Latest / Ridiculous History / The Sinister Side of Little Orphan Annie, Part Two: Drink Your Ovaltine

Transcript

The Sinister Side of Little Orphan Annie, Part Two: Drink Your Ovaltine · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. I don't know if you
0:33
Speaker 1: guys have noticed on the zoom calls, but what I'm
0:35
Speaker 1: actually doing for some reason, I've got this happen. Now,
0:38
Speaker 1: let me lean back so you can see what I'm doing.
0:39
Speaker 1: What I'm when I'm introing the show, I'm going like this,
0:43
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm dabbing for some reason. I don't know why,
0:47
Speaker 1: but I hope that. I hope you guys are okay
0:50
Speaker 1: with it. That's our super producer, Mr Max Williams. I'm
0:56
Speaker 1: ben uh that, Noel Brown. Thank you for approving of
0:59
Speaker 1: my dad more ovaltine. Please, you're actually drinking I'm flagging, bro,
1:06
Speaker 1: I need pet man. It's actually not ovaltine. It's adult ovaltine.
1:11
Speaker 1: It's iced coffee. Oh okay, I'm drinking. I'm drinking iced
1:14
Speaker 1: coffee as well. You know it would be good. The
1:16
Speaker 1: ovaltine and iced coffee make it like a mocha. Yeah,
1:19
Speaker 1: malted ice coffee. You know what. I think You're onto something,
1:23
Speaker 1: my friend. And that is a perfect segue to our
1:27
Speaker 1: continuing conversation. This is part two of the Sinister Influence
1:32
Speaker 1: of Little Orphan Annie, and we've already learned some weird stuff.
1:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this radio show was
1:39
Speaker 1: before our time. I don't know if the modern world
1:43
Speaker 1: is aware of just like how corporate that show was.
1:47
Speaker 1: The radio show. We're gonna learn a little bit about that, right, yeah,
1:51
Speaker 1: especially considering it's like highly controversial political roots as a
1:57
Speaker 1: comic strip. Uh. And then also some of that bled
2:00
Speaker 1: into the radio show too, very very odd dichotomy. And
2:03
Speaker 1: by the way, it was something we didn't mention in
2:05
Speaker 1: the episode, and I think we buried the lead here.
2:07
Speaker 1: I had forgotten until I was looking up some images
2:09
Speaker 1: from the comic strip that like all of the characters
2:12
Speaker 1: have these weird, soulless, vacant button eyes, Like, what's that about? Well,
2:19
Speaker 1: it's it could be just a stylistic choice. But also
2:23
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if maybe it was something that was just
2:27
Speaker 1: cleaner when it was a comic strip. But those eyes
2:30
Speaker 1: are off putting, right, Maybe it would be too busy
2:33
Speaker 1: or too much ink, too much detail. But that doesn't
2:35
Speaker 1: make sense because you have other comics like dag Would
2:38
Speaker 1: that don't have a problem with having normal eyes. Yes, definitely,
2:43
Speaker 1: still its a choice. It's a super odd one because
2:45
Speaker 1: when I look at them, I just see just nothingness
2:48
Speaker 1: staring back at me. Especially the one cover of one
2:51
Speaker 1: of the collections of all of the Little or Nanni comics,
2:53
Speaker 1: or one of many, because there were probably hundreds hundreds
2:56
Speaker 1: of them, it's got Annie and her dog Sandy, both
3:00
Speaker 1: with these kind of rarely rictus kind of creepy grins
3:02
Speaker 1: and just staring at you through these vacant white eyes.
3:06
Speaker 1: Creepy stuff. Uh, and we're gonna get into some more
3:08
Speaker 1: creepy stuff in terms of like advertising and targeting kids,
3:12
Speaker 1: and also the super sinister bizarro world that Little Orphan
3:16
Speaker 1: Annie occupy that potentially could have caused some some wrinkles
3:21
Speaker 1: in the the daily lives of the youth of the
3:24
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. Yeah, yeah, and uh, light spoilers here, perhaps
3:30
Speaker 1: most importantly will be exploring how similar conversations continue in
3:35
Speaker 1: the modern day. So without further ado, we we proudly
3:40
Speaker 1: present or hopefully endearingly present part two of the sinister
3:45
Speaker 1: influence of Little Orphan Any. One of the big themes
3:49
Speaker 1: about Annie as a character is that she is self reliant.
3:54
Speaker 1: The creator himself said that she lives in a vaguely
3:57
Speaker 1: sinister world without comfort. She's controversial, but she's tougher than hell,
4:02
Speaker 1: and she has a heart like you said in a
4:04
Speaker 1: Heart of Gold, a fast left, and she takes care
4:07
Speaker 1: of herself because she has to. The radio series did
4:11
Speaker 1: cut some of the or sanded down some of the
4:14
Speaker 1: comic strips more sharp tones, like it dropped the super
4:19
Speaker 1: anti Roosevelt politics. At times, the strip reads as just
4:23
Speaker 1: a way for this guy to let everyone know, through
4:26
Speaker 1: the power of cartoons that he hates FDR, but they
4:29
Speaker 1: kept the idea of danger. The episodes ending cliffhangers, and
4:34
Speaker 1: the cliff hangers are a big reason kids tuned in
4:37
Speaker 1: for the next episodes. They're also the reason parents didn't
4:41
Speaker 1: like this. They didn't like their kid thinking um like
4:45
Speaker 1: there was one episode where Annie is kidnapped at the
4:49
Speaker 1: end of the show and parents were ticked off at this.
4:55
Speaker 1: They were calling in. They were like, you guys are
4:57
Speaker 1: being real pills. My kid is going to spend the
5:00
Speaker 1: next the next who knows how long, freaking out trying
5:05
Speaker 1: to figure out what happens to Annie if she survives.
5:08
Speaker 1: Because in these kids imaginations in their minds. For many
5:12
Speaker 1: of them, Annie is a real person. I was saying
5:14
Speaker 1: that I was thinking the same thing, man, Like, with
5:16
Speaker 1: this being so new, it's almost like it would be
5:19
Speaker 1: hard for them to differentiate between or even understand the
5:24
Speaker 1: nature of fiction. Like it's to them it's so real
5:27
Speaker 1: that they would, you know, honestly respond with real emotion
5:30
Speaker 1: and a real attachment, And they would wonder about their
5:33
Speaker 1: friend Annie and if she was gonna be okay, you know,
5:36
Speaker 1: all this time leading up to the next episode, which
5:38
Speaker 1: surely would distract them, and they're thinking from school, you know,
5:41
Speaker 1: and it happens. Yeah, you're you're right that, Like, I
5:45
Speaker 1: love these said that, because that gets us to a
5:47
Speaker 1: valid point. Parents have legit concerns now like this, their
5:52
Speaker 1: friend has gone missing. They're gonna suck at their math
5:55
Speaker 1: homework for a while, and it's your fault, traumatised. Yeah,
5:59
Speaker 1: and it happens today with um, you know, to go
6:02
Speaker 1: back to a Game of Thrones example, I can't believe
6:05
Speaker 1: this is appropriate again, but the inability of audiences to
6:10
Speaker 1: distinguish fact from fiction remains with us. For an example,
6:15
Speaker 1: one need look no further than the unfortunate and very
6:19
Speaker 1: talented actor who played King Joffrey in Game of Thrones.
6:24
Speaker 1: People hated the actor and like, who was a child
6:28
Speaker 1: by the way at the time, and would say terrible
6:31
Speaker 1: things about him and to him. And now he quit acting.
6:35
Speaker 1: What's his what's his name? Oh, it's something Gleason. He
6:38
Speaker 1: has a very old man kind of name. I think
6:40
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, oh yeah, I was. I wasn't too far.
6:42
Speaker 1: It's it's literally Jackie Gleason. Well not Jackie but Jackie.
6:46
Speaker 1: Very old man name goes along with the period that
6:48
Speaker 1: we're talking about. But you're right. I mean he quit
6:51
Speaker 1: acting and I think went into like philanthropy or something
6:54
Speaker 1: because he was just sick of getting dragged on the
6:57
Speaker 1: internet because people had a hard time separating the art
7:00
Speaker 1: from the artist. Yeah. Yeah, and Max, he said, you
7:03
Speaker 1: have another example, Yeah, I do. Um. Obviously, you guys
7:06
Speaker 1: know who Malcolm McDowell is, right, obviously very famous from
7:09
Speaker 1: a clockwork Orange, but he was in Star Trek Generations
7:14
Speaker 1: as the villain and he is just hated by Star
7:18
Speaker 1: Trek community because he is spoiling right here at the
7:20
Speaker 1: guy who killed Captain Kirk cannot discern the fact that
7:24
Speaker 1: he is not that guy. And he didn't kill William Shatner.
7:27
Speaker 1: But they're like, you know you killed Kirk. You are
7:29
Speaker 1: a terrible person, Malcolm McDowell. No, William shatter is fine.
7:32
Speaker 1: He went to space with Jeff Bezos, if I'm not mistaken.
7:35
Speaker 1: He did a cover of Rocket Man. He made a
7:38
Speaker 1: film in Esperanto, I think as well. Esperanto infamous. Yeah,
7:44
Speaker 1: it's it's infamously bad, but also you know, an infamously
7:47
Speaker 1: big swing, Esperanto being what kind of like a like
7:50
Speaker 1: a an invented language, right then, yes, yeah, it is
7:54
Speaker 1: a manufactured language with the idea of becoming a global,
7:58
Speaker 1: one world language. We could do an episode on one
8:01
Speaker 1: world languages, if that's interesting to anybody. So far, the
8:04
Speaker 1: majority other than Math have failed at one point or another.
8:08
Speaker 1: Language continues to kind of I don't want to say balkanized,
8:12
Speaker 1: but specie in a way. That's why so many different
8:15
Speaker 1: versions of English exists. I have a very good friend
8:18
Speaker 1: of mine, Um you may have met briefly and only.
8:21
Speaker 1: He's an author, a wonderful author named Tim Westover. And
8:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's fine with me saying saying his name
8:27
Speaker 1: on the air. Uh. Tim is in addition to his
8:31
Speaker 1: many many accolades. He is a polyglott and he's the
8:34
Speaker 1: kind of guy who studied Esperanto for fun. So I
8:37
Speaker 1: asked him about the Shatner movie. He's like vice president
8:40
Speaker 1: of Esperanto Publishing in America or something, and I asked
8:43
Speaker 1: him about the Esperanto movie and Shatter was in and
8:47
Speaker 1: he immediately told me it's like a cult classic in
8:50
Speaker 1: the Esperanto community because the pronunciation is that bad. I
8:54
Speaker 1: don't know how he got on this tangent, but it's uh,
8:58
Speaker 1: but hopefully it's a worthwhile one. Okay, thrones to Esperanto, yes,
9:05
Speaker 1: and and it's a little or fan any so, so
9:08
Speaker 1: like uh, because everybody was very close to this show,
9:12
Speaker 1: in part because parents were concerned and their children may
9:16
Speaker 1: not understand that Annie is a fictional character. The writers
9:20
Speaker 1: eventually had a list of what they called the mustn'ts,
9:23
Speaker 1: which were things that could not happen in the plot
9:26
Speaker 1: of any episode. So and he can't be kidnapped, right,
9:29
Speaker 1: and he can't. You can find the list online, but
9:32
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty interesting. And why did they do this?
9:35
Speaker 1: We know the comic strip author was out there to
9:39
Speaker 1: propagate his own political viewpoints, but when this moved to radio,
9:44
Speaker 1: it's a new era, baby. We got money coming in
9:47
Speaker 1: the door totally. And we also know that Gray the
9:50
Speaker 1: the the author of the comic strip, Harold Gray. Um,
9:53
Speaker 1: there are plenty of instances where the syndicated you know,
9:55
Speaker 1: printings of the comic strip were pulled due to complaints.
9:59
Speaker 1: So oh, you know, but he was maybe a little
10:02
Speaker 1: less concerned with that. I don't know that he was like,
10:04
Speaker 1: I don't know how the syndication pay worked, but uh
10:07
Speaker 1: did He didn't seem too concerned. But now we've got
10:10
Speaker 1: a centralized production that's going out over the wire, and
10:14
Speaker 1: that sponsored by a marketing megal if in Ovaltine. Back
10:26
Speaker 1: to Christmas story, you'll remember that that plays a huge
10:30
Speaker 1: part of the whole Ovaltine thing. And there were literal,
10:33
Speaker 1: you know kind of tie ins you know with um
10:36
Speaker 1: little little things, you little prizes you could win similar
10:39
Speaker 1: to the old Man's major reward that I believe you
10:42
Speaker 1: went from some some other kind of like you know,
10:45
Speaker 1: the sweepstakes for adults. But um, Ralphie was just absolutely
10:50
Speaker 1: obsessed with getting this little or fan andy Dakota ring.
10:53
Speaker 1: So you get the Dakota Ring and then you listen
10:55
Speaker 1: along and then in an advertisement that's disguised as like
10:58
Speaker 1: the Stirring Moments, he earns the dials always in the
11:01
Speaker 1: bathroom on his Dakota ring, only to realize that the
11:04
Speaker 1: message that it spells out is drink more ovaltine. Uh
11:10
Speaker 1: dun due done. Indeed, he felt betrayed. He was so upset.
11:14
Speaker 1: He was absolutely understandably because you know, he had to
11:17
Speaker 1: power through tons of advertisements just to even get the
11:21
Speaker 1: thing that ultimately became an advertisement and of itself. Yeah,
11:25
Speaker 1: and he not's just the not just the advertisements he
11:27
Speaker 1: had to power through. He had to physically power through ovaltine.
11:31
Speaker 1: That's because he had you had to send in the
11:32
Speaker 1: box stops, right, So imagine the physical tool that's not
11:37
Speaker 1: ding on ovaltine. It's not like bad for you. It's
11:39
Speaker 1: a multi drink mix well, and it has like vitamins
11:42
Speaker 1: and minerals and stuff, and it's still widely available. It's
11:44
Speaker 1: quite delicious. You know, I'm a fan of al um.
11:47
Speaker 1: He was funny though that not to not to get
11:49
Speaker 1: another tangent, just a really quick one. There is a
11:51
Speaker 1: lot in common between the early days of radio and
11:56
Speaker 1: like the single advertiser that requires what's called direct risk
12:00
Speaker 1: bonts advertisements like where you have to send in your
12:03
Speaker 1: box top or your code or whatever to where we
12:06
Speaker 1: are in podcasting, or at least the very beginnings of podcasting,
12:09
Speaker 1: because podcasting in the early days there were like a
12:11
Speaker 1: handful of advertisers, all of whom required you to enter
12:15
Speaker 1: some kind of code to get a prize, to get
12:17
Speaker 1: a discount, to get something. So it really is kind
12:20
Speaker 1: of like media going full circle in an interesting way. Yeah, yeah, no,
12:24
Speaker 1: let's stay on this tangent for a while, because it's
12:27
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. It happened when Hulu came out too.
12:30
Speaker 1: There would be a very there'd be relatively little diversity
12:34
Speaker 1: in the world of advertisers, right like, uh, in the
12:37
Speaker 1: world of podcasting. You know, there was a time where
12:41
Speaker 1: if you heard a commercial on a podcast, it was
12:44
Speaker 1: a high chance it was going to be one of
12:46
Speaker 1: like four companies, you know, the Blue Aprons, the Casper Mattresses,
12:51
Speaker 1: Casper Mattresses, of course, Great Courses, yeah and yeah, all
12:56
Speaker 1: the hits, all the good ones, and this is this
13:00
Speaker 1: is something that could be a weird experience for people
13:03
Speaker 1: who were listening. It was certainly, it was certainly surreal
13:08
Speaker 1: for us at times on the other side of the microphone.
13:11
Speaker 1: But overall this stuff ended up being good for our shows,
13:15
Speaker 1: and we didn't We weren't in a Ovaltine position to
13:17
Speaker 1: have just one entity doing the underwriting because they had
13:21
Speaker 1: tremendous they had a creative control. Yeah. Ovaltee not only
13:26
Speaker 1: did the underwriting, and underwriting just literally means that you
13:30
Speaker 1: are a primary sponsor underwrite. It's a weird term. It
13:32
Speaker 1: just means that you, you know, have a stake in
13:34
Speaker 1: the show and you're responsible to the show partially underwritten
13:37
Speaker 1: by etcetera. They were doing the writing properly. The advertising
13:41
Speaker 1: agency that was responsible for marketing ovaltein they actually wrote
13:46
Speaker 1: the Little Orphan Annie Radio Hour. Yeah, and then they
13:50
Speaker 1: were adding stuff in all to sell Ovaltine. They were
13:54
Speaker 1: making plot decisions. They said, okay, how do we this
13:56
Speaker 1: very Edward Bernese approach. They were thinking, okay, you know,
14:00
Speaker 1: how do we, uh, how do we make this attracted
14:03
Speaker 1: the boys? We want boys drinking Ovaltine too. We got
14:06
Speaker 1: so much oval team, we gotta move all ovaltea. Uh.
14:09
Speaker 1: And then someone else is like, well, I don't know, boss,
14:11
Speaker 1: let's go, let's get her sidekick let's say a sidekick.
14:15
Speaker 1: We'll call him Joe. That's a name, and Joe corn Tassel,
14:19
Speaker 1: He's he's a sidekick. Boys like hearing about themselves, so uh,
14:23
Speaker 1: they'll buy Ovaltine too, and this Uh. Radio historians think
14:28
Speaker 1: that the big success of this for the Ovaltine company
14:33
Speaker 1: and for the story of Little or Financy was that
14:36
Speaker 1: this was one of the first shows of its kind
14:39
Speaker 1: in this medium that had a child as a lead character.
14:43
Speaker 1: So it's almost like taking a Christmas Carol and now
14:47
Speaker 1: now it's from tiny Thim's, you know, and that's something
14:51
Speaker 1: kids can relate to. It's a brilliant idea and it
14:55
Speaker 1: spoke directly to kids who are also trying to navigate
14:59
Speaker 1: the weird stuff about the world of adults, which adults
15:03
Speaker 1: often keep hidden from children or attempt to. I mean,
15:06
Speaker 1: if you think about it, when your kid growing up,
15:09
Speaker 1: the world of adulthood is somewhat cryptic, is it not.
15:12
Speaker 1: Not only is it cryptic, I mean it's pretty depressing.
15:15
Speaker 1: I mean this is in fact the Depression era in
15:17
Speaker 1: the United States. Parents were struggling to pay the bills,
15:21
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it was it was a really
15:23
Speaker 1: tough time and there was a lot of strife and anxiety,
15:26
Speaker 1: and this gave the kids something to latch onto or
15:29
Speaker 1: sort of a protagonist that they could understand. But he
15:32
Speaker 1: was ultimately written by adults, so that filtered in all
15:35
Speaker 1: of these Like again we were talking about in the
15:37
Speaker 1: comic strip, it was much less politicized are political in
15:40
Speaker 1: the radio show, but there were adult issues that were
15:44
Speaker 1: kind of like woven into the narrative. The producers understood,
15:48
Speaker 1: the little or fancy preus understood. They had to kind of,
15:51
Speaker 1: you know, really tread lightly on this stuff though, because
15:53
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure that the kids were signing
15:57
Speaker 1: on because they were thrilled and enticed, but also that
16:02
Speaker 1: it wasn't offending their parents, and the parents didn't think
16:05
Speaker 1: that they were being given too much information or it
16:08
Speaker 1: was too adults, because after all, it was the parents
16:10
Speaker 1: that were buying the Oval Team for the kids, it
16:12
Speaker 1: wasn't the kids that were buying it for themselves. So
16:14
Speaker 1: it was very much a delicate balancing act they had
16:17
Speaker 1: to do once they realized what the stakes were, especially
16:21
Speaker 1: considering that the show itself, each episode was only about
16:25
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes long, and so you can tell what they're
16:29
Speaker 1: prioritizing here. Just for an example, let's go back to
16:33
Speaker 1: that clip from the episode we played earlier, and let's
16:36
Speaker 1: play something for you at the very beginning here. It
16:39
Speaker 1: is now I have time to hear more about the
16:42
Speaker 1: big new adventure that's starting for Orphanani and Simmons Corners.
16:46
Speaker 1: But first, if there are any few boys and girls
16:48
Speaker 1: who don't like to drink milk and your mother's scored
16:50
Speaker 1: you because you don't drink enough, don't forget what a
16:53
Speaker 1: wonderful help Oval team can be to you. Here's what
16:56
Speaker 1: you do, instead of drinking your milk plain, ask your
17:00
Speaker 1: mother to let you have ovaltine after this, because ovaltine
17:04
Speaker 1: turns plain milk into the keenest kind of a treat,
17:07
Speaker 1: so chocolately looking and good. It tastes even better than
17:10
Speaker 1: it looks. What's more, your mother will be glad to
17:13
Speaker 1: let you have all you want to drink because when
17:16
Speaker 1: you add ovaltine, it greatly increases the food energy value
17:20
Speaker 1: of your milk. So we're several minutes into the program
17:25
Speaker 1: at this point, and what we just heard was a
17:29
Speaker 1: an announcer who is not part of the story extolling
17:32
Speaker 1: the virtues of ovaltine, promising that it would give them
17:35
Speaker 1: pep just so and uh. And the thing is that
17:40
Speaker 1: if you look at a breakdown of how much time
17:43
Speaker 1: is spent telling a story versus telling people to buy ovaltine,
17:47
Speaker 1: as much as one third, like as much of five
17:51
Speaker 1: minutes of every fifteen minutes was all about ovaltine. And
17:54
Speaker 1: then some stuff went down with this orphan named Annie
17:58
Speaker 1: and her side kicked Joe and maybe a word of episodes,
18:03
Speaker 1: So what is that? TRANDL And that's like, yeah, it's
18:05
Speaker 1: like five minutes, so it's really only ten minute episode.
18:07
Speaker 1: That kind of tracks to roughly where we ended up
18:12
Speaker 1: in the proper golden age of like prime time television,
18:16
Speaker 1: you know, thirty minute episode of a show would really
18:20
Speaker 1: only end up being about twenty minutes, so maybe a
18:23
Speaker 1: little less than a third, but I think it was okay, yeah, yeah,
18:29
Speaker 1: but still right. They're definitely cutting into the time. And
18:31
Speaker 1: you could hear that on AM radio too. For example,
18:34
Speaker 1: AM radio will often save its commercials for like a
18:38
Speaker 1: block that that feels very long. So this is clearly
18:44
Speaker 1: an advertising thing. It doesn't matter who the president is
18:48
Speaker 1: right now, unless the president says something really cool or
18:50
Speaker 1: really mean about oval team. If they did, then I'm
18:54
Speaker 1: sure that the writers would have Little Annie rediscover her
18:57
Speaker 1: political um colleciousness. Because even though, like we said, they
19:01
Speaker 1: definitely scaled back the political stuff from that clip we
19:04
Speaker 1: heard again they're talking about buying stock. You know, they're
19:07
Speaker 1: talking about like all of this kind of adults, you know,
19:10
Speaker 1: financial stuff that kids would never in a million years
19:14
Speaker 1: probably be privy to. So very very interesting that some
19:17
Speaker 1: of that still carried over. And let's not forget that
19:19
Speaker 1: we are still in and around the depression era, and
19:22
Speaker 1: so most families don't have unlimited, you know, expendable income
19:27
Speaker 1: to buy like suits and treats. So they had to
19:30
Speaker 1: market this as something that was like, you know, good
19:32
Speaker 1: for your health. You know, it would give the kids
19:34
Speaker 1: the PAP, you know, and like you say things like
19:36
Speaker 1: and do little over financy a favor and and tell
19:39
Speaker 1: your mom and dad to buy more ovaltine, and so
19:41
Speaker 1: they you know, you could argue that it was, in
19:44
Speaker 1: some small ways like a supplement. I mean, that is
19:46
Speaker 1: how it's marketed. Now. If you look at the front
19:48
Speaker 1: of ovaltine, it really leans into how many vitamins and
19:51
Speaker 1: minerals in it and all that good stuff. But we
19:53
Speaker 1: also know that milk itself already has a lot of
19:56
Speaker 1: vitamins and minerals and and you know, calcium and all
19:59
Speaker 1: of that um, and you know, to add something to
20:03
Speaker 1: milk that was costly probably would have been a tough
20:06
Speaker 1: sell to some parents if it wasn't for their kids
20:10
Speaker 1: just haranguing them about this, you know, and making it
20:13
Speaker 1: absolutely just not an option to not buy the stuff.
20:17
Speaker 1: There is, in fact, a really great anecdote in the
20:20
Speaker 1: book The Psychology of Radio by Hadley Cantrill and Gordon Allport,
20:26
Speaker 1: where they talk about a seven year old kid named
20:28
Speaker 1: Andrew who loved and then in the context of the book,
20:31
Speaker 1: they say whose favorite radio show unnamed with a little
20:34
Speaker 1: heroine who almost certainly was anny, and was sponsored by
20:38
Speaker 1: a chocolate flavoring to be added to milk, which is
20:41
Speaker 1: again unquestionably opaltine. This is from a Smithsonian magazine article
20:45
Speaker 1: about American children facing great dangers in the nineteen thirties.
20:49
Speaker 1: I believe the one they're referring to, hear is marketing,
20:53
Speaker 1: and apparently the kid got so obsessed with this chocolate
20:56
Speaker 1: flavoring not to be named, that he insisted that mother
21:00
Speaker 1: buy and after she refused to buy it. He wouldn't
21:02
Speaker 1: drink milk anymore at all after she decided that it
21:06
Speaker 1: wasn't worth the price. Um. And then there's the quote
21:09
Speaker 1: from the book in vain. Does she suggest that Andrew
21:12
Speaker 1: derived his pep from ordinary cuco or at least from
21:15
Speaker 1: one of the less expensive preparations. Uh. Andrew wins his
21:19
Speaker 1: point by refusing to drink milk at all without the
21:23
Speaker 1: costly addition. So again, parents do have an ax to
21:27
Speaker 1: grind here. This is some serious arm twisting that's going
21:29
Speaker 1: on on the part of their kids who are potentially
21:32
Speaker 1: being so stubborn that they could put their own health
21:35
Speaker 1: at risk. If you are to believe it is to
21:38
Speaker 1: be believed that milk, you know, was such an important
21:40
Speaker 1: facet of kids growing up, which we now know isn't
21:43
Speaker 1: quite true either. Well yeah, yeah, and shout out to
21:46
Speaker 1: the concerted, ongoing conspiracies of the dairy industry. Um, maybe
21:51
Speaker 1: not so much the dairy industry. Big cheese, there was
21:54
Speaker 1: a real thing. Check out cheese spiracy on stuff they
21:56
Speaker 1: don't want you to know, available wherever you find your
21:58
Speaker 1: favorite podcast. Always be closing, gentlemen. So you you nailed it. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 1: there's another thing they do. This is incredibly clever and
22:08
Speaker 1: again this is the dark shadow of berness. It's it
22:13
Speaker 1: would be described as a giveaway, so giveaway. An Air
22:17
Speaker 1: quotes the announcer Pierre Andre, that's the guy you heard
22:22
Speaker 1: do the ovaltine add just a few minutes ago. Would
22:25
Speaker 1: always tell these kids about giveaways. All you had to
22:27
Speaker 1: do was send in one dime and it would had
22:30
Speaker 1: to be wrapped in the metal foil from under the
22:34
Speaker 1: lid of an ovaltine. Can you know, like the sealed
22:37
Speaker 1: for freshness kind of thing. You wrapped the dime up
22:39
Speaker 1: in that, and if you sent it in you could
22:41
Speaker 1: get things like mugs or buttons or booklets or badges
22:45
Speaker 1: and masks and blah blah blah all this other or
22:47
Speaker 1: Dakota Rings Right, Merchants, swag Right and a lot of
22:52
Speaker 1: other radio shows. To be fair, we're doing this. They
22:55
Speaker 1: were offering quote unquote free items. The deal is that
23:00
Speaker 1: they weren't really free because you're proving that you've bought
23:05
Speaker 1: this product. When you're sending this stuff in. It's just
23:08
Speaker 1: like sending in a rapper or a box top. An
23:10
Speaker 1: oval team by far. According to Bruce Smith in History
23:14
Speaker 1: of Little or fananity. Gave away more items connected to
23:17
Speaker 1: this radio show than anyone else, any other radio show.
23:21
Speaker 1: Children would have to get box tops labels, this happens
23:24
Speaker 1: in um, this happens in a Christmas story, and they
23:26
Speaker 1: would have to mail them in for like you said,
23:29
Speaker 1: these Dakota rings, these toys, these tis it does and
23:33
Speaker 1: and you know, the Christmas story twist being that the
23:37
Speaker 1: message that he dcoded ended up being itself an advertisement,
23:41
Speaker 1: wasn't really the way it would usually go, thankfully, to
23:44
Speaker 1: give them a little bit of credit, the idea was
23:46
Speaker 1: that this it was actually a pin. It was a
23:48
Speaker 1: Dakota pin, and it was their most popular giveaway item.
23:51
Speaker 1: But in the show it was almost like this way
23:53
Speaker 1: of having like an interactive element in the show. It
23:56
Speaker 1: would be little things where if you had to have
23:59
Speaker 1: the dacoder pin to you know, decodeed so you felt
24:03
Speaker 1: like you were in the know, you know, but it
24:05
Speaker 1: would be little clues about what would happen on next
24:07
Speaker 1: week's episode, right, things like send help or Sandy is safe,
24:12
Speaker 1: you know, things like that, and it would be you know,
24:15
Speaker 1: it would give you this sense of like inclusion and
24:17
Speaker 1: like feeling like you were part of the adventure or
24:19
Speaker 1: like you know, on her team. Yeah, you were in
24:22
Speaker 1: on it. You had knowledge that other folks, maybe even
24:26
Speaker 1: your parents, did not possess. And this dacoder, Yeah, you're right,
24:30
Speaker 1: it is technically a badge. This was used pretty often.
24:35
Speaker 1: Another very clever thing they did was to conduct acts
24:38
Speaker 1: of planned obsolescence. This is planned obsolescence is when something
24:43
Speaker 1: is purposely made to not last forever, such that a
24:48
Speaker 1: company can sell you the same thing product or service again.
24:52
Speaker 1: So these decoder devices, these badges weren't good forever. You
24:58
Speaker 1: couldn't just get one. You had to get a new
25:00
Speaker 1: when like every year or so, because if you would
25:03
Speaker 1: try to decode stuff with last year's badge, it wouldn't work.
25:07
Speaker 1: The labels had changed. So this is brilliant because everything
25:18
Speaker 1: is centered on getting kids to sort of hold their
25:20
Speaker 1: parents emotionally hostage for more ovalteen and uh, it's a
25:26
Speaker 1: true story. What happens to Ralphie is based on a
25:30
Speaker 1: true story and his desire for this to be a
25:35
Speaker 1: member of Annie's Mystery Radio Club or the Secret Circle.
25:40
Speaker 1: There's something that really happened to kids, maybe to some
25:43
Speaker 1: folks who were listening or were alive at the same time.
25:48
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this, like the kids needed to
25:52
Speaker 1: get their parents to move ovaltee. Kids were also the
25:56
Speaker 1: kids are just little human beings, right, They needed to
25:59
Speaker 1: keep up with the joneses of the playground. You didn't
26:02
Speaker 1: want to be that last kid who got the Dakota
26:04
Speaker 1: ring or got the Dakota badge and was late. You
26:07
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You wanted to be in the
26:09
Speaker 1: zeit guys. You wanted your finger on that malted milk pulse.
26:14
Speaker 1: So parents had to battle their kids over the grocery
26:17
Speaker 1: list and there would be more and more giveaways, but
26:20
Speaker 1: you had to buy more and more ovaltine to get
26:22
Speaker 1: them because they weren't really giveaways. And so parents thought, well,
26:27
Speaker 1: what if we start boycotting ovaltine, or what if we
26:30
Speaker 1: just boycott any company that is evolved with a show
26:34
Speaker 1: that we don't like, maybe we can influence its content.
26:37
Speaker 1: And that's why those advertising exacts had that list of
26:40
Speaker 1: mustn'ts for the plots, right, They didn't want to do
26:43
Speaker 1: things that parents objected to content wise, and broadcasters would
26:47
Speaker 1: listen to this and they would they would fall in
26:49
Speaker 1: line the little orphan any ovaltine overlords, that's a tongue twister,
26:55
Speaker 1: orphan anie, ovaltine overlords. They would they would ultimately comp
27:00
Speaker 1: chulate to the parents because they needed to keep that sweet,
27:03
Speaker 1: sweet guilty kid money coming in, you know, you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: and in the same way that it was kind of
27:10
Speaker 1: up to the parents to maybe shield their kids from
27:13
Speaker 1: some of this you know, influence from these radio shows
27:16
Speaker 1: and make sure that they, you know, stuck to their
27:18
Speaker 1: their school work and that they you know, give like
27:21
Speaker 1: like like you think today, like you can have X
27:22
Speaker 1: number of hours of TV a week and that's it,
27:24
Speaker 1: and blah bla, blah blah. There was a certain amount
27:27
Speaker 1: of like weak willed parenting that was going on, as
27:30
Speaker 1: evidenced by the anecdote about the kid who essentially brow
27:34
Speaker 1: beat his mother into you know, getting him ovaltine or
27:37
Speaker 1: else he refused to I'll starve before I don't drink
27:40
Speaker 1: my chocolate flavored milk, And clearly the advertisers capitalized on that.
27:45
Speaker 1: There's an article in Newsweek on December of nineteen thirty
27:48
Speaker 1: four saying if a weak willed mother should buy all
27:50
Speaker 1: these prize box tops, her grocery budget would swell to
27:53
Speaker 1: at least two dollars a week, or about thirty five
27:55
Speaker 1: dollars and fifty cents today and this boycott that you mentioned,
28:00
Speaker 1: and I think you know, they took note. Right at
28:03
Speaker 1: the very least, they decided, Okay, maybe if we're gonna
28:05
Speaker 1: we're in this for the long haul, maybe we should
28:07
Speaker 1: tone down the rhetoric a little bit and give these
28:09
Speaker 1: parents a break, because they're really starting to hate us.
28:13
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we need them to
28:15
Speaker 1: be on our side. So by the end of the thirties,
28:17
Speaker 1: all those cliffhangers that caused kids to be like just
28:20
Speaker 1: you know, out of their minds with a worry until
28:23
Speaker 1: the next episode came, well, those were toned down quite
28:25
Speaker 1: a bit. And this actually might have kind of begun
28:29
Speaker 1: the end of the beginning of this era of of
28:33
Speaker 1: you know, ubiquitous uh child directed advertising. Yeah. But that's
28:38
Speaker 1: the thing though, because by toning down those cliffhangers and
28:42
Speaker 1: those dark, mysterious, sinister events, they were also removing some
28:48
Speaker 1: of the appeal that I had to children to this
28:50
Speaker 1: young audience. The style of advertising, though, as you're pointed out,
28:55
Speaker 1: still remained and it hasn't gone away since. So what
29:00
Speaker 1: we see here is a precedent set just like young
29:04
Speaker 1: Ralphie in a Christmas story, we learned the true cost
29:08
Speaker 1: of a free giveaway, and we've got a I don't know,
29:13
Speaker 1: there's so much to impact here, because it's like the
29:17
Speaker 1: story of Little Orphan Any is much more than what
29:21
Speaker 1: you find in the musical, especially when you get backstage
29:24
Speaker 1: and you see that she is a political metaphor and
29:27
Speaker 1: in a way she's a defire of gender stereotypes. She's
29:31
Speaker 1: also a corporate mascot through the puppet strings of the
29:35
Speaker 1: folks over oval team. You're always thinking about was trying
29:38
Speaker 1: to have a modern what if and we can probably
29:41
Speaker 1: find it better when. But my first thought is what
29:44
Speaker 1: if Wendy from Wendy's had like the most popular weekly
29:49
Speaker 1: show on HBO and a third of it, a third
29:53
Speaker 1: of the plot. Every every episode, no matter what, involved
29:57
Speaker 1: having to go to Wendy's and be knowledge bull of
30:00
Speaker 1: the newest stuff on the menu. Also, Wendy's released a
30:04
Speaker 1: mixtape and I'm gonna be honest with you, if you
30:06
Speaker 1: like hip hop, it slaps. I did not want it
30:10
Speaker 1: to be good. It is good. Wendy has been doing
30:12
Speaker 1: a pretty good job on their like social media game
30:15
Speaker 1: for quite some time. All a lot of those fast
30:17
Speaker 1: food brands have They even have like feuds from time
30:19
Speaker 1: to time. You gotta wonder if they are manufactured. But
30:23
Speaker 1: they Oh my god, I got I got Ovalteine as
30:27
Speaker 1: soon as we in the episode. I'm gonna listen to
30:29
Speaker 1: the Wendy's mixtape again rest in Greece also known as
30:33
Speaker 1: We beef in It dis track for I think McDonald's
30:38
Speaker 1: I can what to check it out? No, it's true,
30:40
Speaker 1: and I mean, you know, a lot of the cues
30:41
Speaker 1: as we know, um from marketing. Uh, the lessons learned,
30:46
Speaker 1: you know from this era. Uh, you can't be you
30:49
Speaker 1: can't overplay your hands when it comes to marketing, and
30:52
Speaker 1: I think Ovalteine realized that. But it's also still around.
30:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, they clearly did an okay job and pivoting
30:59
Speaker 1: and bobbing and weaving with the times, you know, and
31:01
Speaker 1: the comic strip itself went on until That's wild to me.
31:07
Speaker 1: But this what a what a strange what a strange ride.
31:11
Speaker 1: We also know that there is a new I believe
31:14
Speaker 1: there's a new Ani musical adaptation that's either out now
31:18
Speaker 1: or yeah have you have you guys seen it? Is
31:21
Speaker 1: it out yet? I thought commercial for it? Either last
31:24
Speaker 1: night or night before. I think it's coming up. I
31:25
Speaker 1: don't think it's okay, okay, Well, with that in mind,
31:29
Speaker 1: you know, everybody, you think the point of this two
31:33
Speaker 1: part series, as we draw to a close here is simply,
31:35
Speaker 1: this ridiculous history is brought to you by Ovaltine. Collect
31:40
Speaker 1: your Ovaltine box tops and send us stuff. I might
31:44
Speaker 1: have missed the larger point. I wish I wish we
31:46
Speaker 1: had prepared a little more. We could have given you
31:48
Speaker 1: some sort of cryptic message to the code. How do
31:50
Speaker 1: they do it? Wasn't it just like B three like
31:52
Speaker 1: bingo results, kind of like X seven, you know, like
31:58
Speaker 1: that would make sense because it would have to be
32:01
Speaker 1: something that you couldn't solve unless you had a codex
32:05
Speaker 1: with you, you know, because if they tried pick Latin,
32:08
Speaker 1: people would have broke it. If they tried some like
32:11
Speaker 1: um alphabet based cryptographical approach, somebody could have broken it.
32:15
Speaker 1: It would have to be something where you had just
32:18
Speaker 1: the It depended on the cipher that the audience possessed. Right,
32:22
Speaker 1: I'm trying to awaid getting two into the idea of cryptography,
32:27
Speaker 1: because that that itself is a whole another message, spaghetti
32:30
Speaker 1: whole another bag of badgers. But and there's so many,
32:33
Speaker 1: they made so many of them, ben that you can
32:36
Speaker 1: you can buy yourself one on eBay today for just
32:39
Speaker 1: around thirty five to fifty bucks. They are they are
32:43
Speaker 1: looking a little sheriff's badge almost. And the most pricey
32:47
Speaker 1: one that I see right up front is one that
32:49
Speaker 1: includes the actual mailer that it came in with, the
32:53
Speaker 1: actual envelope and the addresses on it in the stamps.
32:56
Speaker 1: That one fifty bucks. But in general, uh, and appears
33:00
Speaker 1: you can get you can get you one of these.
33:01
Speaker 1: And it is exactly as we describe. Ban's just a circle.
33:04
Speaker 1: That's the codex with like a ring of letters and
33:07
Speaker 1: then an interior ring with numbers, crazy crazy stuff, you know.
33:11
Speaker 1: And and just for if we could get a quick
33:13
Speaker 1: inflation calculator, let's do this. It's a reverse inflation calculator.
33:23
Speaker 1: Clips up. Wonderful, wonderful work, gentlemen. Uh, fifty dollars in
33:32
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six. By the way, it would be the
33:35
Speaker 1: equivalent of nine d and nine four dollars two cents today, right. Well,
33:42
Speaker 1: I think Uh, Daddy Warbucks would be proud. Daddy Warbucks
33:46
Speaker 1: would be proud. Yes, And we are as always super
33:49
Speaker 1: grateful and proud for the opportunity to explore these ridiculous
33:54
Speaker 1: stories with you today, folks. Also, this one was a
33:57
Speaker 1: two parter to us because it it's on so many
34:01
Speaker 1: themes that are applicable in the modern day. Dare I
34:05
Speaker 1: say it maybe to some parents who are feeling some
34:08
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of stress from their kids
34:11
Speaker 1: who need to have the thing. And it can't be
34:13
Speaker 1: a thing like the thing. It has to be that
34:16
Speaker 1: thing specifically that you know, it can't be It can't
34:19
Speaker 1: be a cuddle meat grover tickle meal. No, no, that's
34:23
Speaker 1: not gonna fly. Let us know what you're coveted childhood
34:26
Speaker 1: item was and do you like opal zane? Do you
34:28
Speaker 1: do you cream of wheat? That was another big one.
34:31
Speaker 1: Remember we wouldn't even get into it but around this time,
34:34
Speaker 1: or I guess a little later. That's when we got
34:36
Speaker 1: into things like the craft you know, television, you know
34:40
Speaker 1: hour or whatever, craft like the cool Gate Hour, cool
34:43
Speaker 1: Gate Hour exactly, you know. But all of those that
34:45
Speaker 1: they were always a single sponsor. A lot of them
34:47
Speaker 1: were done live, and they you know, constantly bounced back
34:51
Speaker 1: to whoever the spokesperson was and a separate little shooting
34:54
Speaker 1: scenario in the studio with like boxes of the thing
34:57
Speaker 1: behind them. So let us know if you're from that
34:59
Speaker 1: air what you remember fondly, because honestly, nowadays we just
35:03
Speaker 1: wouldn't put up with that. It's us a little much.
35:05
Speaker 1: Even though with the streaming and the podcasting, like we're
35:08
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, we are in a weird new space
35:12
Speaker 1: where advertising has kind of gotten clunky and weird again,
35:15
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, the same as it
35:18
Speaker 1: ever was, and it is sort of a renaissance in
35:21
Speaker 1: that way. You're right, because a new technology has entered
35:24
Speaker 1: the playing field. And what will the future bring Well,
35:27
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll be with you to explore it together. Thanks
35:30
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams, Thanks
35:34
Speaker 1: to Casey Pegram, Thanks to our own little orphan Annie
35:38
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister Or is he
35:40
Speaker 1: more of a Daddy warbox? You think he is quite
35:43
Speaker 1: bald um as his daddy warbox, But if you were
35:47
Speaker 1: a little orphan anti figure, I mean he's got his
35:49
Speaker 1: dog Timbolt, which would be his trusty companion for solving mysteries. Yeah,
35:53
Speaker 1: and and I'll say it, he has a lovely singing voice.
35:56
Speaker 1: He does, it's very true. I don't know. I feel
35:58
Speaker 1: like he's more of a sidekick though fair enough. Joe
36:01
Speaker 1: corn Tassel, Yeah, he's a drawing corant task completely. He
36:04
Speaker 1: would he would uh, he would wrinkle at at that
36:09
Speaker 1: second second fiddle status. But we'll see, we'll we'll get
36:12
Speaker 1: with his agents. We'll see what he we'll see what
36:13
Speaker 1: he prefers. Um. Also, it's always huge. Thanks to Alex
36:16
Speaker 1: Williams who composed our theme, Christopher Hastiods Neaves, Jeff Coates
36:19
Speaker 1: here in spirit and to you Ben. I'm not sure
36:23
Speaker 1: which of us is which, but between the two thos
36:24
Speaker 1: who make a hell of a team for solving you know,
36:27
Speaker 1: ridiculous history mysteries and you know, beating down the man.
36:31
Speaker 1: Let's do a hearty boys. Oh, we'll do a hardly boys,
36:34
Speaker 1: so we don't get super love it. We'll see you
36:37
Speaker 1: next time. Books. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
36:46
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
36:49
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.