried adult messaging and like old comic strips.
- 9:13Speaker 1: If you look back at the the father or the
- 9:17Speaker 1: adoptive father, the figure, Yeah, it's literally named Warbucks as
- 9:23Speaker 1: a surname, so that's clearly seems like a war profit
- 9:26Speaker 1: here went over my head as a kid. I thought
- 9:29Speaker 1: he was just wealthy, going over my head until you
- 9:32Speaker 1: just pointed it up. And I didn't even think about
- 9:34Speaker 1: the the not too subtle buried message their war bucks,
- 9:39Speaker 1: like it was my war chests, you know, Yeah, that's
- 9:41Speaker 1: exactly what it was. Um. But that transferred over to
- 9:45Speaker 1: the radio show and then this was like you know
- 9:47Speaker 1: the golden age of of wireless you know, the radio people,
- 9:51Speaker 1: families gathering around hearing you know, the news and all
- 9:54Speaker 1: of that stuff. But also these serialized drama performances, you
- 9:59Speaker 1: know that that like you know, had new stories, Monster
- 10:02Speaker 1: of the Week kind of things a week to week. Yeah. Yeah.
- 10:05Speaker 1: And here's the thing. So if you look back at
- 10:07Speaker 1: this now from one, it's easy for us to go, okay,
- 10:12Speaker 1: that's not necessarily controversial. There are some hidden political agendas
- 10:18Speaker 1: in there. Are they a proposed to today? Maybe not exactly.
- 10:23Speaker 1: And this probably goes over the heads of most children.
- 10:26Speaker 1: It might surprise folks to realize that a lot of
- 10:29Speaker 1: parents were squigged out by this radio program because it
- 10:35Speaker 1: had a hold on their children. And when we say hold,
- 10:41Speaker 1: it had the same kind of hold that a show
- 10:43Speaker 1: like Breaking Bad, or The Sopranos or or The Wire
- 10:46Speaker 1: a Game of Thrones would have on people. But it
- 10:48Speaker 1: was a children's show and it was four kids, and
- 10:52Speaker 1: it was able to direct children to do things, to
- 10:58Speaker 1: push their parents for things, namely products, right to make
- 11:02Speaker 1: their parents buy stuff because uh, you know, little orphan anity,
- 11:08Speaker 1: just like old dirty Bastard said about Wu tang is
- 11:11Speaker 1: for the kids. Parents were freaked out. They didn't appreciate
- 11:16Speaker 1: all the child directed marketing. They were to the mercy
- 11:20Speaker 1: of whatever these folks who created the show decided to
- 11:24Speaker 1: sell absolutely and little or Finanni was also in the
- 11:33Speaker 1: words of the wood Saint clani Fern, which remember nothing
- 11:35Speaker 1: to with because her catchphrase was she was the spunky
- 11:39Speaker 1: orphan with a heart of gold and a fast left,
- 11:41Speaker 1: and that was referring to the fact that she and
- 11:44Speaker 1: her dog Sandy were kind of this like almost like
- 11:47Speaker 1: detective pair Like you could clearly see the influence and
- 11:50Speaker 1: other pop culture pairings of like kid detectives, kind of
- 11:54Speaker 1: like Scooby Doo for example, you know, clearly influenced by
- 11:57Speaker 1: the pairing of you know, Annie and her dog um
- 12:00Speaker 1: or things like Brain and Penny and inspector Gadget. You know,
- 12:03Speaker 1: this is very much a pop culture trope that clearly
- 12:06Speaker 1: got its beginnings here. But you're right, then the political
- 12:10Speaker 1: you know, messaging aside, which apparently really you know, stemmed
- 12:13Speaker 1: from Gray's own political views. Um many of the plots
- 12:18Speaker 1: of the comics, apparently, um almost got the comic pulled
- 12:21Speaker 1: from the newspapers that it ran in, Like I'm just
- 12:24Speaker 1: gonna really quickly because this interesting time ran an article
- 12:27Speaker 1: called the surprisingly controversial plots that almost got Little Orphan
- 12:30Speaker 1: Annie axed, one of which I'm just gonna read it
- 12:32Speaker 1: right from here because it's fantastic. Um. The plot takes
- 12:37Speaker 1: a turn for the propagandistic when political racketeers threatened to
- 12:40Speaker 1: destroy one of Daddy Warbuck's factories. To the editor of
- 12:44Speaker 1: the Huntington Herald Dispatch, the rhetorics seems better suited to
- 12:47Speaker 1: Ann Rand than to America's Best Love Orphan, as he
- 12:50Speaker 1: describes the offending plotline per time, here's from the letter
- 12:54Speaker 1: to the editor. All political leaders, and it follows every
- 12:57Speaker 1: public official are at once indicted as crooks. And to
- 13:00Speaker 1: accept such a sweeping indictment is to permit the creator
- 13:04Speaker 1: of Little Orphan, Annie and the Chicago Tribune syndicate to
- 13:07Speaker 1: attack and condemn all persons, all institutions, and all ideas
- 13:11Speaker 1: save those they choose to label acceptable. And I pointed
- 13:15Speaker 1: out because it's interesting because clearly the source material of
- 13:18Speaker 1: this comic, or the inspiration behind it, I guess, is
- 13:23Speaker 1: pretty virulently pro capitalism. It's a little interesting because it's
- 13:28Speaker 1: the dude's politics seems to change a little bit as
- 13:31Speaker 1: time goes on, but he ends up in a place that,
- 13:33Speaker 1: while seeming to be like pro hard work and the
- 13:36Speaker 1: working man and all that really kind of raises up
- 13:40Speaker 1: characters like Daddy Warbucks, who are ultimately the you know,
- 13:43Speaker 1: fat cats right in the factories and all of that stuff,
- 13:47Speaker 1: And it takes on this kind of weird, almost propagandistic tone, right, Yeah,
- 13:51Speaker 1: but it was very randy and in its concepts, you know,
- 13:56Speaker 1: just just as you said. In fact, when F. D
- 14:00Speaker 1: Are was elected president in thirty two, Great appeared to
- 14:07Speaker 1: kill off Warbucks, later implying that Warbucks could not coexist
- 14:13Speaker 1: in the world with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He actually killed
- 14:18Speaker 1: him off in forty five, and then after the real
- 14:21Speaker 1: life Roosevelt dies, Gray brings Daddy Warbucks back and he
- 14:26Speaker 1: and he says in the comic strip, so how I
- 14:29Speaker 1: feel that the climate here has changed since I went away?
- 14:33Speaker 1: So it's like, come on, man, this is for kids.
- 14:35Speaker 1: What are you doing getting in their heads this way?
- 14:38Speaker 1: This is this is at best a precursor to the
- 14:42Speaker 1: approach that is later perfected by a big corporation Little
- 14:48Speaker 1: orphan AI. This massively successful radio program was I Kid
- 14:55Speaker 1: you not. This is a true story. It was pretty
- 14:58Speaker 1: much one long commercial. It was entirely sponsored by Ovaltine
- 15:03Speaker 1: and the writing staff they were all advertising executives at Ovaltine.
- 15:09Speaker 1: You know, for some, for some advertisers, this is like
- 15:13Speaker 1: a dream you wouldn't dare to dream. The radio show
- 15:17Speaker 1: existed entirely to propagate the use of Ovaltine in the
- 15:23Speaker 1: American public, and it was so successful because it was
- 15:27Speaker 1: a new approach. It was a new kind of media
- 15:30Speaker 1: um well, not necessarily a new strategy, but it was
- 15:33Speaker 1: new in terms of its target audience. And we see
- 15:36Speaker 1: the dangers of this reflected today and things like um
- 15:39Speaker 1: Facebook or Metaverse or whatever meta I'm supposed to call
- 15:43Speaker 1: them now apparently you can see this and things like
- 15:45Speaker 1: their plans to make an Instagram for children, exclusively and
- 15:50Speaker 1: specifically for children. And this just shows us that there
- 15:53Speaker 1: is a cyclical, continual history of media technology scares when
- 15:59Speaker 1: it comes to kids, like even now, you know, there's
- 16:02Speaker 1: a lot of debate about when a child should have
- 16:05Speaker 1: a smartphone or when a kid should be allowed to
- 16:07Speaker 1: have UM Well, nowadays, I guess to be a TikTok
- 16:10Speaker 1: account because kids aren't really on Facebook unless they have
- 16:13Speaker 1: to keep in touch with you know, their mom or
- 16:16Speaker 1: their uncle or something. But what's startling is that it's
- 16:20Speaker 1: not so surprising that these conversations always come up, but
- 16:24Speaker 1: it is incredibly surprising that they are so similar from
- 16:27Speaker 1: one century to the next. I mean, you and I
- 16:32Speaker 1: were looking into some of this stuff and we found
- 16:34Speaker 1: a great Slate article called a History of Media Technology
- 16:38Speaker 1: Scares or Don't Touch that Dial by Vaughan Bell, and
- 16:43Speaker 1: in this Bell points out that these concerns over like
- 16:46Speaker 1: technology and how it affects it molds the young minds
- 16:49Speaker 1: of children date all the way back to the birth
- 16:52Speaker 1: of literacy. Was a technology that's so crazy and I
- 16:56Speaker 1: love this and we're gonna get back to a Christmas
- 16:58Speaker 1: story and all of the uh, you know, new fangled technology,
- 17:02Speaker 1: you know as we kind of know it today, which
- 17:04Speaker 1: really set the groundwork for what we know as advertising
- 17:07Speaker 1: and television and commercials and all of that good stuff.
- 17:10Speaker 1: But it's true, Uh, it was intensely distrusted. Socrates warned
- 17:16Speaker 1: against writing itself because he thought that it would quote
- 17:19Speaker 1: create forgetfulness and the learners souls. And let's remember that
- 17:23Speaker 1: so much of the history and mythology of that time
- 17:28Speaker 1: was passed down through the oral tradition, and it was
- 17:30Speaker 1: very important memorization and all of that was such a
- 17:34Speaker 1: crucial feature of that storytelling and essentially academia. So Socrates
- 17:41Speaker 1: warned that it would actually corrupt the youth. He advised
- 17:44Speaker 1: that children won't be able to distinguish fantasy from reality,
- 17:48Speaker 1: and so it's up to parents to ensure that they
- 17:52Speaker 1: only hear allegories that are deemed to be proper as
- 17:56Speaker 1: opposed to quote unquote improper tales. Uh could in fact
- 18:01Speaker 1: completely screw up their developmental process, you know, as their
- 18:05Speaker 1: brains are developing in this crucial time. And you know,
- 18:09Speaker 1: the this whole line of thinking from Socrates really did
- 18:13Speaker 1: set a foundation for what we think of today as
- 18:16Speaker 1: like too much screen time. You know, it's kind of
- 18:19Speaker 1: evolved into that kind of thinking. Are like video games
- 18:22Speaker 1: will rot your brain and all that kind of stuff.
- 18:24Speaker 1: Older generations typically worn and are suspicious of new technology,
- 18:29Speaker 1: whatever it might be, whether it's um even the new
- 18:32Speaker 1: type of music. You know, like to maybe our grandparents,
- 18:36Speaker 1: like jazz and kind of swing music at the time
- 18:39Speaker 1: would have been incredibly controversial, you know, to their parents.
- 18:42Speaker 1: They would have thought of that as there's the devil's music.
- 18:44Speaker 1: And nowadays, you know, with music being so all over
- 18:47Speaker 1: the place, and they're being certainly some pretty extreme forms
- 18:50Speaker 1: of it. Parents that maybe aren't as keyed into that
- 18:54Speaker 1: kind of pop culture stuff certainly, or maybe you're a
- 18:56Speaker 1: little more religious in their background certainly could look at
- 18:58Speaker 1: things like slipnot or like heavier music is absolutely being demonic,
- 19:03Speaker 1: you know, satanic in some way and not not to
- 19:05Speaker 1: mention like corrupting like centuries ago. So when it's like
- 19:10Speaker 1: I don't and music with different instruments, that's on God,
- 19:14Speaker 1: Like give me Gregorian chat. Okay, back when things were good,
- 19:18Speaker 1: I like this is you're you're absolutely right. And the
- 19:21Speaker 1: same thing happened with television, The same thing happened with VHS,
- 19:26Speaker 1: the same thing happened with dungeons and dragons. Now it's
- 19:28Speaker 1: a social media technology. Yeah, now it's all about social media.
- 19:32Speaker 1: And so when the radio came into play, this immediately
- 19:37Speaker 1: fit the bill of a new technological threat to the
- 19:40Speaker 1: minds of the young. Wireless radio was now accused of
- 19:45Speaker 1: distracting children from practicing the same literacy Socrates have warned
- 19:50Speaker 1: about so long ago. Radio was apparently also making children
- 19:54Speaker 1: do terribly in school, and a big part of the
- 19:57Speaker 1: blame fell specifically on these audio thick shin programs, which
- 20:01Speaker 1: now are considered so like old timey you you find
- 20:06Speaker 1: them as nostalgia clips on YouTube, or if you go
- 20:08Speaker 1: into a a Cracker Barrel, which is a nostalgia based
- 20:13Speaker 1: restaurant here in the US, you'll see you'll see DVDs
- 20:17Speaker 1: of stuff like Little or fananim or The Shadow Knows
- 20:20Speaker 1: sold in their um faux country store. But think about
- 20:23Speaker 1: the alternative what it was luring kids away from. You know,
- 20:26Speaker 1: they're like very strict taskmasterly like school teachers that were
- 20:30Speaker 1: just kind of teaching them. They're you know, reading, writing
- 20:33Speaker 1: and arithmetic, probably not with a whole lot of theatrical flare.
- 20:37Speaker 1: So I mean even just the most basic kind of
- 20:40Speaker 1: levels of performativeness or theatricality that they would hear on
- 20:43Speaker 1: what we now you know, clock is being incredibly dated
- 20:47Speaker 1: and stuffy. Radio shows would have been just like a
- 20:50Speaker 1: whole new world of of of information and of just
- 20:53Speaker 1: you know, and absolutely could have could have been distracting.
- 20:56Speaker 1: It's described here, um in this Slate article, Um his
- 21:00Speaker 1: sure you have media technology scares from the printing press
- 21:02Speaker 1: to Facebook. Um As. Actually they quote a Grammophone magazine
- 21:07Speaker 1: article from ninety six um and it says that children
- 21:10Speaker 1: quote had developed the habit of dividing attention between the
- 21:13Speaker 1: hum drum preparation of their school assignments and the compelling
- 21:17Speaker 1: excitement of the loudspeaker. Yeah, play that back in your head, folks,
- 21:23Speaker 1: because I I have a question, and I don't want
- 21:25Speaker 1: this to be gotcha journalism or got a game show
- 21:28Speaker 1: question for you guys, but Noel Max, When is the
- 21:32Speaker 1: last time that you just watched a television show or
- 21:38Speaker 1: a film without also being on your phone, without also,
- 21:42Speaker 1: you know, working on something on your computer, Or when's
- 21:44Speaker 1: the last time you listen to a song without also
- 21:48Speaker 1: being on your phone or engaging with some other piece
- 21:50Speaker 1: of media. That's what the grammophone is complaining about, right, Well,
- 21:54Speaker 1: it's an important question, and I think the pandemic has
- 21:57Speaker 1: really tipped the scales in a negative way. I mean,
- 22:00Speaker 1: spent so much time just consuming media in our homes
- 22:02Speaker 1: and multitasking with the subtitles on and and we have
- 22:06Speaker 1: just infinite distractions at our fingertips. I recently went and
- 22:09Speaker 1: saw a movie in the theater and and it kept
- 22:12Speaker 1: having to fight the urge to whip out my phone.
- 22:14Speaker 1: But you know that in the theater you will get
- 22:16Speaker 1: shamed and and for good reason. But at home, when
- 22:19Speaker 1: it's just you in charge, you can do whatever you want.
- 22:21Speaker 1: And I would argue that you are not fully experiencing
- 22:24Speaker 1: any of those things, you know, if you're like kind
- 22:26Speaker 1: of bouncing back and forth between watching the New Dune
- 22:29Speaker 1: movie while also checking the you know, doom scrolling on
- 22:32Speaker 1: Instagram and also perhaps um, you know, dealing with a
- 22:37Speaker 1: kid or something that's actually there in person. Okay, so
- 22:40Speaker 1: for you, it was a it was a movie. It
- 22:42Speaker 1: was you answer to your question was it was? It
- 22:44Speaker 1: was a movie in the theater a week or so ago,
- 22:47Speaker 1: I saw The French Dispatch by west Anderson. Nice Max,
- 22:52Speaker 1: how about you? Yeah, I look that Noel mentioned like
- 22:55Speaker 1: a movie because like when I'm watching a movie, whether
- 22:57Speaker 1: it's at home or out, I will generally us watch that.
- 23:00Speaker 1: But from at home, I'll take a break and go
- 23:03Speaker 1: do something. But like, and I watch a lot of sports.
- 23:05Speaker 1: And if I'm watching sports, I'm like have multiple games on.
- 23:08Speaker 1: I will be texting people, I will be doing watch
- 23:11Speaker 1: mccallough and everything else in the side. Like I never
- 23:13Speaker 1: just sit down really just watch TV and watched sports.
- 23:17Speaker 1: So yeah, it reminds me of there's a scene and oh, brother,
- 23:21Speaker 1: where art thou Where there the group is. I think
- 23:25Speaker 1: it's a brother art that where the group is singing
- 23:28Speaker 1: as the Saggy Bottom Boys. And then you cut to
- 23:31Speaker 1: different homes where people are listening to this song and
- 23:34Speaker 1: people are just sitting there in their rooms with the
- 23:37Speaker 1: radio on, just kind of nodding because they're fully they're
- 23:42Speaker 1: fully engaged. And so for the Gramophones example, and I
- 23:46Speaker 1: love that you bring this quote in all the Grammophones
- 23:48Speaker 1: example of multitasking is interesting because they phrase it as
- 23:53Speaker 1: the worst thing since unsliced bread. You know, if I
- 23:57Speaker 1: could play with that cliche. So it's strange because now
- 24:02Speaker 1: we see that that is normal in this age of
- 24:04Speaker 1: ubiquitous information. And as we continue, we are going somewhere
- 24:09Speaker 1: with this folks. We're going back to Annie. We're gonna
- 24:11Speaker 1: hang out with her for a while. As we continue
- 24:14Speaker 1: in this episode, it's a question that maybe you can
- 24:16Speaker 1: ask yourself and your friends and your family, um kids,
- 24:20Speaker 1: if you have kids, which is, how how normal is
- 24:23Speaker 1: it to multitask this way? And how normal should it be? Um?
- 24:27Speaker 1: It's a good question, and I think it really is
- 24:36Speaker 1: at the heart of the same argument that we still
- 24:38Speaker 1: make today when it comes to social media, it's too
- 24:41Speaker 1: intense based on you know, for kids brains, it takes
- 24:45Speaker 1: them too many different directions, and it gives them too much,
- 24:48Speaker 1: too many options, and they they're not really equipped maybe
- 24:52Speaker 1: to juggle all those options, just like I'm not equipped
- 24:54Speaker 1: to juggle watching done uh dooms growing on Instagram and
- 24:57Speaker 1: you know, pay them out with my cat. You know,
- 25:00Speaker 1: I would probably pick one and roll with it. And
- 25:02Speaker 1: that became the crux of the argument in the nineteen
- 25:04Speaker 1: thirties as these kind of children's radio hours began to
- 25:08Speaker 1: get more and more popular, and shows like specifically Little
- 25:11Speaker 1: or Finanni dealt with, you know, kind of more shady
- 25:16Speaker 1: aspects of of life. You know, there's like seductive villains
- 25:20Speaker 1: and you know, cat burglars like you know, breaking into
- 25:24Speaker 1: homes and criminals and like very unsavory types that maybe
- 25:28Speaker 1: kids would have kind of been um shielded from even
- 25:30Speaker 1: knowing about. Yeah, yeah, and children have a tremendous capacity
- 25:36Speaker 1: for imagination and radio creates, uh, something that we still
- 25:42Speaker 1: owe a lot to in the world of podcasting, which
- 25:44Speaker 1: is a theater of the mind of folks. We hope
- 25:47Speaker 1: that you enjoy our occasional re enactments of things on
- 25:51Speaker 1: on any of the shows the three of us do
- 25:53Speaker 1: because there are a lot of work, but there are
- 25:55Speaker 1: a lot of fun and we quite enjoy them. Podcast
- 25:58Speaker 1: making No Mistake at her best or a direct descendant
- 26:01Speaker 1: from the golden age of radio. Parents were worried, like,
- 26:06Speaker 1: I like that you pointed this out, man. Parents were
- 26:08Speaker 1: worried that this gave kids too much to think about,
- 26:14Speaker 1: to put it in really simple terms, and that it
- 26:17Speaker 1: might make things that are dangerous in real life seem appealing. Right, mysterious,
- 26:24Speaker 1: Edgy Cool, I love that you just said. Mysterious. Bennett
- 26:28Speaker 1: reminds me of There's this amazingly hilarious and heartwarming scene
- 26:32Speaker 1: in The Sopranos where Bobby bacalas kids they've lost their mother, um,
- 26:36Speaker 1: and there's a whole subplot where like Janice is like
- 26:39Speaker 1: trying to essentially, you know, reel them in and make
- 26:42Speaker 1: become like the new mom, and she's told psychopath playing
- 26:46Speaker 1: all these head games. But at one point Bobby's daughter
- 26:48Speaker 1: is upset and Bobby's like, did you let her read
- 26:51Speaker 1: her Nancy Drew book? So it was like she wouldn't
- 26:54Speaker 1: even calm down by reading her Nancy Drew book. She
- 26:56Speaker 1: said they were too mysterious. That's great, h Nancy drew, Well, yeah,
- 27:03Speaker 1: like this is this is fascinating. There's a letter that
- 27:07Speaker 1: one guy wrote to The New York Times with the
- 27:10Speaker 1: ninety three and he described, uh, he described the delatorious
- 27:15Speaker 1: effects that radio's children's hours would have on his kid.
- 27:20Speaker 1: He said the adventures were all too hair raising, and
- 27:22Speaker 1: he wrote, my son has never known fear. He now
- 27:26Speaker 1: imagines footsteps in the dark, kidnappers looking in every quarter,
- 27:30Speaker 1: a ghost a period and disappearod everywhere, and admitting their
- 27:32Speaker 1: blood curdling noises, all in true radio fashion. Uh. Like
- 27:38Speaker 1: he thought this was I don't know. I think a
- 27:41Speaker 1: lot of kids about the experience where you see a movie,
- 27:44Speaker 1: or maybe you hear a spooky campfire story and you
- 27:47Speaker 1: stay up late in the night afterwards because you're worried.
- 27:51Speaker 1: You know that someone in your house may have said
- 27:54Speaker 1: bloody Mary three times right, or you're worried that someone
- 27:58Speaker 1: made a past two um or candy Man past three.
- 28:02Speaker 1: But yeah, you certainly feel compelled to do so um.
- 28:06Speaker 1: You know. And in the same way, I think we've
- 28:08Speaker 1: all more or less landed on like movies and video
- 28:11Speaker 1: games do not serial killers create. Uh, maybe could push
- 28:16Speaker 1: someone over the edge who's already you know, got serious
- 28:19Speaker 1: inclinations towards that kind of behavior, or maybe they get
- 28:22Speaker 1: some inspiration from a particular act they see. But in general,
- 28:26Speaker 1: healthy you know, kids with the with the balanced you know,
- 28:29Speaker 1: life style and and parents that are supportive or whatever
- 28:32Speaker 1: typically are not going to be turned into raving psychopaths
- 28:35Speaker 1: by listening to a spooky radio programmer, you know, playing
- 28:39Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto or whatever. And this argument really does
- 28:41Speaker 1: go as far back as this, which is so funny
- 28:44Speaker 1: considering how it really was like a total theater of
- 28:47Speaker 1: the mind. So so let's get into why Little Orphan
- 28:50Speaker 1: Annie specifically. Were lots of other programs You mentioned The Shadow,
- 28:53Speaker 1: you know, that was a big one, Um, which was
- 28:55Speaker 1: another kind of spooky masked figure fighting crime. A lot
- 28:58Speaker 1: of these were like you know, pro know d C
- 29:00Speaker 1: comics kind of vibes. You know, they were like a
- 29:03Speaker 1: protagonist sort of like with the world against them and
- 29:06Speaker 1: they were kind of trying to right wrongs and all
- 29:08Speaker 1: of that stuff sort of do good y um. But
- 29:11Speaker 1: Little Orphan Annie specifically was a kid with a dog
- 29:15Speaker 1: um and she got the brunt of a lot of
- 29:19Speaker 1: these concerns from parents. Yeah. Yeah. There was a question
- 29:24Speaker 1: that a noted educator named Sidney Gruenberg asked The Times
- 29:30Speaker 1: when she said, why is it that the children seemed
- 29:33Speaker 1: to get their greatest pleasure from the very things which
- 29:35Speaker 1: parents most deplore. That's a question people ask in the
- 29:39Speaker 1: modern day. Right, you want to make something cool, have
- 29:42Speaker 1: people's parents tell them it's dangerous and you shouldn't listen
- 29:45Speaker 1: to it. Uh. Yeah. The program that kids loved the
- 29:50Speaker 1: most and the parents hated the most was Young Ralphie's Favorite.
- 29:55Speaker 1: That part of the story is true. It is Little
- 29:57Speaker 1: Orphan Annie. So she battle the big evil unions, gangsters, pirates,
- 30:03Speaker 1: other you know, the like the the Whitman's Sampler of
- 30:08Speaker 1: ne'er do wells, scoundrels and wrap scallions. Everybody apparently listen
- 30:16Speaker 1: to that show. Richard German in the Saturday Night Review
- 30:19Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine had a great line about this.
- 30:21Speaker 1: He said, all people during that period, one to two
- 30:26Speaker 1: budding deliquents, safecrackers, stock market manipulators or whatever, all listened
- 30:31Speaker 1: to Little Orphan Annie and a group of I'm laughing
- 30:37Speaker 1: just because I know this was a serious issue at
- 30:39Speaker 1: the time. But tell, tell us, fellow ridiculous historians, if
- 30:44Speaker 1: this does not sound a bit like overkill. Here we go.
- 30:47Speaker 1: In March of nineteen thirty three, a group of concerned
- 30:50Speaker 1: mothers in Scarsdale, New York, got together to protest radio
- 30:55Speaker 1: shows that shattered nerves, stimulate emotions of horror, and teach
- 30:59Speaker 1: bad grammar. Which was a big one. They singled out
- 31:02Speaker 1: Little Orphan Annie, and he said that it was very
- 31:06Speaker 1: poor because the main character, Little Orphan Any had a
- 31:10Speaker 1: bad emotional effect and an unnatural voice. Exactly what don't
- 31:17Speaker 1: we going with all these Verdi origons about? Exactly? And like,
- 31:20Speaker 1: you know, it introduced things like slang. You know, well, gosh,
- 31:24Speaker 1: she will ocurs. That's keen, you know, I mean, like
- 31:26Speaker 1: I'm sure again as goofy and dated is that way
- 31:29Speaker 1: of talking sounds now? Now? I bet a lot of
- 31:32Speaker 1: parents really were not into that, especially teachers, you know,
- 31:36Speaker 1: they were like, no, this is essentially tantamount to swearing. Yeah,
- 31:39Speaker 1: like in that what is that? That musical? The music
- 31:42Speaker 1: man Seth McFarlane, creator Family Guy, is a great cover
- 31:45Speaker 1: of it, the one where it's like P and that
- 31:47Speaker 1: stands for pool and that in River City it's gonna
- 31:51Speaker 1: it's gonna totally upend our way of life, you know, right,
- 31:54Speaker 1: I mean Pool, You got Pool of Step one. Next thing,
- 31:56Speaker 1: you know is the complete you know, crumbling of civilization ship.
- 32:00Speaker 1: People will be yeah, exactly, Yeah. I want to bring
- 32:03Speaker 1: that up because there's this commonality between these fears, the
- 32:06Speaker 1: idea of a slippery slope. Right, it's gonna terrorize children
- 32:09Speaker 1: in a way that compromises their moral standing and makes
- 32:13Speaker 1: them God forbid scali wags in the future. This is
- 32:17Speaker 1: what they thought was the sinister aspect of Little Orphan
- 32:22Speaker 1: Annie in the beginning, and people were adopting resolutions in
- 32:29Speaker 1: communities throughout the US that that wanted to fight back
- 32:33Speaker 1: against what they saw as the unnatural overstimulation and thrill
- 32:38Speaker 1: of children's cereals. S. E. R. I A L. S.
- 32:43Speaker 1: Mainly Orphan Annie and show called Skippy, which was about
- 32:48Speaker 1: a street willy city boy and it was a radio
- 32:51Speaker 1: and like like Annie, it was a radio show based
- 32:54Speaker 1: on a comic strip. What I what I love about
- 32:56Speaker 1: this too, though, man is I don't know if you
- 32:59Speaker 1: guys read a lot of young adult fiction, but I do,
- 33:01Speaker 1: and there's some really dark stuff in there. We talked
- 33:04Speaker 1: about roll Dall. That guy is nuts, you know, the true,
- 33:09Speaker 1: the actual original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He's got
- 33:13Speaker 1: this banger called George's Marvelous Medicine, which is all about
- 33:16Speaker 1: a kid trying to poison his grandmother fatally while his
- 33:19Speaker 1: parents are away shopping. It accidentally makes her giant. I've
- 33:24Speaker 1: got it if you want to borrow it. It's like
- 33:25Speaker 1: a quick afternoon read. But it's it's messed up. It's
- 33:28Speaker 1: about him trying to unsuccessfully murder his grandmother. So there's
- 33:31Speaker 1: there's already so much darkness and serious themes and like
- 33:35Speaker 1: children's books and young adult content, and it may owe
- 33:40Speaker 1: a lot to this period of radio drama, but what
- 33:45Speaker 1: like how valid is that concern? Do we think this
- 33:51Speaker 1: concern that it's just it's too much for children to
- 33:54Speaker 1: hear a little orphan? It depends, right, So, like at
- 33:57Speaker 1: this time, you know, radio is just starting to come
- 34:00Speaker 1: to like the heartland, you know, in places where kids
- 34:02Speaker 1: had to maybe do chores, you know, or it was
- 34:04Speaker 1: maybe they lived in a more of an a grarian
- 34:06Speaker 1: type situation. And I'm gonna go back to the the
- 34:09Speaker 1: other pop culture reference you made, which is that song
- 34:11Speaker 1: from the music Man trouble right here in Ritter City,
- 34:14Speaker 1: River City. The lyrics are fantastic, this one verse, in particular,
- 34:17Speaker 1: frittering away their noontime suppertime, short time to get the
- 34:20Speaker 1: ball in the pocket, never mind getting dandelions pulled, or
- 34:23Speaker 1: the screen door passed, or the beefsteak pounded, never mind
- 34:26Speaker 1: pumping any water until your parents are caught with the
- 34:29Speaker 1: sister and empty on a Saturday night. And that's trouble. Yes,
- 34:31Speaker 1: You've got lots and lots of trouble. Um. So it's
- 34:34Speaker 1: the idea of this distracting element. You could argue that maybe, yeah,
- 34:38Speaker 1: maybe that maybe they did have a point, but again,
- 34:40Speaker 1: it all comes down to discipline and like you know,
- 34:42Speaker 1: how you balance that stuff out with your kids. You
- 34:44Speaker 1: can't really blame the technology because, as we always say,
- 34:47Speaker 1: you can't really put those genies back in their bottles.
- 34:49Speaker 1: You can't shelter your kids on that stuff for long
- 34:52Speaker 1: because then what are they gonna do. They're just gonna
- 34:54Speaker 1: seek it out and and go to more underhanded lengths
- 34:56Speaker 1: to kind of get at them, you know, because they
- 35:00Speaker 1: they don't want to be left behind. That's that's how
- 35:02Speaker 1: kids are. Um. So I think to that end. There
- 35:04Speaker 1: there is a point. Is it making them, you know,
- 35:07Speaker 1: into is it robbing them in some way of like
- 35:11Speaker 1: brain capacity? Like I don't think so. I think time
- 35:14Speaker 1: has shown that, like plenty of very intelligent people came
- 35:18Speaker 1: out of this period and came out of the period
- 35:20Speaker 1: that we're living in with social media. It's all about balance,
- 35:22Speaker 1: and some kids can handle it better than others. And
- 35:24Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with their parents.
- 35:26Speaker 1: It's true, It's true, And a lot of it has
- 35:29Speaker 1: to do with the support structure and community a kid
- 35:33Speaker 1: has beyond just their parents. But the parents are the
- 35:35Speaker 1: principal actors here, not not the media. Uh there's also
- 35:40Speaker 1: I love this slippery slope idea because it's like, ah, shucks,
- 35:44Speaker 1: mom won't let me listen to a little or fananny.
- 35:46Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna read the necronomicon Like that does
- 35:50Speaker 1: to me. It just doesn't. It doesn't quite compute. But
- 35:53Speaker 1: they they didn't get the necronomicon in the Heartland for
- 35:55Speaker 1: many more years though, so or even just like I
- 36:00Speaker 1: think I'm gonna go you know, torture cats, you know,
- 36:03Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I guess I'm gonna burn something. Uh.
- 36:08Speaker 1: So this it's funny because, uh, there was this great
- 36:11Speaker 1: line in a Smithsonian mag article about this period of
- 36:16Speaker 1: hysteria and and yes, we know the problematic etymology of hysteria,
- 36:21Speaker 1: but this period of panic of social outrage. In the
- 36:26Speaker 1: Smithsonian mag they point out that this radio series was
- 36:30Speaker 1: kind of like the Grand Theft Auto of its day,
- 36:34Speaker 1: which is wild but it's but it's it's funny because
- 36:39Speaker 1: this radio show for most people, I'd say these days,
- 36:43Speaker 1: you when you think of or fanany you think of
- 36:45Speaker 1: the musical that is, like you said, old based on
- 36:48Speaker 1: the radio show that has based itself upon a comic
- 36:50Speaker 1: strip that itself is based or inspired by the title
- 36:55Speaker 1: from an earlier poem. And these adaptations and reimaginings aren't
- 37:01Speaker 1: always the same, not the same tone that comic we
- 37:05Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. It's kind of grim because grim
- 37:09Speaker 1: stuff was happening in the uh in the twenties and thirties.
- 37:12Speaker 1: And then the Broadway musical is super optimistic, right, you know.
- 37:18Speaker 1: And I will also say that that easy Street song
- 37:21Speaker 1: is pretty great. There's a lot of great songs in
- 37:23Speaker 1: Annie the musical, um and I mean there's things about
- 37:26Speaker 1: the movie that are pretty grim, like MS hannighan Is
- 37:28Speaker 1: is incredibly portrayed by Carol Burnett, just like sopping lee
- 37:32Speaker 1: drunk and like you know, again we mentioned earlier the
- 37:35Speaker 1: idea of the seductive villain like she is like all
- 37:38Speaker 1: you see her in her like weird kind of ninety
- 37:40Speaker 1: all the time and very inappropriate. I mean, there's some
- 37:43Speaker 1: pretty wild things in that movie as well. But the
- 37:46Speaker 1: Broadway Musical it was relatively optimistic, you're right, the idea
- 37:50Speaker 1: of Annie's getting rescued from this bad situation by Daddy Warbucks, um,
- 37:57Speaker 1: and then she's able to kind of help her compatriots,
- 38:00Speaker 1: you know, escape their you know, plite as well. But
- 38:03Speaker 1: in general, the comic strip and then the radio show
- 38:06Speaker 1: it was all about, like, you know, Annie being this
- 38:09Speaker 1: kind of force of good and justice in a completely
- 38:12Speaker 1: crooked and uh and negative and abusive world. And we're
- 38:19Speaker 1: we're midway through this strange exploration, and I think Noel's
- 38:24Speaker 1: fair to say that we've already gone to some pretty
- 38:27Speaker 1: interesting unexpected spaces here. Indeed, who knows what those are.
- 38:30Speaker 1: We haven't actually listened to the edit yet. We're just
- 38:32Speaker 1: kind of flying blind here, but we know that we
- 38:34Speaker 1: definitely touched on some interesting stuff. And now I'm drinking
- 38:37Speaker 1: my ovaltine. I don't know if you see this, but
- 38:39Speaker 1: I've got a big old glass of good stuff. Yeah
- 38:42Speaker 1: for bones, for your bones, um, and it gives you
- 38:46Speaker 1: a pep. Yes. And we will return very soon with
- 38:51Speaker 1: part two of the Sinister Influence of Little Orphan Annie Uh.
- 38:55Speaker 1: So everybody make sure to drink your ovaltine. I guess
- 38:58Speaker 1: that's the main takeaway of our story today. And and
- 39:02Speaker 1: when it comes to PEP, we always want to thank
- 39:06Speaker 1: our very own PEP master one and only super producer,
- 39:09Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. Thinks also to Alex Williams, who composed
- 39:13Speaker 1: the banging soundtrack that is I believe playing behind us now.
- 39:18Speaker 1: One would think so many mysteries in the world of
- 39:20Speaker 1: podcast production editing, but I really hope that Max uh
- 39:24Speaker 1: followed the president that he has set for low these
- 39:26Speaker 1: many years or months anyway, and has the music playing
- 39:29Speaker 1: underneath this as we speak. PEP PEP to Christopher Haciots
- 39:33Speaker 1: and Eaves Jeff Cotes, both here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland,
- 39:36Speaker 1: the Quister, may your pep drained from you, sir, and
- 39:41Speaker 1: and and leave you a husk of a man, and
- 39:44Speaker 1: that you may never darken our doorstep again. No, that's
- 39:46Speaker 1: not sure. I missed Jonathan. We gotta have him back.
- 39:48Speaker 1: We don't. It's not really up to us, though, so
- 39:50Speaker 1: we'll see what happens behind the curtain. He's a busy guy.
- 39:53Speaker 1: Check out his show tech stuff, with new episodes coming
- 39:55Speaker 1: out like every day. Wait, Ben, you're not saying that.
- 39:58Speaker 1: He also like Moonlights as an another podcast teams Nemesis,
- 40:03Speaker 1: are you because that would be too much for me
- 40:04Speaker 1: to bear. I can't handle that, you know. I was
- 40:07Speaker 1: thinking of, Uh, We've got some exciting stuff on the
- 40:10Speaker 1: way early next year, folks. I was thinking of seeing
- 40:13Speaker 1: if he might be a somewhat like a thematic bridge
- 40:17Speaker 1: in the expanding Ridiculous Universe. But it's a it's a
- 40:20Speaker 1: weird thing to sell to our colleagues, like over Ridiculous Romance.
- 40:25Speaker 1: We were like, let's explain what our whole thing is
- 40:28Speaker 1: with this guy. Do you want them on? You know,
- 40:31Speaker 1: we're still working out negotiations are underway. Jonathan's rider is crazy,
- 40:35Speaker 1: but as you said, we do love him. Shout out
- 40:37Speaker 1: of course, also to Mr Casey Pegram. Isn't it weird
- 40:40Speaker 1: that Jonathan only wants left foot socks and his rider.
- 40:44Speaker 1: What's that about? Yeah, yeah, it's uh, you know, I
- 40:50Speaker 1: gotta be honest. I've read the whole thing once, but
- 40:52Speaker 1: it took all weekend. It is very specific. I don't
- 40:55Speaker 1: know what happens with all. We have a pile of
- 40:57Speaker 1: just right foot socks in the office. Yeah, and then
- 41:02Speaker 1: in the whole whole section of this writer is just
- 41:04Speaker 1: like in Cipher's like Zodiac killer type stuff. It's very odd. Hey,
- 41:09Speaker 1: it takes all kinds. We've got to get a decoder badge.
- 41:13Speaker 1: We all do Cliffhanger. We'll see you next time. Books.
- 41:23Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
- 41:25Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
- 41:28Speaker 1: your favorite shows.