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TV Moments That Changed The World · 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 first
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: episode of the two double two six.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I thought there was already another episode out.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is the first one, Chuck. I think this
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: comes out on one to one.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Really twenty six, okay, pretty sure. Yeah, I thought we
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: had already crept into twenty six. But that's no matter
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: because it's still two five for us.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some weird time stuff that's going on. We're
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: essentially straddling two years right now. And uh, I'm wearing
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: a silver spacesuit because of that.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: All that to say, if we're a little loose is
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: because this is our last recording session of the year,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and so we're closing this out or opening up the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: next year with a good old fashioned top ten that's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: not a ten, like just like the old days.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: That's right, we're finishing out twenty twenty five and stuff
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: you should know fashion.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, look just like we did in probably twenty ten.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably, Chuck. If you'll allow me to begin.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Boy, it's just a classic old school opening, Chuck, do
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you have a TV.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Have you ever seen TV?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I knew it was coming. Yes, it was either that.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Or Webster's defined TV right, right, one of the two.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I've seen TV too. Not only have I seen ATV,
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  Speaker 2: I've watched what's broadcast on TV as well multiple times
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  Speaker 2: throughout my life.
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  Speaker 1: Same.
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  Speaker 2: It's funny we chose this moments that changed the world,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: TV moments that changed the world. And as you're kind
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: of researching this, she realized, like, for better or worse man,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: TV is like it may modern culture more than anything
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: else I think in the entire world. Would I would
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: argue more than the internet? Ooh interesting, Yeah, I'm just
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: gonna say it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm not going to argue. I'm a not
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: an arguing mood.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Well, people who disagree, just follow us on this journey
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: into TV moments that changed the world, and maybe your
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: your opinion will be changed either way. I don't fault you,
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  Speaker 2: all right, Great, So let's start at the beginning, when,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: like the day that TV really kicked off in earnest,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: there was a day that this happened. It was April thirtieth,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, in Flushing, New York, on Long Island.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And if you are familiar with that date in that area,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: you may know that this was the nineteen thirty nine
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: World's Fair, and this is where TV got its start,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: where it was really kind of unveiled to the public
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: at large.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: That's right, not the nineteen forty World's Fair. HowStuffWorks dot
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: com because there was not one.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, you know, TV had been around for a bit,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't super widespread at this point. I feel
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: like we talked about this a lot lately for some reason.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, stuff is just really clicking these days. I'm not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: sure why.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: It really is. But they had broadcast limitations. They could
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: only broadcast, you know, for a limited number of miles,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: like out a limited number of miles. But by the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: time that World's Fare came along, they were like, hey,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: this is a chance to make a really big splash.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: The RCA Corporation, the Radio Corporation of America, which also
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: then led the way in TVs. They were putting out
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: some pretty good televisions at the point, but they were
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: luxury items, and again they didn't have like the most
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: regular broadcasting going on. But they knew that this World's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Fare was a chance to make a super big splash.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Right, So, yeah, this is where they were going to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: start selling TVs to the public. The problem is is,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: you can have all the TVs in the world, but
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: if you don't have anything to watch on it, good point,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do? Nothing? You're going to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: sit there like a jackass and look at a blank TV.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: So Luckily thought of this and they founded NBC, the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: National Broadcasting Company, to start broadcasting stuff. So they brought
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the whole thing together, the broadcasting and the TVs themselves,
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  Speaker 2: and they debuted it on April thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,
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  Speaker 2: when they I think created the world's first live television
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: broadcast of Franklin Roosevelt kicking off the nineteen thirty nine
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  Speaker 2: World's Fair.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, And we did mention this one in another episode.
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  Speaker 1: But he was, you know, sort of the the first president,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: daddy of TV, granddaddy of TV. And like you said,
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  Speaker 1: he opened it up there and you know, NBC had
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: gotten there and they had their you know, you know,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: now antiquated TV technology all lined up. It was just
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: pretty whiz bang at the time. Sure, and they sent
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: signals through these mobile broadcasting trucks, which I mean, it's
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing. That in the nineteen thirties they had the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: technology to even accomplish that, right, So it's pretty impressive
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: still to this day, and broadcasts that signal out to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: about two thousand viewers, which seemed like a big number
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I imagine I'm still impressed with news fans. Oh yeah,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: sure of the time, which is our time.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm impressed with news fans today, That's.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: What I mean. Oh, okay, I didn't get it across
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: very well.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So one thing I saw I was looking up
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: pictures of this nineteen thirty nine Worlds Fair, the RCA pavilion.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Apparently they built one of their televisions within transparent I
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: guess class or something like that, maybe plastic, so you
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: could see the internal working part so that people wouldn't
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: think it was just some sort of trick.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, interesting, that's how new it was. Yeah. Oddly,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: since we're recording our Christmas episode, I feel like this
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: pause before the next one is going to include like
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: jingle bells and things, right, But it's not going to.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: We're just simply moving on to another one, which is
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Disney's Wonderful World of Color. I'm sure you like I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: grew up watching I guess by the time we were
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: watching it in the seventies, and or me in the seventies,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and you likely in the eighties, it was called The
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Wonderful World of Disney.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I watched Walt Disney Presents, I think, is what it
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: was for me.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, so I guess, yeah, since I'm only a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: year older than you, I was watching The Wonderful World
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of Disney. Because this show had some title changes. But
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the reason we're talking about this at all, it's because
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of the advent of color television, which Walt Disney himself
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: really got behind and was like, Hey, I want to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: be the dude that kind of brings this to the masses.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Right, because just like how you could have TVs but
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: nothing to broadcast, you could have color TVs and if
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: you weren't broadcasting in color, what's the point. And again,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: this was an issue for RCA, and by then, of
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: course they had NBC, and NBC was rolling pretty well. Yeah,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: but Walt Disney's anthology series had started years before and
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: it was on ABC. NBC wasn't broadcasting in color. So
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Walt Disney personally held a meeting with NBC and said,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: we want to do this, apparently saying he said that.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: He said, Bellas, I want this deal. If necessary, I'll
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: stand on my head in Macy's window.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and all the executives said, you don't have to
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: do that. It's a pretty good idea, So why are
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you being weird?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was just that enthusiastic about the whole thing.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: But he personally went and pitched the idea of the NBC.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And the reason why again is NBC was the first
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: network to broadcast in color, and so Walt Disney really
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: kind of pushed this through because NBC would have broadcasting
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: color either way, but Walt Disney wanted to do it
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: in like high style.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And this is a TV show that
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: launched in nineteen fifty four and ran for thirty four seasons,
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  Speaker 1: obviously at first in black and white. And like I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you know the name changes. I guess they
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  Speaker 1: had one, you know, between My Birth and your Birth,
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  Speaker 1: because it was initially called Disney's Wonderful and then Magical
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  Speaker 1: World of Disney. Yeah, and then when the color debuted,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: he was like, we really want to be sort of
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  Speaker 1: obvious with this, so let's call it Disney's wonderful World
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  Speaker 1: of Color. Yeah, but we still haven't even said what
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: this was. I mean you mentioned anthology series. It was.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It was like a variety show essentially. They had cartoons
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and stuff. I remember when I was a kid that
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the Davy Crockett TV Show, and it says in this
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: house Stuff Works article it launched the coonskin cap craze.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: And I have a picture of little five year old
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: me with a musket and a leather vest and a
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: coonskin cap on my head. So I was into that.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I had one too, but I don't have a picture
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: of it, so I can't prove it.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I can probably dig that up and throw it up
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: on the Instagram maybe to align with this, so I'll
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: try and find that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: You got it.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I got it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: So they were also like a lot of documentary programming, right,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and you would think like, okay, hard hitting frontline esque documentaries. No,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: not at all. It meant that they would go and
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: film stuff under various themes at Disneyland. They were essentially
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: big ads for Disneyland. He used that big time, And
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I mean they were well produced and interesting, sure, but
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: they really went to that well quite a bit in
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: every episode, not in the first episode though, instead the
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: first episode, and this is the moment that changed the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: world as far as color TV goes. It was on
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  Speaker 2: September twenty fourth, nineteen sixty one, and it was the
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: episode was two parts, and the first one was an
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Adventure in Color, and it really was a bit of
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: an adventure, like it was a bunch of little segments
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: that really kind of showed off what you can do
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: with color TV and just must have knocked the socks off,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: knocked the coonskin caps off of all the little kids
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: sitting at home.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: That's right. And it also featured something called the Spectrum Song,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: which kind of explained what was going on because I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: guess they felt the need to explain color to people
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: who had gone around their entire lives seeing real life
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and color. But I guess, like you said, it was
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a pretty whiz bang thing to see the thing, to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: see it on your TV for the first time, so
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: they went to great links to probably over explain that.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: And this is also when we got the debut of
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Professor Ludwig von Drake from the Disney Duck World.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was kind of an eccentric inventor. His self
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: written bio was He's an eminent psychologist, renowned color expert, etymologist,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the most sought after a lecturer in the world. He
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: is undoubtedly the outstanding genius of the century. So he
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: was fairly egotistical, but he was also funny, and he
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: became beloved. And this is where he came from that
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: first adventure in color. Half and then the second half
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: was a theatrical release featuring Donald Duck. Because all of
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: these Disney cartoons that we just take for granted today
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: used to have to go to the theet to see them.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: But when you went to the theater to see them,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: they were in color. You saw them on TV there
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: in black and white. Now you can see him in
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: color on TV without leaving the comfort of your home.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: What was their deal with the ducks was that? I mean,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I guess it's just like any other cartoon animal, but
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they really leaned into the ducks.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: It was a great excuse to draw something without pants.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Ah, okay, that makes sense. I never got into any
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I was a little old for like ducktails and all
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that stuff.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: That was a good show.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So like Donald Duck was my only I guess exposure,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: my only duck exposure. His little feathered Fanny. Oh sorry,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: sorry listeners in England, I know what that means there.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, nice kit to be. To be perfectly honest,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I was a little old for ducktails too, but I
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: still watched it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, we all regress.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I never progressed, I think.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on, So, just like.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Disney probably promised RCA and NBC, like they started selling
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: color TVs like hotcakes thanks to in large part, the
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Wonderful World of Color, Disney's wonderful World of Color, to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: be exact.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: That's right, And that feels like a great time for
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a break. Huh, yes it does.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: All right, We'll be right back everybody.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: So you might think that we're going in chronological order,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: we are not. We're going to go back in time
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: a little bit from the debut of color TV, but
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: after the World's Fair in nineteen thirty nine, two years after,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: and we're going to go to you know, I never
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: found out what network this was on, did you. No,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: that's silly.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Let's just call it ESPN.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, so on ESPN in nineteen forty one, on July first.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: This is a moment that changed the world. Some people
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: who are watching the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Philly at
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the Philadelphia Phillies essentially saw the first television ad ever.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was either nine or ten seconds long. It
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: depends on the source that you cite, but it was
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: pretty short and all it was. And I know we've
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: talked about this before because I have seen this before
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and I can't think of any other reason why I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: would have, right, But it is a scene of a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: bull of a clockface just sort of superimposed over a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: map of the United States, and it's had the phrase
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: over the top of it like a chiron the world
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: runs on Buluva time. And about four thousand people saw
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: this ad, and I imagine they were like, what the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: heck is this? Why am I hearing about Bulova?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And why do I suddenly feel like buying a bowl
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: of a watch?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Probably.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: What's super quaint and sweet is that the ad costs
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: bull of a nine dollars. That's the whole thing.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Even for the time, that's crazy.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even at the time, that's one hundred and ninety
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: five dollars today, So that was quite a sweet deal. Sure,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: And what it did was show like this is a
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: we can do this, we can advertise two people. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: it's not to say that there were just no ads
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: on TV before the bulov A ad, but they just
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: followed a completely different format, so much so that the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Bowl of A ad is pretty safely considered among historians
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: as the first actual TV commercial.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's for a couple of reasons. You did
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: mention some other ads, But before that, it was like,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know, this program is sponsored by whatever, and that
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: was just the ad. It wasn't actual TV commercial in
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: between content. The first ad, I guess if you count
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that stuff was a nineteen the year TV debuted, really
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and it was a furrier. Man, it seems like it
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: would have been from like eighteen thirty, but it was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a furrier in Boston called ij Fox Furriers who sponsored
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the CBS orchestra. It was a program called the Fox Trapper.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So that, you know, that's kind of how ads went
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: up until forty one.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was the radio format. It was essentially
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: they just took the format that had been pioneered on
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: radio and now they were doing it on TV. That's
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: not really an ad. If you call that an ad,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: you're just being contrarian, right. Sure, there were still even
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: other ads but they were illegal because it wasn't until
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty one that the FCC started issuing licenses to
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: run commercials on on broadcast networks. But that means that
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the ads before them were illegal. I could not find
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: any mention of what these ads were for, but I
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: got the impression that they were just experimentation networks kind
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of on the sly figuring out how to do it
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: as they went along. So again, Buliva is the first
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: actual TV commercial that was legal, and that was also
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: produced with the intent, the sole intent to sell a
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: particular product on air. That was it. That space of
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: air was filled up by an ad. That was the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: first time ever.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: That's right, And I knowe we mentioned this before, but
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar with our cannon in the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: old days of stuff, you should know our boss Connel Byrne,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: who commissioned the whole show to begin with and changed
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: our lives. Thank you Connell. He came up to us
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: at one point after we had been doing it a
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: while and said, hey, people are running ads on podcasts
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: now and we need to get into this. And we
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: were like, no way, no how, We're not going to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: foulop our show. By selling it, and then eventually he said, well,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you know, if we can sell this thing, it'll make
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the company money and on down the road, maybe this
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: just becomes your job. I don't know if he said that,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: but the writing was kind of on the wall, and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: maybe this can just become the only thing you do
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: here and you won't be writing articles for housetiforks dot
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: com anymore. And we went tell us more.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here, you make a good case here. Yeah, hey, Chuck,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: we're real quick speaking of our cannon. So for all
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: of you listeners out there, it's a little behind the
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: scenes peak. Oh yeah, we have like I think, including
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: short stuff in the neighborhood of two thousand, three hundred episodes.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: It doesn't really get it across when you say twenty
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: three hundred. We have a ton of episodes in our
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: back catalog, and we like people write in all the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: time and they're like, you should do this episode. We're like,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: we did like seven years ago, and it's like a
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: lot of people just have no idea the episodes we've done.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to like figure out how to get
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: it out there better.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, that's the reason we mentioned this. We've
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: been sort of putting our heads together at iHeartMedia because,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: like you said, a lot of people don't you know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I think iTunes serves up about three hundred. But here's
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a little trick. If you're on your podcast player for
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: iTunes on your iPhone, if that's how you listen, when
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: you scroll down through like the first five episodes, there's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a little button there that says see all two thousand
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: plus episodes, And if you click on that, they're all
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: there and you can scroll through. But you know, a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: lot of people don't know that. A lot of other
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: players don't you know, who knows how many they display,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: But it's a frustration for us, and so it's just
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a gentle reminder that there are literally thousands of these
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: episodes out there.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all also, I think you said on the
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app and stuff youshould know. Dot com has the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: master repository and a pretty good search function. And one
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of the ways we figured out like we could probably
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: like we could probably do a lot better about mentioning episodes,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: like specifically when they come up in another episode, like
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: a new episode. But I feel like we're gonna have
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: to do a lot better. Yeah, we normally do, which
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: is like, did we do some episode on something related
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: to this? Yeah, we gotta figure it out, but we will,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: cause there's just a bunch of great episodes just sitting
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: there waiting for people to discover.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That's right, right, And with that we move on to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: oh wait, yes.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: We have to do the Super Bowl comparison. You have
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to do it. If you talk about the bulovcy we
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: really yes.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: All right, you take it away, then I repe stick part.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So if you write or talk about the Bulova ad,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: it's basically incumbent upon you to compare that ad cost
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: the nine dollars cost to what it would have cost
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: had they run it on a Super Bowl. And so
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: for the twenty twenty five Super Bowl, if Bulova had
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: run this, they would have paid two point three five
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: million dollars for those ten seconds.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Quite a deal, that's right there. I just kept us
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: from being sued.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Uh well, I don't even think we're even I think
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to say the Big Game, aren't we.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It's no like we're supposed to not buy into that.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, I gotcha, all right. Moving on to the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: next one on the list is the that was a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: good segue too, because we can't talk about like our
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: old episodes and then say, also, there was a devastating
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: tsunami in two thousand and four in the Indian Ocean, right,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because that happened, and we know if you're of a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: actually you don't have to be much of a certain age.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But on December twenty six, two thousand and four, that
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was an undersea earthquake about a nine point zero magnitude
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that set off this incredible tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've done episodes on tsunamis and earthquakes, and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: we've talked about all this before. But it was about
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: one hundred feet tall, traveling at five hundred miles an hour,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: not much advanced warning, and was one of the most
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: devastating tragedies in human history. It killed close to two
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty thousand people in fourteen countries. It also
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: sparked the biggest rail disaster in history when it completely
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: wiped out a train traveling along the coast of Sri Lanka.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And we mentioned all this because the only positive that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: came out of this was the media's reaction, which sparked
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the incredible amount of philanthropy and aid and giving in
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: its aftermath.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the I was reading a study on this.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: It is called media coverage and Charitable Giving after the
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: two thousand and four tsunami. It was by Philip H.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Brown and Justin Minty, and they said, like, the media
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: coverage was unprecedented, Like it didn't they the world didn't
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: forget about it in like three days. It was twenty
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: four hour coverage of this disaster for weeks on end right.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And because these images were broadcast around the world, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: because it was so mind bogglingly devastating, people just opened
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: up their pockets. I saw ninety nine different countries donated,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: and thirteen of those countries had never donated for a
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: natural disaster relief before it got to everybody.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are I think about one hundred and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: ninety five countries in the world.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which it's kind of like, do better other ninety
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: six countries.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I imagine the countries that didn't give have their
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: own issues, had their own issues going on.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: You know, Well, no I feel bad, No, don't feel
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: so bad.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: But they have done studies. That two thousand and six
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: study that you referenced, they said that the Catholic relief
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: charities got a million dollars in three days, which would
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: turn out to be small beans in the long run,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: but over three days that's quite a haul. Save the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Children got more than six million dollars in four days.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: The Lutheran World Relief raise more money in a week
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: than it does in a year. And the AP found
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that thirty percent of American families donated in the first
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: two weeks, and just from the United States though, was
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: about one point six billion, and estimates around the world
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: were about fourteen billion dollars raised.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to kind of go over the power
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: of the media, one thing I left out here is
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that that same study found that one extra minute of
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: coverage on television equated to an increase in Internet donations
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: by six seemed to twenty percent. So like this the impact,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: it's just essentially like a classroom lesson in the impact
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that media can have, the positive impact that media can have.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And that's I mean, that's that is definitely something to
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: TV's credit. Yeah, you want to move on to well,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: move backward to Vietnam.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, again, we're jumping all over the timeline and we're
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: in Vietnam right now because I guess we should talk
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit about pre Vietnam and as far as
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: media coverage go, because before that World War Two and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: certainly the Korean War, what you got as far as
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: media coverage was highly sort of curated and regulated, government
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: mediated film reels. You would get news updates, they would
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: play in movie theaters. By the time we got to Vietnam,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: they had, you know, like handheld cameras you could literally
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: take to the front lines, and it really changed the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: way war coverage went and as result, the way the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: way people felt about the war. Because World War Two,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: everyone was they were pretty raw, raw, and you got
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: these raw, raw films, So morale was big in America.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: You know, they were like, hey, this is great, We're
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: fighting the Nazis, right.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Another huge factor was that by nineteen sixty six, ninety
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: three percent of American homes had a TV, and just
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: thirteen sixteen years earlier, in nineteen fifty, it was nine percent. Yeah,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: so TV was firmly established in the American psyche. You
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: remember in wonder years, whenever they sat down and had dinner,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: they always had the TV on showing Vietnam. Yeah coverage. Yeah,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: that's what it was like.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And so the fact that everybody had TVs, the fact
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that now there was like cameras that you could easily
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: allow a journalist to embed with, and the idea that
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the government really shouldn't control propaganda, shouldn't control the news
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: like that created this atmosphere where the broadcasters were willing
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to show like really heartrending, unflinching stories. Yeah, what the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: soldiers fighting for the United States were doing in Vietnam
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and what was being done to them, And it really
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: shaped America's view of that war.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it definitely made the mood and how
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we saw the war like pretty dour. But people, you know,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: going into Vietnam, there were a lot of people already,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: like before even the coverage started that were like, what
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: are we doing in Vietnam?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Again? Right?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like World War Two where where the Nazis
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: were trying to you know, take over the world, and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: so you know, this just made everything worse, but you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: worse in a positive way because it was showing the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: reality of things. It wasn't government controlled, I'm sure they were,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you know, just countless meetings behind the scenes and the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Oval Office where they were like we're getting crushed by
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the reality of this war and how it's being depicted
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: in the media. I'm sure they were pretty upset about
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: losing control of that narrative.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, they definitely were. And later on, I think
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the Iraq War was another considered another television war. Certainly
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the Gulf War the first one was. And the government
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: kind of learned from losing control over the narrative in Vietnam,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: but they weren't able to regain control, and so the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: sentiment toward Vietnam and the United States kept getting worse
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: and worse, and protests were getting bigger and bigger. There
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: was like a very healthy anti war movement. And essentially
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: because the public was feeling this way, the public sentiment
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: was that way toward Vietnam, and because if you turned
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: on the news, the evening national news, you would see
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: like terrible coverage that was not flattering at all to
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: what the United States was doing in Vietnam, elected official
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: basically had no choice but to listen to people. And yeah,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: it definitely led to the earlier, probably an earlier withdrawal
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: than the United States may have otherwise taken.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, changed the way that it went
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: moving forward, because you know, the writing was on the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: wall at that point for the US government, They're like,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: we can't go back to World War Two. As much
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: as they wanted to kind of control that narrative, the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: American people at that point would not have it moving forward.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: So it really kind of changed the whole relationship of
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: how any kind of conflict is covered.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: It did. So now they've struck a balance between allowing
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: reporters to embed and just relying on those national news
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: reporters to disseminate the propaganda, because if you watch embedded coverage,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: for the most part, it is fairly yeah, raw raw,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: even if it's not overtly raw rack. Is that the
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: American public's a little more savvy than that. It's still
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: nothing like the coverage was of Vietnam from what I understand.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and just the way wars are fought now,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it not like a front line like you had back then.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So I remember watching the Gulf War and it was
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: just all those like you know, black and white shots
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of bombing things from thousands of feet above, you know.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the beginning of the Iraq War, remember
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: it was shock and awe, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: was like it was produced essentially for TV, the initial
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: attack on Iraq.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It's so gross to I don't know, I'm not gonna editorialize,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: but to name something like that, like, hey, that sounds
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: pretty pretty awesome.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: You know. I think it was either RUMs Fell or
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Cheney who came up with that, And I'm not surprised
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: either way.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: For sure. Should we take another break?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I wasn't expecting that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Sure, all right, we'll take another break and finish up
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: with a couple of more moments that changed TV history
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: right after this. All right, we're going to move on
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to another show. But we should mention that the original
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: House of Works article included, of course, the moon landing,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: which was a huge TV event, but we covered all
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of that in which episode.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: We have an episode on that. It's called How Going
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to the Moon Works from twenty nineteen, and it was
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: a really interesting episode that really covered in depth of
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: lunar landing.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: That's right, part of the twenty three hundred episodes plus.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: That's right, But we're.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Not going to talk about that. We're going to talk
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: about a TV show that we've talked about here and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: there before called Cops. Because Cops is and I know
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I mentioned this in that other episode. Whatever it was,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it was a show that I used to watch with
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: more regularity than I like to admit now I think
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: everyone watched it a lot. Well, it was never and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not excusing it, but it was never like appointment TV.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: In fact, I don't even know when it came on.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: This was just in my younger channel surfing days where
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: it was like you're surfing around, Cops was on. I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: would watch Cops and I was never like yeah, yeah,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: go go. But you know, I've found it probably entertaining
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and amusing, and now that i'm a little older and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: no more of you know, slightly embarrassed that they were
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: sort of exploiting many times people who had mental illness
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and who were suffering through poverty and addiction. And so
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not so proud of that. But I'll admit that
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I watched my fair share of Cops.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I watched it too. So Cops changed the world in
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: two ways. And this moment was March eleventh, nineteen eighty nine,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: which is when it debuted on Fox. This is just
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: three years after Fox premiered, nine months before The Simpsons
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: even premiered, Cops started on Fox, and it helped make
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Fox the fourth network. It was just such a huge
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: show right out of the gate. And the two ways
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: that it changed the world is one set the groundwork
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: for reality TV. Yeah, you can make a pretty good
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: case that it was one of the It may be
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the originator of reality TV. There weren't scripts, There wasn't
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: any star, There wasn't any narrative or plot lines. It
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: was just like, here's some cops and here's a crime
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: that they're going to fight. We don't have a script.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: We just generally know what's going on, which ostensibly is
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: the basis of any reality show.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know what we should do an
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: episode on at some point is I can't remember the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: name of it now because it just came to me,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: but I think kind of the first real reality show
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: was that one where they followed the American family around
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: in the seventies, maybe.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: When a PBS or British or something.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I think it was PBS, and then they made a
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: fictional account of that as a movie not I think
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: four or five, six years ago. That was pretty good too.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I think James Scandalfini was in it.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, I would have guessed Peter Sarsgard as the dad.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: It was really good though. Anyway, that really kicked off
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: reality TV. MTV's Real World didn't come out till ninety two,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: but Cops certainly laid the groundwork for kind of like
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: trashy reality TV, you know, right. Yes.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: The other effect that it had on the world was
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: it really reinforced unfair racial stereotypes. Yeah, among white Americans
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: toward Black Americans, people of color in general in the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: United States. It was an enormous show. It drew like
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: eight million viewers each week. That's a crazy amount of people.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Peaked in the nineties. But even from the first episode,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: civil rights groups were like, whoa wait a second here,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: like a lot of these criminals are black, and this
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: is way disproportionate to reality. I thought this was a
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: reality show. And the Cops producers, Barber Langley Productions, were like, well,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: it's reality ish, you know, like it's not the actual
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: portrayal of reality. It's a skewed toward entertainment version of reality.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: So just settle down. And the civil rights groups are like,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: we're not settling down. That actually makes it even worse.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the cops loved it because they were
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: portrayed as heroes. It was a great recruiting tool for
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: police officers. And you know, I guess we have some
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: stats from the Marshall Project. They did a analysis in
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. Most of the officers on balance were white,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: suspects were more likely to be black or hispanic as
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: far as the numbers go. They found that while sexual assault, robbery,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and murders account for just thirteen percent of all crime
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four, at least it was forty three
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: percent of what you saw on cops. I don't remember
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of sexual assault and murder though, Like everything
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I saw on cops were like robberies and drug arrests
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: or just you know, dy being drunk out in public, stuff.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Like that, or dude hiding under a kiddie pool.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's probably drunk er on drugs, right, Yeah, that's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: what I I remember. I don't remember like more serious crime.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So I was kind of wondering about that stat.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember that either. They also found that
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: same study found that the show was far more likely
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to associate black and brown people than whites with violent crime.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: They were black and brown people were forty percent. There
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: was a forty percent chance compared to a thirteen percent
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: chance for whites. So it was like it wasn't just
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: civil rights groups like sensing there's something off about this,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: like people conducted actual studies and found also that a
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: viewer of Cops was likelier to maintain the racial stereotype
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: that blacks are typically criminals than a person who didn't
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: watch Cops. So it had a really large impact. And
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: yet despite that, this is ninety four that that study
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: came out, it wasn't until twenty thirteen that Fox was
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: finally like, okay, fine, fine, yes, okay, well cancel the show.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: We've made our money over twenty five seasons, and thanks
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: to civil rights organization Color of Change, Fox dropped it
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: and that was the end of Cops forever.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Right, No, no, no. It was picked up by Spike TV.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: They ran it until twenty twenty. Then after twenty twenty,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: with all the you know, sort of light shined on
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: police brutality, they said, you know, maybe it's just not
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: so good to run this anymore. But Fox Nation stepped
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: up and brought it back in twenty one and it
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is still going in his thirty seventh season. The other
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: thing it did was sort of create the the idea
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: of the Florida Man because they started I believe they
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: debuted in Broward County and shot a lot there over
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the years, and they shot I think they shot more
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: than one hundred cities in the end, but a lot
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: of their content was shot in Florida and kind of
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: sort of reinforced this whole Florida Man thing.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know that that's skewed.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, fair enough, let's finish up.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Chuck on like a really happy moment. Well, depending on
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: which nation you're from, the USSR or the United States.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: If you're from the United States, this is a really
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: good high point for your country. In nineteen eighty and
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: to be exact, and there was this one event that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: America was really the unlikely winners in and it was
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: men's hockey.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: That's right. This is during the height of the Cold War,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: so the US and the Soviet Union. You know, it
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: was just it was all you heard about if you
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: were a kid growing up in the seventies and eighties.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: It was such a big deal. The Soviet Union won
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the Olympic gold medals in ice hockey in fifty six
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and then sixty four, sixty eight, seventy two, and seventy six.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So they ran the Olympics basically from the mid sixties
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to the mid seventies, and then nineteen eighty came along
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and you had a US hockey team and first of all,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the Soviet hockey team. I believe there was a player
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Fetisov who said later on that was probably the best
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: team that the Soviet Union had ever put together. So
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: they were the drago and we were a little rocky
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: because the American team at the time, this is before
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: they allowed pro players to play in the Olympics, there
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: was a bunch of college kids and they were I
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: mean to call them underdogs was a massive understatement.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of the credit goes to the
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: coach of the Olympic men's team, Herb Brooks, who was
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey coach.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Kurt Russell. Oh yeah, yeah, he played him in the movie.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I thought that was Emilio Estevez.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Well done.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: So the United States did not this, despite how it ended,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: they did not get off on a very good footing.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: There was an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden a
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: few days before the nineteen eighty Olympics, same month and everything,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: And they Soviet Union and the States played in this
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: exhibition match and the Soviets really you could use the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: word walloped pretty effectively in this case. The Soviets won
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: ten to three. So it did not look like the
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: United States men's hockey team was going to produce much
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: in the Olympics that year.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't see a lot of double digit scores
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: in hockey if you're not familiar with hockey, you know,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you see a lot of like two to nothing, three
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to two. Right. Once you score over ten goals, it's
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: a big, big deal. So the Americans weren't even supposed
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to advance that much in the Olympics. But they had
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a bunch of comeback wins, had a lot of close
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: calls that they won, and they got into the medal
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: round and face the Soviets, who up to that point
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: in the Olympics had outscored their bonuts fifty one to eleven.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: H So on February twenty second, nineteen eighty and I
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: know I've mentioned this before, but I actually watched this
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: match as a I guess it wasn't even nine yet.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: It was right before my ninth birthday. Oh yeah, I
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't even that into hockey, but we were an Olympic family,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and I remember I have a very distinct memory of
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: being in my parents' bedroom for some reason, which I
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: usually wasn't much allowed in because it was I don't know,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: it was the seventies. It was like, don't go in
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: my bedroom. But we had this little black and white TV.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I guess my dad was watching other stuff out there
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: on the larger console TV, but I remember being in
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: their bedroom and watching this match on the little black
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and white TV and knowing, as a little eight year old, like,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: what a huge, huge deal this was.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you said something that I think kind of
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: applied to a lot of the nation. Hockey was not
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: really a thing, nothing like it is now in the
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: United States. Like you had to live in a place
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: where your rivers froze over every year to like hockey.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: It was a very regional sport. And yet, like you said,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: the entire United States tuned in for this match because
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: it was the evil So yeah, and like to our
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: younger viewers or listeners, like you don't you can't imagine
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: what they told us about the Russians, Like essentially, if
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: you were a kid in the seventies, eighties, probably sixties too,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: you were basically taught that if you ever crossed paths
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: with anybody from the Soviet Union, they would slash your
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: throat just as soon as look at you. Like that
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: was essentially what people thought of the Soviet Union at
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: and vice versa. So it was the big bad Soviets
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: who were just this huge juggernaut of a team, and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: the Americans, the ragtag underdog Americans standing up to these
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: these this evil empire. And that's why everybody tuned in.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was I remember very just having the distinct
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: feeling it was communism versus democracy, really right.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Right, which is yeah, yeah, which is I think what
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: happened in that that Super Bowl with the Falcons versus
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the Patriots. Same thing.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Oh man, my my darkest day as a Falcons fan.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe that was rough. It was either that or losing
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to the Jets last week. Oh yeah, oh man, I
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: can't talk about it. Okay, very sad season ticket holder here.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: So Americans of course came back and won, and I
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: remember our goalie Jim Craig, like skating around after wrapped
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: up in the American flag, and that was my first
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: like real taste of like understanding what it was like
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: to be an American and again a different time where
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: you know, it was the Cold War, and it felt
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: like a real win for democracy in a weird way.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So a lot of people, well I think basically
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: everybody calls that game the Miracle on Ice. Yeah, And
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: the reason why is because the commentator who was calling
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the hockey game, al Michaels, who as far as I note,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: had only called one hockey game previously at the Sapporo
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Winter Olympics years before. He did a magnificent job. And
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: as the time is running out in the third period,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: America staged to come back and scored two goals and
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: they were up four to three with several seconds left.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: And remember this Soviet team was good enough that they
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: could score a goal and tie within a few seconds.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: So the Americans are just skating around the ice trying
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: to keep the puck away from the Russians and al
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Michaels is counting down the seconds and I think with
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: about four seconds left, and it became clear that the
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Soviets working to be able to score a goal, he goes,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: do you believe in miracles?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: And if you watch it today you just get just
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: amazing chills, just even the last like thirty seconds of
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: that game. It's really neat.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: For sure. I wonder if before the game Al Michaels
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: was like, it's a puck, al, it's a puck, it's
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a match, it's not a game. And if anyone brings
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: up icing, just you explain.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: It, right, just pretend it doesn't exist exactly. So ESPN
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: called it the most famous hockey game ever played.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Sports Illustrated ranked it in nineteen ninety nine is the
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: top sports moment of the twentieth century. It was a
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: big deal. And again I would strongly urge you if
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: you don't go why the whole match, watch at least
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: a third period, or watch the last couple of minutes
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: and several minutes after that where they're, yeah, they're celebrating.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: It's just you can just feel like the whole country
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: going crazy.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Pretty incredible. Uh. And if you're ever you know,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: at a dinner party and a group of people and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: they're talking about when the US beat the Soviets for
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the gold medal, you can be the actually guy because
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: that was not the gold medal match. I think a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: lot of people remember it that way because it was
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: such a big deal. But that was an I guess
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a bronze round. Yeah, and the US went on to
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: win that gold against Finland yep, two days later. Pretty great,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Pretty great, everybody.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: So that's it. Those are the only moments that changed
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the world in the history of TV. All the rest
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: of them were pretty whole home.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: That's right. You got anything else, I got nothing else, sir.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: All right. I think this was a pretty good start
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: to twenty twenty six, don't you.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's great.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck said, great. That means it's time for listener now.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, Let's let's start off the year
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: without a listener mail and just make a push to
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: remind everyone that we're still kicking off pretty soon in
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: a few months, it'll be or eighteen in April. And
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: we always are still looking to grow the show, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: we don't do it much, but if you could rate
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and review the show, that means a lot. If you
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: could tell friends and family, like, hey, there's this podcast
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: been around forever and we like it. We may or
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: may not be Golden Globe nominated. We don't know at
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: this point because we're going to find out next Monday,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: but yeah, go out and spread the spread the good word.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: And we look forward to seeing everybody on the road
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: this year in the United States and Canada.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to be on the road this month
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: in January, also in April, and then Canada this summer.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: So you can get tickets and info at stuff youshould
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Know dot com. And if you want to say Happy
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: New Year or whatever, you can send us an email.
• 44:49
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• 44:52
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• 44:57
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• 45:00
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