Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Our Favorite Depictions of the American Founding in Pop Culture | Last Call
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
- 0:06Speaker 1: to Greg Corumbus of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
- 0:08Speaker 1: National Review. Free Martini's coming up.
- 0:14Speaker 2: So glad you're with us for this special weekend edition
- 0:16Speaker 2: of The Three Martini Lunch. Usually we do the last
- 0:19Speaker 2: call kind of looking at the biggest stories of the
- 0:21Speaker 2: week that we did Monday through Friday. Today it's a
- 0:23Speaker 2: brand new special edition because of course America two fifty
- 0:27Speaker 2: it's the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, two day of
- 0:30Speaker 2: the Decoration of Independence. Now on Friday, we talked about
- 0:33Speaker 2: what we love most about the Founding, the people, some
- 0:37Speaker 2: of the flaws, some of the individual moments of the
- 0:40Speaker 2: Founding that we're particularly striking, contrasting it with France, for example,
- 0:44Speaker 2: and why it was so much better. But today we're
- 0:46Speaker 2: going to go on the lighter side and go with
- 0:48Speaker 2: our favorite depictions or references to the Founding in popular culture.
- 0:54Speaker 2: We like to make a lot of pop culture references
- 0:56Speaker 2: as we can during the Martini, So I'm sure you're
- 0:58Speaker 2: not shocked by this edition. So, Jim, what's baton lead
- 1:01Speaker 2: out for you?
- 1:02Speaker 1: So this is a great kind of topic for us
- 1:05Speaker 1: to talk about, because I was surprised how many I
- 1:07Speaker 1: could come up with. I'm surprised at how many I
- 1:09Speaker 1: had enjoyed over the years. I'm going back to the beginning,
- 1:12Speaker 1: or at least the beginning of my awareness of the
- 1:15Speaker 1: Revolutionary War and the founding of the country. Nineteen eighty
- 1:19Speaker 1: four miniseries was called George Washington. It starred Barry Bostwick
- 1:23Speaker 1: as George Washington, and I remember it being a big deal.
- 1:27Speaker 1: It's kind of funny, like miniseries. First of all, network
- 1:30Speaker 1: television is a much smaller factor in the world of
- 1:33Speaker 1: pop culture than it was when you and I were
- 1:34Speaker 1: growing up, and mini series used to be a big deal.
- 1:37Speaker 1: When I was over in Poland, I ran into one
- 1:40Speaker 1: of a guy who was actually not just a historian
- 1:43Speaker 1: of Polish history, but was really into US Civil War history.
- 1:46Speaker 1: And I'm like, how did you get into it? And
- 1:47Speaker 1: he said, North and South with Patrick Swayzey, and like
- 1:51Speaker 1: this aired over in Poland, and this would have been
- 1:53Speaker 1: like during the Cold War, so I guess they were
- 1:56Speaker 1: kind of like, look at the Americans and how they
- 1:57Speaker 1: had a terrible Civil war. And he watched this and
- 2:00Speaker 1: was fascinating and thought it was the coolest thing in
- 2:02Speaker 1: the whole wide world. So this was a big deal
- 2:04Speaker 1: to me. I remember, you know, seeing the commercials for
- 2:07Speaker 1: it and the hype for it, and it was you know,
- 2:09Speaker 1: had to ask mom and Dad if I could stay
- 2:10Speaker 1: up later. And of course it starts with George Washington's
- 2:14Speaker 1: early life, and I'm like, no, shoot the Red Coats.
- 2:16Speaker 1: I want to see all the exciting stuff. But I
- 2:17Speaker 1: remember this being a big deal. Barry Bostwick went on
- 2:20Speaker 1: to have a pretty successful career. This kind of what
- 2:22Speaker 1: turned him into a star. And I'm looking over this
- 2:24Speaker 1: and I'm realizing Lloyd Bridges as Caleb Quinn. I find
- 2:28Speaker 1: it fascinating that Lloyd Bridges ever played a serious role
- 2:31Speaker 1: in like It's been like, you know, you ever watched
- 2:33Speaker 1: an old movie with Lesla Nielsen and you've kind of
- 2:35Speaker 1: shocked to see a brilliant comedic actor delivering lines and
- 2:39Speaker 1: straight and all that stuff. And this was nineteen eighty four.
- 2:41Speaker 1: This is Reagan running for reelection. It's morning in America.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Maybe it kind of lined up very well with the
- 2:47Speaker 1: resurgence in American pride, the sense that we were remembering
- 2:51Speaker 1: that we were a good country after the tumult of
- 2:53Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, So I just that would probably
- 2:55Speaker 1: be the first one sticking. And I remember the as
- 2:57Speaker 1: I understand it by the era of its being big
- 3:01Speaker 1: budget and epic and scope and special effects of shooting
- 3:05Speaker 1: and you know, people falling off of horses and stuff
- 3:08Speaker 1: like that. So you know, stands out there as as
- 3:10Speaker 1: probably my first significant one of ooh oh, this is
- 3:12Speaker 1: an interesting, really fascinating time period in US history.
- 3:15Speaker 2: Now, very well done, And I don't actually remember that one,
- 3:18Speaker 2: but I'm glad you mentioned it, and you're certainly right
- 3:21Speaker 2: about network television. In fact, I'm going to be taking
- 3:24Speaker 2: one from a couple different genres here, including television, including books,
- 3:28Speaker 2: and so mine actually is from nineteen eighty five. Now
- 3:32Speaker 2: you'll remember that in the summer of nineteen eighty five,
- 3:35Speaker 2: Back to the Future came out, and when Doc Brown
- 3:38Speaker 2: is showing Marty how the DeLorean works, he gives him
- 3:41Speaker 2: a couple different options of where he could go, and
- 3:43Speaker 2: one was the signing of the Declaration of Independence in
- 3:46Speaker 2: July fourth, seventeen seventy six. Now, what Doc Brown may
- 3:50Speaker 2: not have known is that just a few months earlier,
- 3:52Speaker 2: Michael J. Fox actually had been at the Founding because
- 3:56Speaker 2: in season three of Family Ties, this may be my
- 4:01Speaker 2: favorite episode of Family Ties ever. If it's not my favorite,
- 4:04Speaker 2: the one with the kangaroo in the living room is
- 4:06Speaker 2: my favorite. But Alex has this big paper on the
- 4:09Speaker 2: Declaration due there's this huge storm going on outside their house,
- 4:12Speaker 2: and he falls asleep and he dreams that he's back
- 4:15Speaker 2: there at the Founding and his dad plays Thomas Jefferson,
- 4:18Speaker 2: and he's struggling to write the Declaration of Independence and
- 4:21Speaker 2: especially you know, the most famous line, and Alex is
- 4:25Speaker 2: trying to coax him along because Alex of course knows
- 4:27Speaker 2: how it turns out, and so his dad, really being
- 4:29Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson, it's like, we hold these truths to be
- 4:35Speaker 2: pretty darn clear, and Alex is like, maybe you want
- 4:40Speaker 2: to work on that line just a little bit, and
- 4:42Speaker 2: so Jefferson crumples up the crinkly yellow paper, which there
- 4:46Speaker 2: are a lot of jokes about in that episode about
- 4:47Speaker 2: Jefferson's like, these truths are self evidence, But how do
- 4:50Speaker 2: I say that? And Alex is like, well, maybe just
- 4:52Speaker 2: like that, and he's like, OK, well, I'll try it
- 4:54Speaker 2: for now. We hold these truths to be self evident
- 4:58Speaker 2: even to a co complete dope and sodden. They got
- 5:02Speaker 2: to renew the revisions, and on and on it goes,
- 5:05Speaker 2: and obviously he wakes up and he does his paper.
- 5:08Speaker 2: But it was just so good, and it treated the
- 5:11Speaker 2: audience intelligent enough to know that it knew the basics
- 5:14Speaker 2: of the Declaration of Independence. This wasn't starting from scratch.
- 5:17Speaker 2: It was kind of some inside jokes if you knew
- 5:19Speaker 2: at least the ABC's of the founding. I don't know
- 5:21Speaker 2: if our population right now could get it, but hopefully
- 5:23Speaker 2: they could. But back then, man, I love that episode.
- 5:26Speaker 1: Excellent choice. I remember that episode and a good example
- 5:29Speaker 1: of treating the audience smart enough to know some of
- 5:31Speaker 1: the basics. Skippy, the nerdy neighbor, shows up in the past.
- 5:36Speaker 1: It says, I'm still in trouble for cracking that bell,
- 5:39Speaker 1: and of course it's the liberty bell. So just is
- 5:41Speaker 1: this like, yeah, you know, that was a very good
- 5:44Speaker 1: selection there, Greg.
- 5:45Speaker 2: Thanks. I've always loved that episode, and I felt like
- 5:48Speaker 2: it never got the appreciation even at the time that
- 5:51Speaker 2: it deserved, and certainly over the last forty plus years
- 5:54Speaker 2: it's kind of been lost history. But great writing and
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- 7:17Speaker 2: what's number two on your list?
- 7:18Speaker 1: So if you had said in the you know, George W.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Bush Earrow, We're gonna do a mini series. It's gonna
- 7:24Speaker 1: be seven parts about it. It's gonna be a with American Revolution. Yeah.
- 7:27Speaker 1: Is it gonna be like Washington? No? Is it gonna
- 7:29Speaker 1: be about Thomas Jefferson, No war hero? Uh nah, he's
- 7:33Speaker 1: kind of gonna be off. Not when the whole war
- 7:36Speaker 1: is going on. He's gonna be off in Europe. Ben Franklin, No, no, No,
- 7:40Speaker 1: that's not well what do you do? John Adams? Wow?
- 7:43Speaker 1: All right? Different, But let's go who do you want
- 7:45Speaker 1: to play? A Paul Giamatti, who at that point was
- 7:48Speaker 1: best known for playing fidgety, kind of fussy. I think
- 7:52Speaker 1: Sideways is kind of his definitive role of this kind
- 7:56Speaker 1: of hyper neurotic uh you know, wine critic and Paul
- 8:00Speaker 1: Giamonti just hits it out of the park. And in fact,
- 8:03Speaker 1: when Ken Burns did his series about the American Revolution.
- 8:07Speaker 1: Just the earlier this year, he had Paul Giamatti doing
- 8:10Speaker 1: the audio recordings for the say writings of John Adams.
- 8:14Speaker 1: It's a great series. It's it's a you know, it's
- 8:16Speaker 1: it's you know, they spared no expense. It is bold,
- 8:19Speaker 1: it is funny, it's very human. The opening episode is
- 8:23Speaker 1: primarily about the Boston massacre and the trial and John
- 8:27Speaker 1: Adams being the defense lawyer for the British soldiers accused
- 8:31Speaker 1: of shooting them. It's where they are. One of our favorites.
- 8:33Speaker 1: Facts are stubborn things comes from this. It is a
- 8:36Speaker 1: you know, like the whole thing is really well done,
- 8:39Speaker 1: and I think it just kind of it is a
- 8:41Speaker 1: demonstration and it plays into role into my next selection here.
- 8:44Speaker 1: But I just want to say probably the biggest, best,
- 8:48Speaker 1: most expansive recent telling of the American Revolution in pop culture,
- 8:54Speaker 1: and definitely one that like also a fantastic soundtrack. Just
- 8:56Speaker 1: just a thing. You know, if I had the time,
- 8:58Speaker 1: I would watch the ENTIREMENTU series on fourth of July.
- 9:00Speaker 1: Maybe try to do it in the run up to it. Now.
- 9:03Speaker 2: It's fantastic and you know, Giamatti's great. There's a lot
- 9:07Speaker 2: with Abigail Adams, and her character is great, and yeah,
- 9:11Speaker 2: he's kind of stuck in Paris and not doing much
- 9:14Speaker 2: for a big chunk of it. He also, of course
- 9:15Speaker 2: won no part of being vice president, which has been
- 9:18Speaker 2: a long and noble tradition in this country of nobody
- 9:21Speaker 2: actually wanting to be vice president. But yeah, you walk
- 9:24Speaker 2: through everything from the Boston massacre all the way up,
- 9:27Speaker 2: you know, to his death and evention. You know, the
- 9:29Speaker 2: reconciliation with Jefferson and the vicious of fighting and so forth.
- 9:32Speaker 2: But just a great cast, very well done. I'm going
- 9:36Speaker 2: to go to a book series, and you know, if
- 9:38Speaker 2: you want the kind of the Definitive American Revolution book,
- 9:41Speaker 2: I would say seventeen seventy six by David McCullough one
- 9:44Speaker 2: for I think all readers can handle. It's a two
- 9:47Speaker 2: part series and it's technically historical fiction, but all the
- 9:50Speaker 2: events that actually happened that are referenced in there are
- 9:53Speaker 2: told pretty straight. And I'm sure you're familiar with the
- 9:56Speaker 2: Shara family, and you know they did The Killer Angels,
- 9:59Speaker 2: which became huge hit. Ted Turner made a big movie
- 10:02Speaker 2: out of it, and then there were prequels and sequels
- 10:04Speaker 2: to that. But the two for the American Revolution are
- 10:07Speaker 2: Rise to Rebellion and the Glorious Cause, so obviously leading
- 10:11Speaker 2: up to the war and then through the war. And
- 10:13Speaker 2: so it's readable, it's interesting. You learn a lot. I
- 10:16Speaker 2: think you can pretty well tell what's kind of embellished
- 10:19Speaker 2: and what's not because the events themselves are described very well.
- 10:23Speaker 2: I've learned a lot about Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill
- 10:25Speaker 2: that I didn't quite know as well. And then you
- 10:28Speaker 2: also see the genius of Washington from his successes at
- 10:31Speaker 2: Boston and of course the surprise attack on Christmas at Trenton,
- 10:35Speaker 2: his ingeniousness at Princeton, the awfulness on Long Island that
- 10:39Speaker 2: almost cost us the entire war, not his finest hour,
- 10:42Speaker 2: and then of course finally sealing the deal at Yorktown.
- 10:44Speaker 2: And so it's a great read. They're not that long,
- 10:47Speaker 2: and they really pack a punch, and you'll have a
- 10:50Speaker 2: much better understanding of the Revolution.
- 10:52Speaker 1: Excellent choices there, Greg all.
- 10:53Speaker 2: Right, in just a moment, our final selections for our
- 10:56Speaker 2: favorite moments related to the founding in pop cul Triple's
- 10:59Speaker 2: a couple of honorable mentions at the very end. But
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- 12:03Speaker 2: Void in Florida. All right, Jim, we're two martinis in
- 12:11Speaker 2: we're starting the third martini. I'm pretty sure I know
- 12:13Speaker 2: where you're going here, but let's hear it.
- 12:15Speaker 1: You probably know. And I want to point out I
- 12:17Speaker 1: have at least two honorable mentions that I think if
- 12:20Speaker 1: they're not your choice, I'm just gonna mention to have
- 12:22Speaker 1: them in there. But probably the one that a whole
- 12:24Speaker 1: bunch of listeners and viewers have been saying since how
- 12:27Speaker 1: have you not mentioned Hamilton? Of course, and if you'd
- 12:30Speaker 1: said to me, you know, if you thought the John
- 12:31Speaker 1: Adams mini series was an improbable, huge hit, We're going
- 12:35Speaker 1: to make one of the most phenomenally successful musicals of
- 12:38Speaker 1: all time about the American Founding and it's going to
- 12:42Speaker 1: have a lot of rap in it. It's going to
- 12:43Speaker 1: have a lot of, you know, very modern music in it.
- 12:46Speaker 1: It's going to be almost entirely a minority cast, and
- 12:49Speaker 1: we're going to make Alexander Hamilton, who thus face it
- 12:52Speaker 1: for being on the ten dollars bill, really is not
- 12:54Speaker 1: nearly as well known as the other Founding fathers. We're
- 12:56Speaker 1: gonna make him the coolest guy in the entire world,
- 12:59Speaker 1: and we're going to get young people, including my kids,
- 13:02Speaker 1: singing along to all of it and just getting into
- 13:05Speaker 1: the American founding. And I'm like an observation that, like
- 13:08Speaker 1: lin Manuel Miranda in in a whole variety of speeches
- 13:11Speaker 1: and interviews and comments, it's made very very clear, this
- 13:14Speaker 1: is not a man who is on the right. This
- 13:16Speaker 1: is not a man who is a conservative by any
- 13:18Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but who created something that a
- 13:21Speaker 1: whole bunch of conservatives could just adore, in part because
- 13:24Speaker 1: it made the founding of our country the coolest thing
- 13:27Speaker 1: in the whole wide world and appreciated the greatness. And
- 13:30Speaker 1: it acknowledges the slaveholding of certain founding fathers, it acknowledges
- 13:34Speaker 1: the flaws of these men. It's very you know, we'll
- 13:37Speaker 1: run it, but it takes those flaws, and it does
- 13:40Speaker 1: not for the moment to think this discredits the American Founding.
- 13:44Speaker 1: And I almost feel like I don't know whether it
- 13:45Speaker 1: was like at that moment, you could be on the
- 13:49Speaker 1: left and you could resolutely, wholeheartedly and enthusiastically love the
- 13:54Speaker 1: United States of America, even for all of its flaws
- 13:57Speaker 1: and sins, And I feel like since then, I don't
- 13:58Speaker 1: I honestly don't know if you could make a Hamilton's
- 14:01Speaker 1: style video or musical these days, I kind of feel
- 14:05Speaker 1: like the sentiment has changed, and so it's like, for
- 14:08Speaker 1: one brief, beautiful moment, an immensely gifted cast and ormensely
- 14:13Speaker 1: you know, great you know songs. I think the first
- 14:18Speaker 1: act is a little more fun than the second act
- 14:20Speaker 1: is you know, Hamilton makes some very bad decisions and
- 14:23Speaker 1: ends up paying the price for it. But just a
- 14:26Speaker 1: you know, if you had said, we're going to turn
- 14:28Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War and the founding of America and the
- 14:30Speaker 1: writing of the Constitution, the writing of the Declaration of Independence,
- 14:33Speaker 1: and the early elections of the United States, We're going
- 14:37Speaker 1: to turn into the coolest thing in the whole wide
- 14:38Speaker 1: world that most people would have perceived that it's mission impossible.
- 14:42Speaker 1: And lin Manuel Miranda and all of the immensely talented
- 14:45Speaker 1: people around him did it, and I think we are
- 14:47Speaker 1: better off for it. So cheers to you Hamilton creators,
- 14:51Speaker 1: And definitely this is you know, something that will be
- 14:53Speaker 1: still playing, still touring, still a phenomenally popular show. And
- 14:58Speaker 1: I think it says when you have great source material,
- 15:00Speaker 1: what a great story you can tell.
- 15:02Speaker 2: Yeah, I think because lin Manuel Miranda is somewhat outspoken
- 15:05Speaker 2: on his left leaning politics, and because there was that
- 15:08Speaker 2: moment leading up to the first Trump inauguration where they
- 15:10Speaker 2: kind of had a little bit of a message to
- 15:12Speaker 2: Mike Pence when he came to watch it on Broadway.
- 15:15Speaker 1: People kind of right, you know that that horrible right
- 15:17Speaker 1: winger who wouldn't do the right thing in a tough situation. Yeah, boy,
- 15:20Speaker 1: glad you showed him Hamilton cast. Good call everybody.
- 15:23Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that made a lot of people
- 15:26Speaker 2: on the right thing that, oh, this is a left
- 15:27Speaker 2: leaning show and it's not worth your time. But first,
- 15:30Speaker 2: my wife watched it, longtime music teacher, Missus Corumbus, and
- 15:33Speaker 2: so she absolutely loved it, so she had me watch it.
- 15:36Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, there's a lot of really good
- 15:37Speaker 2: historical information in here, and of course, like anything else,
- 15:39Speaker 2: there's some dramatic license in there. But I mean they
- 15:42Speaker 2: chewed through a ron churnout book that's what eight hundred
- 15:45Speaker 2: to one thousand pages and turned it into this amazing thing.
- 15:48Speaker 2: And of course, like you said, it's it's it's very
- 15:51Speaker 2: entertaining at times. Obviously in the dust ups between Hamilton
- 15:54Speaker 2: and Jefferson, it always makes Hamilton out to be the
- 15:57Speaker 2: smarter guy in the room. I'm not sure that's really
- 15:59Speaker 2: the case. But my favorite part, of course is Jonathan Groff.
- 16:02Speaker 2: For you parents of young ladies, he's Christoph in Frozen
- 16:07Speaker 2: and he plays King George the Third. He's the comic
- 16:09Speaker 2: relief and he comes out and you know you'll be
- 16:11Speaker 2: back with the revolution, and now you won the revolution,
- 16:15Speaker 2: so what comes next? And then of course he's flabbergasted
- 16:19Speaker 2: that Washington gives up power, and that I think is
- 16:21Speaker 2: the most powerful moment of the whole thing, is when
- 16:24Speaker 2: George Washington decides he's stepping down, like we said yesterday,
- 16:27Speaker 2: one of the most important moments in American history. Hamilton
- 16:29Speaker 2: was involved with writing that message, and the whole George
- 16:32Speaker 2: Washington's Going Home thing is just really, really good. So
- 16:35Speaker 2: mine is going to be probably the most popular and
- 16:39Speaker 2: best known revolutionary movie the last quarter century. And I'm
- 16:43Speaker 2: not even sure it fits in the last quarter century anymore,
- 16:45Speaker 2: but it's close The Patriots starring Mel Gibson, of a
- 16:48Speaker 2: guy who is minding his own business, hero of the
- 16:50Speaker 2: French and Indian War, but then the war comes to
- 16:53Speaker 2: him in South Carolina. It's a Mel Gibson movie. He's
- 16:56Speaker 2: not the director, but he's in it, so you know
- 16:57Speaker 2: there's going to be quite a bit of bloodshed, and
- 16:59Speaker 2: there is, but it does a really good job of
- 17:01Speaker 2: explaining the conflict people had, People who kind of just
- 17:04Speaker 2: wanted to stay out of the whole thing, But then
- 17:06Speaker 2: the war comes to your back door, and what are
- 17:08Speaker 2: you going to do? Your kids are wanting to join,
- 17:10Speaker 2: do you really want them to because you know what
- 17:12Speaker 2: war is like. Is it better to stay with England?
- 17:14Speaker 2: Is it better to not? What's going to happen if
- 17:15Speaker 2: we lose? And then, of course, if you haven't seen
- 17:18Speaker 2: the movie, there's quite a bit of tragedy that happens here.
- 17:22Speaker 2: I think that paints a pretty realistic picture that if
- 17:24Speaker 2: you go up against the king and you don't succeed,
- 17:27Speaker 2: which was the case for the combat and a big
- 17:29Speaker 2: part of that movie, there are major, serious, painful consequences.
- 17:33Speaker 2: And of course the reason George Washington is a hero
- 17:36Speaker 2: and not hung as a traders because he won the revolution.
- 17:38Speaker 2: But some of the choices that had to be made,
- 17:40Speaker 2: not just from the top echelons of the Continental Congress,
- 17:43Speaker 2: but people just trying to make their crops as abundant
- 17:47Speaker 2: as possible down there, in the Deep South. So it
- 17:49Speaker 2: was very interesting and pretty well done.
- 17:51Speaker 1: I like to believe that had Martin Riggs existed in
- 17:55Speaker 1: the seventeen seventies, he would have fought against the British
- 17:59Speaker 1: in a manner compare to what we saw in the
- 18:01Speaker 1: film The Patriot.
- 18:02Speaker 2: Yes, exactly right, Oh man, all right, a couple honorable mentions.
- 18:06Speaker 2: When don't we come back?
- 18:12Speaker 1: All right, Jim?
- 18:13Speaker 2: Like you said, there are plenty of options to consider
- 18:15Speaker 2: for this special edition of the Three Martini Lunch. What didn't
- 18:18Speaker 2: quite make your top three?
- 18:20Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm curious about how many young boys in
- 18:24Speaker 1: our generation, maybe a generation before and probably a generation after,
- 18:29Speaker 1: how many got into the Revolutionary War because of the
- 18:31Speaker 1: historical novel Johnny Tremaine, this young adult novel about a
- 18:36Speaker 1: boy who's you know, ended up the in Boston on
- 18:39Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party, British Blockade Midnight writer Paul Revere
- 18:43Speaker 1: Lexington and Concord. It's probably like the perfect introduction for
- 18:47Speaker 1: people who are just you know, cracking their history books
- 18:49Speaker 1: and stuff like that. One of the best selling books
- 18:51Speaker 1: of the twentieth century won the nineteen forty four Newbery
- 18:54Speaker 1: met Like you know, this was a this was a
- 18:55Speaker 1: really good you know, it's it's well earned in there.
- 18:58Speaker 1: And then finally, what people thought that they were trying
- 19:01Speaker 1: to do when they did Hamilton the Musical seventeen seventy six,
- 19:04Speaker 1: which is not nearly as well remembered, but you know,
- 19:06Speaker 1: probably the song about Lee I Am Bill or you know,
- 19:11Speaker 1: like the the Lee song is up there, just so
- 19:13Speaker 1: you know, like that was probably before that that was
- 19:15Speaker 1: considered the the the definitive Broadway musical about the founding.
- 19:20Speaker 1: So those are two that are in there. They're like, oh, yeah,
- 19:22Speaker 1: I kind of could have well put in there. I
- 19:24Speaker 1: double checked. There's nobody for the Revolutionary War in Bill
- 19:27Speaker 1: and Ted, right, Napoleon, Billy, the Kids, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln,
- 19:31Speaker 1: Sigmund Freud, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Ludi big g
- 19:33Speaker 1: Vetovin and so no, there's not anyone from the from
- 19:36Speaker 1: the American Revolutionary Dead in there. So you know, that's
- 19:40Speaker 1: one of the few glaring flaws of the illustrious Bill
- 19:44Speaker 1: and Ted series.
- 19:46Speaker 2: Yes, yes, the only historical and accuracy in Bill and Ted. Yeah,
- 19:50Speaker 2: for me. The only other one I would say is
- 19:54Speaker 2: the Longfellow poem Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. You mentioned Paul Revere.
- 19:57Speaker 2: That whole story I always found very very interesting when
- 19:59Speaker 2: I was a very small kid. And so there was
- 20:01Speaker 2: also the Ben and Me cartoon where the mouse helped
- 20:04Speaker 2: Ben Franklin in the you know, he was in his pocket,
- 20:08Speaker 2: and then he was with the kite when they were
- 20:09Speaker 2: flying it out in storing with the electricity, and then
- 20:11Speaker 2: he of course helped write the declaration. But we all
- 20:14Speaker 2: know Alex P. Keaton actually was the one who put
- 20:16Speaker 2: the finishing touches on that. Jim, you mentioned seventeen seventy six, Well,
- 20:20Speaker 2: John Adams in that particular production was William Daniels. And
- 20:23Speaker 2: so depending on your age, some people think of him
- 20:26Speaker 2: as John Adams, some people think of him as doctor
- 20:29Speaker 2: Craig Gonsane elsewhere. Younger people think of him as mister
- 20:32Speaker 2: Feenie on Boy Meets World. But you and I both
- 20:33Speaker 2: know he's kid.
- 20:35Speaker 1: Yes, you know. It's one of those things where someday
- 20:37Speaker 1: I will have a really cool car, and with the
- 20:40Speaker 1: advances they're making an AI, I will give it a
- 20:43Speaker 1: smug British voice to talk down to me.
- 20:46Speaker 2: He's great, still going almost one hundred years old anyway,
- 20:49Speaker 2: Jim Happy fourth to you and I will see you soon.
- 20:52Speaker 2: See you soon, Greg, Jim Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg
- 20:55Speaker 2: Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so much for being with
- 20:57Speaker 2: us today. Please be sure to subscribe to the Three
- 20:59Speaker 2: Martini Lunch. If you don't already, tell your friends about
- 21:02Speaker 2: us as well. We would love to have them listening.
- 21:04Speaker 2: Thanks also for your five star ratings and your kind reviews.
- 21:06Speaker 2: Please keep those coming. Get us on your home devices.
- 21:08Speaker 2: All you have to say is play Three Martini Lunch podcast,
- 21:11Speaker 2: follow us both on X He's at Jim Garrity, I'm
- 21:14Speaker 2: at Greg Corumbus. Have a fantastic two hundred and fiftieth
- 21:17Speaker 2: anniversary the Declaration of Independence, be proud of it, and
- 21:21Speaker 2: we'll catch you next week on the Three Martini Lunch