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Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. I got a select for you.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is Chuck here of the Stuff You Should Know
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  Speaker 1: podcast introducing Rockettes Colon still kicking after all these years.
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  Speaker 1: This one came out January first, twenty nineteen, and it's
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  Speaker 1: about the Rocketts, and this is the time of year
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  Speaker 1: to talk about the Rockets. I learned a lot about
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  Speaker 1: this organization, organization, this dance troup and their storied history,
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  Speaker 1: and I think you're gonna like it, So give it
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a listen and please enjoy.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Happy New Year.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: You are too tall to be a rocket, aren't you?
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  Speaker 3: Just barely?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Jerry and I can be rockettes. That's a good than
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: you can't. No, it's true, which is a shame because
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: you have the.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: I do. Actually, I've got pretty decent legs, you know,
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  Speaker 3: at least my calves are all right.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: What no thighs.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: They're a little tree trunky for my taste. Oh yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I've got a bit of like a fertility idle thing
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  Speaker 3: going on, like up toward the hips and all that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's because of all those squats.
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  Speaker 3: I was not expecting to talk about this.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: About your gams. Yeah, oh well, I'll talk about my
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  Speaker 2: legs all day long.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's hear it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: They're shapely, Okay, they're they're not. I gain all my
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: weight between my waist and my chin. Aha, Like I don't.
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  Speaker 2: If you looked at my legs in my arms, you'd
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  Speaker 2: be like, thin guy weighs one hundred and sixty pounds
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and then the rest of me comes along to bust
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: that myth step aside, still have a nice little fanny,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: sure everybody knows that. Sorry listeners in the UK, Oh yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: that means something different over there, does It's just so
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: dainty and nice that a little little five year old kids.
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  Speaker 3: Can say fanny in the United States.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: It's just the Brits who are sick ghos.
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  Speaker 2: But this isn't about our gambs. This is about a
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  Speaker 2: dance troupe, A legendary dance troupe.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, about as legendary as a dance troup can possibly be.
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  Speaker 3: Are the Rockets?
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  Speaker 2: I think so.
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  Speaker 3: I just said that sentence like Yoda, can you do
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  Speaker 3: the voice no, no, no, not even going to try.
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  Speaker 2: But this totally surprised me digging into the research on
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: this to learn that the legendary Rockets of New York
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  Speaker 2: City and Radio City Music Hall are not from New
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  Speaker 2: York City.
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  Speaker 3: No, they're not. Where are they from? Chuck?
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  Speaker 2: Did you know this?
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  Speaker 3: I had no idea.
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  Speaker 2: Now, yeah, so shout out to Saint Louis.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. They were founded in the nineteen twenties, nineteen twenty
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  Speaker 3: five to be exacted in Saint Louis, Missouri as the Rockets,
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  Speaker 3: the Saint Louis Rockets, which I think they were trying
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  Speaker 3: to be a basketball team.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe Saint Louis Rockets.
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  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was a choreographer named Russell Markert, which is
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I kept wanting to say market but that is an
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  Speaker 2: r yep. And he founded them, like you said, in
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  Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, and he was he was inspired by
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  Speaker 2: a British dance troupe named the Tiller Girls, which was
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  Speaker 2: founded in the eighteen ninety four by John Tiller, and
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: it was kind of a similar idea. He saw these
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  Speaker 2: Tiller Girls and he was like, I want a high kicking, glamorous,
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  Speaker 2: theatrical dance troupe of my own. Yeah, so I'm gonna
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  Speaker 2: rip it off.
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  Speaker 3: He did, actually, so. John Tillers is widely acknowledged as
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  Speaker 3: the creator of what's called precision dance, which is where
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  Speaker 3: you have a bunch of dancers who were really highly trained,
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  Speaker 3: really athletic, and really precise in their movements that can
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  Speaker 3: move in such unison. Yeah, that you take a number,
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  Speaker 3: like a number of different dancers and they basically become
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  Speaker 3: one thing that can do things that an individual dancer
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  Speaker 3: can't do. That's precision dance technique. And John Tiller literally
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  Speaker 3: invented it with I think four ten year old girls
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  Speaker 3: in the eighteen nineties, and he came up with some
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  Speaker 3: further refinements to it, like when you put your hand
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  Speaker 3: around the waists of the people on either side of you,
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  Speaker 3: it kind of lends to the unity of the whole thing.
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  Speaker 3: And Russell Maker Markert saw this and was like, this
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  Speaker 3: is amazing. If I can get some American girls with
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  Speaker 3: longer legs to kick higher, it'll knock everybody's socks off.
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  Speaker 3: That's a quote, by the way.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a there's something too that that synchronicity
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  Speaker 2: of for me for movement and sound that just knocks
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  Speaker 2: me out every time when I go and see a choir,
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  Speaker 2: what's like one hundred people singing together and high kicking.
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  Speaker 2: Or a symphony, just the not only the sound, but
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  Speaker 2: the movement when you watch a symphony, that's a big
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  Speaker 2: part of it for me. Forget a choral symphony. Like
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  Speaker 2: I'm on the floor weeping if you take me to
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  Speaker 2: a choral symphony. But there's something about that precision of
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  Speaker 2: all these people together. It's just really like, I don't
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  Speaker 2: know what it is about it. I mean, it's a
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  Speaker 2: collective voice or collective movement, but it's that precision that
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  Speaker 2: really just gets me every time for sure.
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  Speaker 3: Well that's what the Rockets are known for. It's their
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  Speaker 3: trade is precision dance. They're as good as it gets
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  Speaker 3: with it. Although the Tailor girls are definitely still around.
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  Speaker 3: They still have Christmas specials themselves and they're doing their
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  Speaker 3: thing for sure. So it's it's not just an offhand
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  Speaker 3: thing to say the Rockets are as good as it comes,
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  Speaker 3: as good as they come in precision dance, because the
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  Speaker 3: Tiller girls would probably say I would dispute that statement, but.
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  Speaker 2: They would say it with a British accent.
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  Speaker 3: Right, I dispute that statement.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: So they were not as tall. Back then, the original
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  Speaker 2: height requirements were between five to two and five six
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  Speaker 2: and a half. And now they went, we'll take your
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  Speaker 2: tallest dancer and make them our shortest dancer, because I
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  Speaker 2: guess it's just I don't know. I'm not sure why
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  Speaker 2: they did that. But now it's between five six and
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  Speaker 2: five ten and a half. And it is not because
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  Speaker 2: they want to exclude people or any or discriminate against
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  Speaker 2: people who are too tall or they feel too short,
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  Speaker 2: but so they can just all look it's an optical illusion,
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  Speaker 2: so they can all look the same height because they
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  Speaker 2: take that five foot ten and a half inch dancer,
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  Speaker 2: although they don't have to be that tall, but they
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  Speaker 2: take whoever their tallest. Answer is put her right in
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  Speaker 2: the middle and then just stagger it out from there
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  Speaker 2: and in the end everyone looks. It's weird. Everyone looks
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  Speaker 2: to be the same height even though they're not.
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  Speaker 3: I don't understand how this works. It's just I saw
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  Speaker 3: so many different places that I'm convinced that it does work.
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  Speaker 3: I just don't get the illusion of it. How it works.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think over four inches and thirty six women,
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  Speaker 2: it's just so minute of differences as you scale down
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  Speaker 2: that it would take I guess an extraordinary human to
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  Speaker 2: be like that woman is an inch and a half
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  Speaker 2: taller than the one five people away from her, right,
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  Speaker 2: you know.
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  Speaker 3: I got you. Yeah, I guess that's true.
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  Speaker 2: So you're just a normal person, is what I'm saying. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you should feel good about that. I fall for that
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  Speaker 2: optical illusion every time. Yeah, everybody should. So they started
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  Speaker 2: with the Missouri Rockets with just sixteen women, and like
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  Speaker 2: I said, now they have thirty six. And they debuted
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  Speaker 2: in Saint Louis, but then went to New York to
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: perform Rain or Shine on Broadway. And that is where
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  Speaker 2: a man named sl Roxy that was his nickname, Rothefel,
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  Speaker 2: which is an interesting name. That's where he saw them
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  Speaker 2: and said, hey, I gotta get in on this. This
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  Speaker 2: is amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So Russell Mamarkert took the idea from John Tiller,
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  Speaker 3: and Roxy Rothafel said, Hey, I want in on this.
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  Speaker 3: Cham So I'm going to grab a few of these
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  Speaker 3: dancers from Saint Louis and bring them over to New
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  Speaker 3: York City and we're going to have him start dancing there. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: And I know, just the place for him. There's this
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  Speaker 3: new venue that's opening up in nineteen thirty two, and
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  Speaker 3: they're going to call it the Radio City Music Hall,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm going to make sure that these dancers are
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  Speaker 3: a to perform and we're going to call them the Roxyets.
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  Speaker 3: How about that?
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  Speaker 2: Huh huh because of his nickname.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And Markert said, that's fine, just make sure you
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  Speaker 3: pay me some money for it.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, And he did get paid and got paid until
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  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. It's hard to believe, but he worked
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  Speaker 2: for the Rockets or with the Rockets from nineteen thirty
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  Speaker 2: two to or I guess even previous in Saint Louis.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, nineteen twenty five, all the way.
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  Speaker 2: Until nineteen seventy one.
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  Speaker 3: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: Really amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is pretty amazing. That's a pretty long career.
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  Speaker 3: So they opened Radio City Music Hall. I think they
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  Speaker 3: were part of a seventeen group act and that was
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  Speaker 3: like such a hot ticket, something like one hundred thousand
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  Speaker 3: people wanted in. But it's a sixty two hundred seat theater,
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  Speaker 3: which I think it still remains the nation's largest indoor venue,
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  Speaker 3: which is really saying something because I guess it'd just
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  Speaker 3: be a like a theatrical venue, because obviously.
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  Speaker 2: The largest indoor venue sports venues.
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  Speaker 3: Have it beat by quite a bit.
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  Speaker 2: But oh, theatrical, Okay, I got you.
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  Speaker 3: It has to be. Yeah, it's either movie or theatrical
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  Speaker 3: or something. But it's the largest venue of its kind
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  Speaker 3: in the United States from what I see.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and for many years they I mean they had
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  Speaker 2: specials every now and then, but it was sort of
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  Speaker 2: just a movie theater.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and here's the thing, you could go see the movies.
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  Speaker 3: I think especially it started to take off in the fifties.
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  Speaker 3: Like before, they would have premieres for movies and the
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  Speaker 3: Rockets would like perform at the premiere. And then at
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  Speaker 3: some point, I don't know if it was Russell Markert
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  Speaker 3: or Roxy Rothafeller or somebody said, well, why just do
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: this once. How about every time somebody comes to see
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: a movie at the Radio City Music Hall, We'll have
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  Speaker 3: the Rockets perform before the movie.
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  Speaker 2: Can you imagine that?
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  Speaker 3: It would be pretty cool? I mean, like imagine seeing
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  Speaker 3: that and then being like, okay, now for the movie.
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  Speaker 3: It's just it'd be a different experience for sure. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: But it was rough on the Rockets because not all
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: the movies were successes, so they would change the rockets
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  Speaker 3: show for each movie. So if a movie came along
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  Speaker 3: and it was just a terrible flop, this whole choreographed
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: routine that they'd learned would be out the door in
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  Speaker 3: two days, and now all of a sudden they had
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: to learn a new one quick because there was a
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: new movie coming in to replace that one.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, so they did a different routine for each film.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, interesting, Yeah, And sometimes they would have to learn
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: it in a matter of hours, like around midnight before
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  Speaker 3: the next day's performances.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if it was tied to the film.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes, I think, but not all the time. I think
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  Speaker 3: it was. I think it was in some cases, but
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  Speaker 3: I think more than anything, they would change the routine
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  Speaker 3: just because the people coming to see a different film
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  Speaker 3: would want to see a different routine.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I gotcha, Yeah, that makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So in the nineteen forties they were one of the
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: first groups to sign up for the United Service Organization
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: and go and perform for the troops. And in the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifties is when things really started to kind of
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: take their toll. Like they were performing sometimes up to
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: five times a day, and so they said they built
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: a dormitory there, which you know, they could live in.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I don't think they were required to, but it really
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: was to accommodate the fact that they were working almost
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: around the clock rather because learning these new routines, like
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: you said, and then performing up the five times a
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: day really grueling stuff.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: It was basically the prototype for Google. Yeah, just making
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: it so your employees didn't have to leave.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Oh interesting, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, just go
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: sleep in your pod.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: So the Rockets their fame started to grow pretty quickly,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: and they made like a few steps I feel free
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: of the pun along the way that kind of cemented
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: them as as much a piece of America as apple
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: pie or baseball or moms or what have you. So
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: the fifties were also big for the Rockets too, because
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving they prayed in nineteen fifty seven.
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  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, that was the big move.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they went from just a group that you
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: either had to go to New York or go off
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: to war to see to. While they're in my living
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  Speaker 3: room now, these girls are high kicking on my television
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  Speaker 3: and I'm just loving life, all right.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So let's take a break to nineteen fifties. Good times
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  Speaker 2: are ahead, and then dark times come in the seventies
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: because it's New York City in the seventies and everything
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: was kind of awful then. So we'll be back right
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: after this.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Hey, before we get started to check, I want
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: to say we put on a pretty good stage show ourselves.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: We've been known to and we've got some coming up,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: you know, plug plug.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no high kicking involved.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: There could be if people demanded it. I would be
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: willing to do a little high kicking.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So are we talking about some shows.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do that real quick, all right.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So we're going out west for our annual sojourn in
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: January where we go to Seattle, we go to Portland,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and then we end up at SF sketch Fest like
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: we always do in mid January.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've got an End of the World live
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: show on Friday sketch Fest, and you have a movie
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Crush on Saturday at sketch Fest, right.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing a matinee show at one o'clock on Saturday,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: January nineteenth, with Busy Phillips as my guest.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Nice, and my show is Friday the eighteenth, at Cafe
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Do Nord and I am my own guest, fine solo.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: And then I have another one in Brooklyn on the
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: twenty fourth at the Bellhouse too.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Oh I thought you already did that one now huh.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: It got postponed to January twenty fourth. Oh great, yes,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: so you haven't missed it. There's still time for you
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: to come.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: So that is our little plug, how about that?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And of course our big stuff you should know
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: show is at the Castro on what is that Thursday night?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: That is Thursday the seventeenth.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so come see us at the More in Seattle,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Revolution Hall in Portland, at the Castro in San Francisco. Yeah,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: check out. Our individual little shows are cute little individual shows.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: And there's plenty of information on SYSK live.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: That's right. So now it's the seventies. New York is
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: uh is suffering? Yehih is crazy. When you look at
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: pictures of New York City in the seventies and early eighties,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: even just hard to believe how bad things were there.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty rough. And actually it's funny, like
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: you can thank Rudolph Giuliani for I guess cleaning up
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: the town. If you want to call it that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, have you ever heard that? What to thank Rudolph
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Giuliani for cleaning up the town?
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Uh? Huh uh sure, okay.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Good for him. So I saw him in the park
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: one day.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: You did, what was he doing talking to a duck?
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: No, he was. He was doing like a photo op.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: But I had friends in from uh from another country even,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I think, and I said, hey, guys, that's the Mayor
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: of New York over there, and they were like, oh,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: that's nice. I went, it's kind of a big deal
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: to just walk around and see the Mayor of.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: New York did they say, but they have a chalk.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I think they're Australian.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Actually, oh that was my Australian impression.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Oh that was good.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Then, yeah, thank you, that's pretty that's a great story, Chuck.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fine. But for them, they didn't understand fully
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: that the mayor of New York City is is it's
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: quite a big deal to see him just out and
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: about in the city.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I have a similar story. I was watching one of
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the first few seasons of Law and Order on my
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: television one day, and there was the Mayor of New
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: York City, ruly Rudy Giuliani. Interesting, but I knew it
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: was a big, a big deal.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I got another story. Okay, did you know in the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor that they comped in Bruce
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Willis's John McClain character from Diehard in one hospital scene.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: How just digitally? That's an anachronism. I know that doesn't
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: make any sense. Did they really do that?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can look it up Pearl Harbor John McLain
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And there's like screenshots of John McLain and his white
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: tank top just briefly for a blip in the background
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of one of the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor. It's
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: so weird.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: So you know, there's a nude woman in the window
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: of one of the buildings that the rescuers fly by.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Really the Disney movie from the sixties.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all these weird movie easter eggs just board editors.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I guess that's exactly what it hits because we're juvenile.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Editors, all right. So it's the nineteen seventies in New York.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: None of this has happened yet that we're talking about.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: The rescuers did.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: The rescuers did, but there was no Diehard, there was
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: no Pearl Harbor. Movie except for Tora Toro, Torah, But
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: no bad Pearl Harbor movie. Okay, No Rudy Giuliani. He
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: was alive, sure, but he was not in the mayor
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: of New York City in the nineteen seventies.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Not as far as we know. Who was at that
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: was Ed Koch, he was the eighties, I think was
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: he maybe late seventies.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: All right, we'll get that straightened out. Okay, But New
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: York City is going down the toilet, including, believe it
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: or not, the Great Radio City Music Hall, much like
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta, was facing shut
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: down and demolition potentially.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a rough transition from some of those
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: old movie palaces after people stopped well going to movie
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: palaces and moved out to the suburbs. A lot of
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: those beautiful places were left out in the cold, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: some of them didn't well, a lot of them didn't
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: make it, but some of them almost didn't make it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Like you said, the Fox and Radio City, and apparently
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: it was going to be turned into a parking lot.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: And Belushi himself got onto the news desk at Saturday
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Night Live and was railing against the demise of radio
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: City Music Hall, and the Roquettes too had said hey, hey, hey, hey,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: this is our home. This is an iconic place. Let
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: us help go raise awareness and funds to save this place.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: And they did. They were successful. They got it put
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: on the National Historic Register of Historic Places and it
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: has a landmark designation, not just the building. There's twelve
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: hundred buildings in New York with the landmark designation, but
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: only one hundred and ten interiors have the landmark designation,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: and Radio City Music Hall is one of them, which
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: means that its interior is so amazingly beautiful that it
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: is a protected landmark in the United States.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never been in there.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I haven't either.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I've been to Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. That's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: on the list for sure. But it's interesting because they
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: tried to Their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: movie bookings, like they were to be the only theater
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: in town that would be showing a particular movie, so
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: that limits their pool immediately, and then they really preferred
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: g rated movies. They had really strict screening criteria, so
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: that just it narrowed down their movie pool so small
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that they would go weeks and weeks at a time
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: where nothing happened there.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they would just shut down because again, remember
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: like the Rockets are a dance troupe that you would
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: see before you saw a movie. So if they're not
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: showing movies, they're not showing the Rockets. And at this
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: time in the seventies, the Rockets said, Okay, we're our
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: talent is being wasted here. At least let us go
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: take the show on the road while you guys are
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: sitting around waiting for another movie to come along. And
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: they actually they gained that right because their union dancers.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: We should say, we'll get into that a little more later,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: but they managed to get the right to take the
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: show on the road and they really started to make
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: a name for themselves in the seventies in places like
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Tahoe and Vegas. Apparently made a huge fan out of
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Junior, who would come see the same show
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: like night after night when they play in Vegas or
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by the Rockets.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I love that for sure, Little Sammy, what a great guy.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: We should do a show on him.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Apparently he also, oh yeah, I'm down with that. He
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: also surprised them on stage once by joe them on
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: stage for a dance number, which apparently he knew because
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: he'd seen the show so many times. Wow, Which that's
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: a pretty sammy thing to do in Las Vegas.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: High kicking, Well, his his kicks weren't so high.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Run out on stage, unbidden, uninvited.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: He's a little guy, he was. He's the littlest rocket.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I imagine Wow that he was too. So they're doing
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: their show on the road here and there, they're making
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: ends meet. Radio City is struggling, even though it was
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: designated as a landmark. The eighties were not super kind
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: to Radio City either. They very famously appeared at the
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: halftime show of the Super Bowl in eighty eight. They're
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: trying to change with the times. They're dancing it in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: the nineties at different places, and they're always doing their
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Christmas deal throughout all this after you know, they started
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: doing that. And what was that fifty seven two? Oh
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: they did the Macy's Prayed in thirty two.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm sorry, I thought you meant the Christmas Spectacular. Yeah,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Macy's Prayed was the Thanksgiving Parade was fifty seven.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So they've got their their holiday stuff, their Easter specials,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: their Christmas specials. They're dancing inaugurations for George W. Bush.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, they came under fire for dancing at Trump's inauguration.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Well, the dance troupe almost was split asunder over whether
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: they wanted to do that or not.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big deal.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: It was a huge deal actually, And they had revived
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: the Easter Extravaganza they renamed it the New York Spring
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Spectacular the year before, and they said they took a
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: year off and I don't think they ever went back
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: to it because of all the controversy over twenty sixteen.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: In the inauguration, it was just such an unusual experience
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: for the Rockets, like they're just like America personified, and
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: for there to be a huge national conversation about, you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: them performing at an inauguration. It was a big deal
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: for the organization for sure, especially for the dancers who
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: are like career rockets.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, should we talk a little bit about just
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: being a rocket?
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I think we should, man, because we've done it. We have.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: I mean there was a brief time although we've basically
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: entered Dinah Lohan territory now who's that Lindsay Lohan's mom.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: She very famously lied about being a rock cat. Oh
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: really Yeah, she said that she has a background in
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: show business. She was a rocket for a while, and
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: some journalists went and dug around and they found out
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: that she was definitely They had no record whatsoever of
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: her under any name, maiden or married, ever being a
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: rock cat.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: It's always amazing to me when very provable or disprovable
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: public lies are told by people like that, or like
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: politicians who say that, you know, like they've fought in
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: a war when they didn't, like that's happened. Yeah, It's
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: just I don't know why people say things like that.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, we kind of can go check that
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: really easily.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but even without like you know, the check ability
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: of it, to just like, you know, lie in an
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: interview to puff yourself up, I guess it's yeah, Like
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: I don't understand the psychology of it. Is it just
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: because you don't feel like you're given the interviewer enough
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: of what they need or do they did they lay
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: some sort of trick that led you into it, or
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I don't understand it either.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder if people start to believe these lies.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Like if you make up a story about yourself and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: you just stick with it for so long, it's weird.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Psychology, Yes, human psychology is indeed quite weird.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Did you have a web show called Psychology is Weird?
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Nuts?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Psychology is nuts?
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Well, little short lived video thing.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go check that out. Everyone. Oh, we'll take a break.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Stop I am, We're back.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, So we were gonna tell everyone about our experience
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: as rockets because we're Dinah Lohan.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So here's the thing. If you're a rocket and you've
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: been doing this for ten years, you're a pretty long
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: lived rocket. Although I think I saw one woman who
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: is a rocket, And if I'm talking weird all of
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: a sudden, it's because I am stalling everybody looking for
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: her name and I'm not finding it. But I think
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: it's Lindsay Howe. I'm just positive her name's Lindsay Howe.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I believe she has been a rocket for fourteen years.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: That's a long time. That's a very long time to
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: be a rocket because, as you will see learn, being
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: a roquette is extremely difficult and very demanding, and inside
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: of show business and out they're widely seen as probably
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: some of the best professional dancers in the business and
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: certainly some of the most disciplined professional dancers in the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: business as well. But it's really hard to do for
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: a really long time. And one of the main reasons
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: why is because their work schedule is extremely grueling. But
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: with Lindsey Howe, she would make the same amount of
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: money that a first year roquette would make because they're
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: all paid the same, they work the same hours, they
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: do the same work. Some of them are kind of
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: promoted as like the faces of the Rockets the company.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: I think the Madison Square Garden company that owns Radio
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: City Music Hall, and the Roquettes are really protective of
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: their image and like they aren't free to just kind
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: of talk to the media whatever. There's some that are
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: kind of like you and you and you you're the Rockets,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: hear the face of the Rockets. But other than that,
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: everyone does the same amount of work, same amount of hours,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: same amount of pay. And one of the reasons they
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: do that is because the point of the Rockets is
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: not to have standouts. It's not like other dance troops
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: or other Broadway troops or anything like that. There's not
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: meant to be stars. The rockets are the star and
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: they're meant to be one single unit that moves and
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: works and lives together.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're they're unionized, so they make there. They
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: make most of their money over the holiday season. So
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: they walk out after a couple of months with about
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: forty grand in their pocket, which isn't bad, you know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: for a couple of months work. But it is, like
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: you said, super grueling. If you want to become a rocket,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: you're not required to, but there is something called the
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Rocket Summer Intensive Dance Program where you can go, you
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: can enroll, you can spend six hours a day learning,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: learning everything over the course of a week, all the choreography,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: how to get in that shape, stay in that shape,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: how to prevent injuries, and sort of the business of
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: it all. And like I said, you don't have to
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: do that, but they do place a lot of Rockets
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: if you attend that intensive dance program.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Well some I saw out of a thousand that have
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: taken it, sixty have gone on to actually become rockets. Yeah,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: because it's very tough to become a rocket too.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I get the feeling that has
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: less to do with the program than just how hard
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: it is to make that cut.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Right right exactly.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: So not only do you have to be fit enough
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to kick those famous kicks up to twelve hundred times
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: a day through all these shows, but there's one there's
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: one clothing change. You got to do all these costume changes,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: but there's one in particular in between the Parade of
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: the Wooden Soldiers in New York at Christmas that you
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: have to be complete changed out in seventy eight seconds.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Seventy eight seconds, And these costumes are not like super
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: easy to take off, the Wooden Soldier one in particular
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: pretty complex, So seventy eight seconds probably goes by extremely fast.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's thirty six rockettes total performing on stage,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: but there are eighty certified roquettes total. Overall. You have
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: a morning cast and afternoon cast, and then you have
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: for each of those shows, you have four swings or
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: extras per so like if someone's like I just twisted
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: my ankle, I can't do this, they have four women
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: waiting in the wings for each of those morning and
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: afternoon shows.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the thing is, though, is they're working six
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: days a week, or the rockettes are performing six days
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: a week. If you have two casts rather than all
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: work both casts six days a week. They'll alternate to
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: give one another a day off, and they'll do that
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: on days sometimes where there's four performances in a day,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: which means that if you are a rocket, there are
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: days and I've seen also sometimes they're back to back
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: days where you're doing four performances in a single day,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: four ninety minute performances. And that's when those twelve hundred
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: kicks that you mentioned, Chuck comes in, because some of
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: those shows have three hundred high kicks, and we're talking
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: eye level kicks, and if you do four of them
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: in a day, you've just kicked at eye level twelve
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: hundred times in a day. And from some of the
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: articles I've read, that is about as much as your
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: body can possibly take.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they all in the interviews I saw.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: There was that great New York Times article where they
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: really sort of dive into a day in the life
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: of a rocket during the holiday season, and they all
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: kind of are like, there's no way to prepare your
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: body for this, Like we are in the best shape
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: that a dancer can be in, and it just destroys
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: us to the point where, like one of said that
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: just taking their stockings off at the end of the
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: night is laborious, and you know, with their commute, depending
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: on where they come from, some of them are awake
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: and either commuting or rehearsing or performing twenty hours in
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a day, just grueling, grueling stuff. But across the board,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: they also all say that it's the only job that
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: they want. It is a great sorority and sisterhood and
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: an honor to be one of these. Over the years,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: three thousand women who have made that cut, right, you know,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: never we're like, well, it's really not worth it in
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: the end.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, the I mean, at least the ones who
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: are allowed to speak to the media certainly have a
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: lot of positive things to say about being a Rocket
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: and like how familial it is and how you're just
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: hanging out with your best friends. And it is a
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: great gig for a dancer, especially as one of these
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: articles pointed out, if you're a dancer who doesn't sing.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a rare thing to get that kind of
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a gig. I think it's one of the few for
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: jazz and tap banters where singing's not involved.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: But also not just like a good gig, a good
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: paying gig too, like forty grand for a couple of
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: months of performances. A lot of the Roquets they don't
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: live in New York. They'll come live in New York
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: during the season when they need to rehearse and then
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: do the Christmas spectacular, and then they go home, so
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: they might live in New York from September to the
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: end of December, and then they go back home. And
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: wherever home is, forty grand probably goes a lot further
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: than it does in New York, unless they live in
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: San Francisco, in which case it is probably it goes
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: even faster. But it's a really good paying gig. They
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: also have benefits because their union and their contract workers,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: they have year round benefits and forty gran so they
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: can go work as pilates, instructors, as nutritionists, as all
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the other stuff that they do during the year normally,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: and then they come back and they they're a rocket.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: But something I thought was pretty cool was even if
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: you're say a tenth year rocket, you get invited back,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: like once you're a roquette, you're in as a roquette,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: but you still have to audition in April like everybody else. Yeah,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: so you audition in April and if you make the cut,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: you start to go get in shape, and then rehearsals
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: I think start in September, and rehearsals are six hours,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: six days a week for basically the six weeks leading
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: up to the performances, which run from mid November till
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: I saw December thirty first. I also saw tickets available
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: for a January first show, so I don't know if
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: they extended it or not.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's funny like it's forty grand sounds
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: like a lot of money over a couple of months,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and it is. But when you break it down per show,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: it it breaks down to about one hundred and thirty
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: five bucks a show. Yeah, which all of a sudden,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like great money.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: No, but that's what you make as a standard cast
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: member for a Broadway Union day answer, yeah, or actor
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: or variety performer I think is the union they're part of.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: So no, it doesn't seem like much. But that's another
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: reason why the Roquet gig is so good. You get
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: overtime on those days when you do a third and
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: fourth show, you're getting overtime pay, and there's multiple shows
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: on multiple days, so you can I mean another actor
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: at a different gig, working the same days over the
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: same period would not make that amount of money, that
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: forty grand, because they wouldn't have any overtime, they wouldn't
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: have that many shows.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't think anyone like dreams of going
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: to Broadway to become rich and wealthy, like part of
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the allure Broadway as you're with the best of the best.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And you can say I danced, or I saying or
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: I acted.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: On Broadway with Brian Cranston.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I saw him on Broadway.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I saw Michael McKeon on Broadway. Oh yeah, an accomplice.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: The audience was the accomplice. That was the big twist.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Oh well, you just ruined that one.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Wasn't good? It was great. It was one of the
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: greatest stage performances I've ever seen. I saw Lenny live
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: on stage.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Derek Saint Hubbins.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is before I knew him as anything but Lenny.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I was like eight.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, so this is a while ago. Cranston is in
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: something new on Broadway now, I think too. The network, right,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I want to see that. Sure, I bet
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: that's good.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: I saw that it was described as get this, Chuck,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: get ready for this? Oh boy, electrifying.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Really, the Broadway show described as electrifying.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: His performance was electrifying.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever heard that word used for
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: the theater. So another thing though about the Rockets. Even
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: though they do make most of their money over those
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: couple of months and then they have the rest of
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: the year or two and in a lot of cases
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: be like a dance instructor or something like that, or
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: a fitness instructor, they increasingly are working more and more
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: and more months out of the year, whether it's as
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: ambassadors for the Rockets or doing like video things for YouTube.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: They are increasingly called on to do other things.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot. So I what is the woman who
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: came along as the league choreographer and director and really
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: kind of punched it up even further. Her name is
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Linda Haberman, and she took over I think in like
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: the mid two thousands, maybe two thousand and eight, and
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: she kind of brought like this whole new not new,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: it's not a whole new thing. She just kind of
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: she made it a little more pro feminist, a little
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: more like you go girl kind of vibe to the
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Rockets than they had before they were seen, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: rehearsing in the rehearsal gear rather than like full costume,
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: and it was just kind of like the intent I
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: get was to make them more people. Yes, yes, because
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: one of the great criticisms of the Rockets is that
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: they're nothing but like teeth and legs, just a bunch
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: of women, yeah, out there kicking, like forming one large
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: uber woman who can kick her legs amazingly high and
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: has like the whitest, gleamingest teeth ever you've ever seen,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: and that it was really kind of just objectification of
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: women like to like by definition. And Linda Hammerman like
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: really kind of took that and tried to unravel it
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: quite a bit, and she also took the show. So
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: we should talk a little bit about the show. It's
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: a depending on who you are, it's either like just
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: beloved traditional Americana, KITCHI offensively sexists. Who knows, but I
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: think the first two are kind of the predominant views
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: of it. It's kitchen and sweet, or it's it's you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: endearing Americana, and Linda Haman kind of took that and
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: tried to punch it up into the twenty first century
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: a little more, and there's like way more visual effects
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: than there were before. There's like a three D component.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I think to this year's show or recent year shows
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: like the Whole The whole theme is like a girl
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: wants a video game and her mom is kind of
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: showing her. You know why, that's not so great because
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: it's a violent video game. There's there's a lot of
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: kind of updating that's that the Rockets have undergone in
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: the last few years. And that was largely from what
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I understand Linda Haberman's doing.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: I think she was the one that digitally inserted John
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: McLean from Diehard.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: She was he swoops in in the New York Follies section.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Now, I'm glad they updated things because this was a
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: prime case of like a belooved American tradition that could
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: use some refreshing. And you can't highlight them as humans
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: and individuals and still you can have both, you know,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: and you can still have that desired effect of uniformity
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: and precision that they're known for, you know, right exactly,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: But they don't have to be just like faceless and nameless,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Now, And I read a few like feminist critiques of
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the Rockets, and they seem to have been kind of outdated.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Like I really feel like Linda Haberman she did a
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: good job at like Tate. Yeah, she kind of took
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: those those critiques and changed them in a lot of ways.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: One of the other criticisms is that it wasn't until
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five that the Rockets are their first woman
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: of color as a member of their cast, of their troop.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: The first woman of color was a Japanese woman named
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Setsuko Mara Hashi, and in nineteen eighty five she joined.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight, the first African American woman joined.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning, apparently it
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: was Mark Markert who was like, no, from all I saw,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: it had nothing to do with racism. It was the
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: idea that it was going to disrupt the visual unity
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: of the dance line if there were, you know, differing
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: skin colors in this dance line. And apparently he was
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: so nutso about it, like you would get in trouble
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: if you had a son tan like that. That's how
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: he wanted everything to be homogenous in Unison. Well, regardless
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: in the twenty first century. In the late twentieth century,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: that sentiment didn't hold up. And I guess shortly after
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: he died is when they started adding women of color
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: more to the Rockets troop.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they saw people of color in that
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: same dance line and they went, oh, it's still awesome
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: and synchronized and looks great exactly, and from his grave
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: he went no.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: He started rolling around in it.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Oh goodness.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: So you haven't seen a Rocket's Christmas Spectacular.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Huh you mean live in person? Yeah?
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: I have not. I have not either. Are we going
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: to go now?
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I think we should. I want to know if any
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Rockets listen to the show. Yeah, that would make me
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: super super happy.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: It would for me as well.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And the only other small tid bet I have is
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: they have microphones in their heels of their shoes.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: I saw that too. They used to They used to
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: play recordings of their tapping, right.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, and that does not surprise me.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they figured out how to do the
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: actual like broadcast the actual tamping. So we're going to
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: go one day, Chuck, We're going to go see the
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Christmas Spectacular. We're going to go through the live Nativity
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: soldier march where they fall down like a domino and
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: slow motion. It's pretty amazing stuff. And if you want
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: to know more about the Rockets, then go to Radio
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: City Music Hall and find them there.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: How about that that sounds great?
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Well? Since I said that, then it's time for a
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: listener mail.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I'm calling this. I was a search and rescue victim volunteer.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: So this guy, his dad. I'm gonna summarize at the
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: beginning of it because it's kind of long, but his
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: dad lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: a member of the local SAAR team, And so they
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: were like, we need someone to play the victim here,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: and he was like, I'll do it. This guy's son.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: So here's what happened. He set off into the heavily
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: wooded area. He said, I did everything I could to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: think of to try and fool the dog in the handler.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I ran in circles, went back over my own trail.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I threw off my hat. I even found some garbage
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: and rolled around in it to mask my scent. Once
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I had done everything I could think of to try
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: and fool the dog and handler that would be tracking me.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I found a nice comfy spot up in a bush
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: on a hill where I could just watch the dog
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: in the handler try and track me. I thought I
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: had done a pretty good job, but once I called
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the handler and let him know I was in position,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: was all over very quickly. I sat back, and everyone
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: was shocked to watch the dog basically retrace my trail
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: step by step, every move I made, all those circles,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: finding my hat, even that I'd thrown off, even getting
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: into that pile of garbage that I'd rolled around in.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I love that this dog is just basically making a
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: fool of poor Ryan up there in the mountains, so
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: he said. Needless to say, the dog found me in
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: short order. Gave him lots of praise for the great
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: job he had done. Thankfully, I was never in any
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: real danger, so my experience was a lot more enjoyable,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: obviously than when people are in real need of search
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: and rescue.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Dog.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Thanks for the great episodes, guys, keep me company on
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: overnight shifts and make it all go by quicker. So
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: if you read this on the show, can I get
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: a shout out to my girlfriend Taren. She would be
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: thrilled to hear her name get called out on the show.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: I think that just happened.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Yep, so that is from Ryan. I like the gusto
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: that Ryan put into trying to.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Fool this dog rolling in garbage, and I.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Equally love that this dog was like whatever. So thank
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: you Ryan, thank you Taran.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: For listening, and thank you to the star dog, sure Scruffy.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: If you want to get in touch of this, you
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: can go to our website, stuff youshould Know dot com.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: You can find all of our social links there, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: you can send an email to Chuck jerrym Me at
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,