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Nickelodeon:The Best of Slimes · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and that makes this a good
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: old-fashioned Stuff You Should Know edition.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: That's right. And unfortunately, we have to issue a COA
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for this one.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, and it is pretty unfortunate for sure.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you see the title Nickelodeon and you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: think just a rip-roaring good time and nostalgia fest. And
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it is that, but we kind of tell the whole
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: story of Nickelodeon, which very sadly includes some sexual abuse.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And so trigger warning for people in general and definitely
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: for parents listening with kids.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: There you go. Well done. We should just edit that
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: as a clip and anytime we have a COA, just
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: pop that in. Yeah, great. All right. So let's get
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: to the fun nostalgia part first, at least, right?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So Nickelodeon was probably a little after your wheelhouse, right?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Were you always a little too old for Nickelodeon? Or
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: was there ever a Venn diagram with you and Nickelodeon
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: and happiness in the middle?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: There's a brief time of a little bit of Nickelodeon
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: stuff for me, but I was just on the edge
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of being a little too old. But some of the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: stuff Like, I definitely remember You Can't Do That on
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: television and a little bit of Double Dare.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, I mean, this was right in the middle
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of your wheelhouse, though, I bet.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I watched this all the time.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I watched Pinwheel. I watched, like you said, You Can't
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Do That on television, Double Dare. What else did I watch?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget. Oh, wow. I mean, just basically
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: anything they would put on. Today's special. I was huge
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: into today's special. Anything they would put on, I would
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: definitely watch. And I loved it. All.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I love it. Well, this one's for you, baby.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, man. One thing I did not realize, though,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is that Nickelodeon started in my home state of Ohio.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty selective about when I claim Ohio is my
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: home state.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: And I know you love to rub it in that
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: you're an Atlanta native and it's just, you know, I'm
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: a newbie, a carpetbagger. But at any rate, that's where
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Nickelodeon started, actually, in Columbus, Ohio, as part of like
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: this test that Warner Cable did. Pretty forward thinking test
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: in 1977 where they're like, hey, you know, everybody watches
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: TV with antennas. We're going to launch the first cable
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: network in the United States, if not the world. Right.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was called Warner Cable. They opened that studio
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: in Columbus, like you said, and they had 30 channels
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: at first. I guess you pronounce it cube, huh?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm going with.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Q-U-B-E. And you could pay $ 10 a month and, you know,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Depending on what you were into, you could get shows
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: like Flippo's Magic Cars. They had an early show, kind
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of preceded Star Search even, I think, called Talent Search.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was wondering if Star Search grew out
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of Talent Search, and I could find no correlation.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't either. So we give that rumor two
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and a half stars.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Very nice.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I used to love Star Search.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I never really watched it that much, but I do
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: know that Rosie O'Donnell got her start there. Oh, really? Mm-hmm.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, she killed.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I was a big fan.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: She won like 15 weeks in a row or something
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Was she, well, it had adult stuff too, or was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it just kids?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, her sets were filthy.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Right. So yeah, they had talent search, but the cable
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: system had a gimmick at first, which was a remote
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: control that was wired to the cable box, I guess,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that let you interact with the shows. And it didn't
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: work out. I think they realized that that, gimmick, like
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: didn't fully work. Uh, they also had other financial difficulties and, um,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I think it launched in 77 when it was done
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: by 84, but, um, one of the channels, which was
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: pinwheel or C3, uh, lived on, it was created by
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a woman named Vivian Horner, uh, who came from the TV,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the great TV show, the electric company. Yeah. And it
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: was commercial free programming for preschool kids.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: 20 or no, 12 hours a day of it, 14
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: hours a day on weekends. And like you said, commercial free.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And that was the network, right? And Pinwheel also had
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: an eponymous show called Pinwheel, which I also watched a lot.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Now, what was that?
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was a show where live human actors
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: interacted with puppets. And the most memorable character for me
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: was Gary Gnu.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that where that came from?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no Gnu's. Wait, there's no Ganoos, like good
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Ganoos with Gary Ganoo.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I've heard Gary Ganoo. I had no idea what the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: origin was.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: So any word that started with N, he said good,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: like he added that G at the very beginning.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: What a bit. Can you imagine him just hanging out
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: late one night, smoking a joint and being like, I've
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: got it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of those things. It was late 70s,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: early 80s, pot smoking, like kids... Like kids programmers, essentially,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: is what that kind of show was. Okay.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: It was good. But the whole network was called Pinwheel
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: 2 at first until somebody was like, hey, I really
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: like the sound of the word Nickelodeon. And they said
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: it like 50 times in this one meeting. And finally,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: everybody was worn down enough that they were like, we'll
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: change the network Pinwheel to Nickelodeon. I think that was
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: in 1979. Yeah.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 79. And you're right. I think, you know, a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Nickelodeon was like an old timey like movie house that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you paid a nickel to get into. But they didn't
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: name it for that reason. I think they like you said,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think they just thought it had a nice ring
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to it, I guess.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, weirdly, they had a an old timey
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: man is their first logo, an old timey man looking
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: into like a I guess like a small movie player. Yeah.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And it was like right in, it dovetailed with that
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: era where if you went to Wendy's, like their wallpaper
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: was made of like 1910 newspaper ads. Oh, yeah.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Old Wendy's is great.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And Tiffany lamps and all that.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I'm still unsettled by those high lace women's boots.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: That they always advertised.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Too sexy.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I might have seen ads for wicker wheelchairs, too. Maybe
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: that's where that came from. Yeah.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Your biggest fear.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But at any rate, they got rid of that
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: after a couple of years, and they came up with
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: the first good Nickelodeon logo, which is a silver pinball
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: with Nickelodeon written over it in different colors. It was
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: very pretty.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very popular bubble letter style at the time. A
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: year later, in 1980, a guy named Cy Schneider, who
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: was an advertising executive, became the first president of the network.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: He had a little experience. He was involved on the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: marketing advertising side. when Mattel sponsored the Mickey Mouse Club
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in the 50s. So he had a little bit of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: experience with kids TV from the ad side, but this
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was kind of a new jam for him. So he
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: started marketing Nickelodeon as the young people's network. And they
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: had some, you know, fun shows. I do remember, I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: didn't watch any of these, but I remember Reggie Jackson's
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: World of Sports. I remember that being a thing. And
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I also remember the Leonard Nimoy show being a thing.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Leonard Nimoy's standby, colon, lights, camera, action.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I never saw or even heard of either of
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: those shows. But it kind of gives you a taste
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: of how Nickelodeon started out as slightly, it skewed slightly older.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: So I can see 14-year-old boys watching those.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was nine at the time. So I was
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: aware it was around. I was aware of the show Livewire,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: which was a live tape show in front of a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: teenage audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater, even in New
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: York City. It was like a current event show. So
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I knew about that show and it was really popular.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It won their, gave them their first Cable Ace Award.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: And then I don't think we mentioned that they were
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: splitting airtime. Like they ran programming during the day, but
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the A & E network was on after hours. Right.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Sexy ballet.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Livewire, I looked into that a little bit because I
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: never watched it. I don't know that I'd even heard
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of it to tell you the truth. But when I
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: saw like the set, It rang like a little bit
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: like a vague bell, but it was definitely older kids,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: kids older than me, like teens. And there is a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: there's a clip you can find of Adam Horowitz, King
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Ed Rock from BC Boys. Oh, yeah. As a 17
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: year old posing as a like he went into the
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: audience of Livewire and he asked a question of Africa Bambada,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: who is the guest at the time. He's like, hey,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: have you heard that new record from the Beastie Boys,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Cookie Puss? And he got Africa Bombada to admit, like, yeah,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: he'd listened to it and he had the record and
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: he liked it without ever saying, like, I'm one of
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the Beastie Boys. Like, he was just plugging this as, like,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: just some average audience member. It's pretty great.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny. I mean, Livewire had some good stuff. Like, R.E.M.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: performed on Livewire in 83.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: The Ramones.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: The Ramones did. I know that Frank Zappa was a guest.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So they were definitely, like, somebody... Cool was running that show.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And not only like they were cool enough to
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: want those people on, they were cool enough to get
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: those people on that show. Right.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: This is on Nickelodeon, everybody. And this is it was
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: one of their first like really great shows. And then
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: something else changed almost immediately. when Nickelodeon just really started
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: getting going. They brought on a woman named Geraldine Laybourne.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: And she was kind of like, not the antithesis to
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Cy Schneider, but certainly had a different view of what
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Nickelodeon should be doing. Cy Schneider's thing was, you know,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: like you said, he came from the advertising the kids world.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: What's wrong with that? And Geraldine Laybourne's whole thing was like,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: let's find out what the kids want and go on
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that premise and not try to sell them stuff. Let's
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: just like really make this a network for kids rather
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: than just saying that's what it is. And really it's
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: for advertising or something like that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think Schneider was a bit older too.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: If he was working on the Mickey Mouse Club in
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the 1950s, this was like 30 years after that.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And she also recognized like, hey, you know, a lot
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: of people are treating this network in these shows as
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a stepping stone, like get in the door doing these
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: children's shows so they can go on and do other
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: things in Hollywood. And she was like, I want staff
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that like wants to do this and wants and is
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: dedicated to like kids programming, which seemed like a really
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: kind of savvy move, I think.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: For sure. For sure. It didn't matter whether you did cocaine.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: That was not part of it. It was how do
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: you feel about kids programming? That's right.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Full stop.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: One of the things that Nick did, I'm just going
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: to call it Nick because I watch so much of it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I'm on a first name basis with it. Yeah. But
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: they would basically poach TV shows from Canada. Yeah. They
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: still do. As a matter of fact, there's still like
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of the shows that were on Nickelodeon that
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I watched as a youngster. I was like, something's not
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: quite right with this show. Turns out they were all Canadians.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: As an American, it seems slightly sideways.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I'm like, these people are really nice.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You Can't Do That on Television was a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Canadian show that came from Ottawa Station a couple of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: years previous from its debut on Nickelodeon in 1981. And
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that was a great show. It was created by Roger
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Price and Jeffrey Darby. And it was a skit show
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: that was like squarely aimed at making kids laugh, like
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: that kind of humor.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the ways that they did that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: is that the Teen and even preteen actors had like
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: a say in how the scripts went and like what
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: the scenes were. And so that was cool in and
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: of itself, because, I mean, they were speaking directly to you.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: It kind of ran through that filter. And then also
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: they would. The show itself was almost like a character.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: The show itself could be like a set or a
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: scene or something like that. And not just like them
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: chatting in between shooting. Like there could be, if I
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: remember correctly, there was a scene where one of the
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: kids was playing a character who was chained up in
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: a dungeon. And another kid who wasn't dressed like them
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: just came in and took over for him because that
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: kid had to like go home and do homework or
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: something like that. And they did it in the middle
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: of the scene. So it was just kind of weird
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: like that, and it really worked for that show. It's
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: a really good show. I went back and watched it,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: and you definitely have to be of that age to
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: really appreciate it, but I remember loving You Can't Do
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: That on Television.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I went back and watched a lot of this stuff,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: like clips on YouTube, and I realized that I watched
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: more of this than I remember watching, I guess. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I remember that guy... Who was the main guy on
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that show, like the main adult cast member?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: His name was Les Lye.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Les Lye. That's it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I think he went by Les, too, because they all
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: went by their real first names.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of like if you've ever seen
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the Larry Sanders show, it was kind of like that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: They would have these meta moments.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Right. Well put. This preceded the Larry Sanders show and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: was actually where it came from.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Are you joking?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Well, it might have been.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: You never know.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And Alanis Morissette was also on it, too, because you
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: can't have a Canadian TV show without having Alanis Morissette
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: on it. Yeah.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Ironic that she was on that show, right?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Do you think?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Well, that was where the slime came from. Nickelodeon is
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: very famous for its slime. In fact, I am using
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the title that Livia, who helped us with this, titled
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: it Nickelodeon, the slime of our lives. Great title. Yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: But Nickelodeon has always been associated with that green slime,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and it got its first dump on you can't do
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that on television.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you said I don't know, you would get slimed.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: That's just how it went.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that the trigger?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't make the rules. It's just how it went.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Except for one show, and this just goes to show
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: you how early 80s this was. They had an episode
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: where the Russians took over, and the slime was red
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: slime instead. If anyone who said the word freedom would
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: get slimed.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Well, apparently the story of how it became green slime
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: was an accident because they had made the slime but
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: couldn't shoot that day or something, and it turned green
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: by the next day, and so they ended up with
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: green slime. Yeah.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: And then I guess you would get a bonus of
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: something between $ 25 to $ 50. I guess it depends on
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: how much you held out for. And they would shoot
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: all the sliming scenes at the end of the day,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: and then you would get slimed, and then they would cut,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and you would run off to the showers because... Different
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: iterations of slime sometimes turn to paste in your hair
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: if you didn't get it out fast enough. And they
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: finally found the right one is a methyl cellulose blend
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that had zero allergens in it. So they could even
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: dump it on audience members without fear of litigation. Right. Yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Or at least them winning litigation. But it went through
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: all sorts of different things like cottage cheese, vegetable oil,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: vanilla pudding, jello for a little while.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Applesauce.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting I'm getting kind of excited. So, yeah.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: All right. It's getting good, everybody. So we'll be right
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: back with more on Nick.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: All right, so You Can't Do That on Television was
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a pretty decent success, but Nickelodeon itself was not like
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a huge hit yet. In late 83, a guy named
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Bob Pittman, who we've talked about, one of the founders
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of MTV, and our boss at iHeartMedia.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Several rungs up. I don't know if he would consider
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: himself our boss.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I think he may know who we are, at least.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Perhaps.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Bob runs iHeartMedia, and he became head of Nickelodeon's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: parent company, which was Warner Amex at the time. He
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: was in 83. He was a lot younger than Cy
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Schneider was. And the writing was on the wall that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: like Schneider wasn't going to be around too long and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: younger folks were going to be running this younger like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: viewership network.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Pittman had a lot of cred around the
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: television world because of MTV just from two years before, right?
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: And so he took over Nickelodeon, or he didn't take
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: over Nickelodeon. When he became the head of Warner Amex,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: he was now over the people who were running Nickelodeon,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: and he took an interest in it early on. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: so after Schneider left, Geraldine Laybourne was put as the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: head of the network. And now Nickelodeon really blossomed. Like
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: this is the Nickelodeon I remember and like really loved.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: This is 1984, I think. Yeah. One of the first
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: things that Laybourne did was she turned to the Fred
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Allen agency, which had helped basically figure out how MTV
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: should brand itself. She said, do this for Nickelodeon. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: they got to town. Yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: The other thing they did was they started selling ads
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and commercials.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Which they realized, I think, pretty quickly afterward, like, hey,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty good idea to start getting some money
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: flowing in. So Fred Allen firm comes in. They said,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: all right, we're going to do focus groups. We're going
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to get kids together and we're going to find out
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: what they want. And what they found out was kids
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: were kind of roundly annoyed by adults that were patronizing
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and trying to get them to watch something that basically sucked.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And they were tired of it. So they said, you
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: know what we're going to do then? We're going to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: craft this network around this idea and this theme that
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: like this is for kids and this is for kids
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to stand up, stand up and like shout like, hey,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you're not listening to me like this is for us
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and do things that we want to see finally.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Right. If I remember correctly, an early iteration of their
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: new logo was a child setting a couch on fire
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: inside a living room.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I think you're right.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But they actually did redo the logo. They're like,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: this pinball and rainbow letters thing is so childish and patronizing.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Cy Schneider. Come on.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I still like it.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it was very cute. All right. I
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: would look at it all day long if I could.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Well, you can do that if you want to.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: But they, I guess I could. But they changed the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: logo by essentially picking what designers roundly think of as
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: the ugliest color around. It's Pantone. 21. I don't know
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: if you say the zero first, maybe. Pantone 021 Orange. Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: now recognized pretty much everywhere as Nickelodeon orange. But at
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the time, because everybody thought it was so ugly, no
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: one used it. So Nickelodeon basically claimed this ugly color
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and it became just like completely synonymous with the network.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It was a great branding move.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I just looked up the previous logos and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I had forgotten the little pinball multicolored balloon letter thing.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But now that I see it, I totally remember it.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It was a good logo.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Anything with different color balloon lettering is A-OK in
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: my book.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Well, you're a child of the 80s like me.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And, you know, as we'll see, many of the sets
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and everything in the 80s were like... I guess we'll
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: get to that, but they had some pretty legendary, like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Super 80 sets on their shows.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, they do. Man, I could look at pictures of
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: those all day, too.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: But the logo was animated, so it could, like, you know,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: take different shapes. Like, sometimes it was an ice cream
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: cone or a rocket ship or something. And then later on,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: when slime became, like, sort of what the network was,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you know, at least, like, a symbol of the network,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: it looked like a slime splat, and that's kind of
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: what they stuck with.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Right. They also did bumpers. You know, coming in and
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: out of commercial breaks, like the animated ones. There was
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: a series of them by like a doo-wop singing group
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: called the Jive Five.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Those are great.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Do you remember those? Yeah.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And I went and watched some of them today and
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I remember these. They were great.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: There are two standouts. <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> Nice.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: There's another one. I've never been able to do it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's too fast for my thick tongue, but it is great.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: So just go look up Nick Jive 5 bumpers and
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: you'll see what I'm talking about.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Well, what was the fast one? Like, just tell me
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a slowed down version or something so I might recognize it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Um, no.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: No? All right. I'll look it up after. Yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: You're going to have to do that. Hey, man.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I admire your, you know, gumption to stick up for yourself.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I thought about it.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So with Lay Born running the show, they started doing
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: some pretty great original programs. They had a sketch show
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: called Out of Control that I remember is hosted by
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Dave Coulier of Full House.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And a show called Turkey TV, which I had not
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: heard of until I saw the description that it was
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: like a clip show basically hosted by a VJ essentially.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And then I was like, yeah, I think I remember
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that one.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I do not remember that one at all, but they
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: would do something that Nickelodeon was also really good at.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Besides poaching Canadian shows, they would go overseas and find
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: funny clips or funny commercials or whatever. Sometimes other clips
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: from other kids shows like in completely different languages. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: then they would overdub them in English and use them.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And they did that with Turkey TV a lot, too.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: So that was like that was fantastic. They just did
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that all the time. Now I'm like, yeah, those kids
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: were totally Danish. I had no idea at the time.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: But again, I was like, there's something not quite right
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: about how these kids are dressed and the toys they're
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: playing with.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I was watching that
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: without knowing it.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: That's just funny that a kid can be like, something's
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: slightly off here and I can't pinpoint what it is.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Because you didn't know they did stuff like that back then.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And I always shrugged and was like, whatever, it's still
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: fun to watch.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's on TV.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: It was always there, you know. The Great Gazoo was
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: over my shoulder like, it's European, dum-dum.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So, Laybourne went back to Darby, one of the guys
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: who co-created You Can't Do That on Television. It's like, hey,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: what else you got? And he said, what about like
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a game show where kids go through kind of a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: crazy obstacle course or do these wacky things? And that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: was the seed of the idea that became Double Dare.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I watched an episode of Double Dare earlier today, too.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun to see.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And it was like Truth or Dare, where you could
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: answer a trivia question or dare the other team if
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you didn't have the answer. And if they didn't have
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the answer, they could double dare back. And generally, at
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that point, the team would opt for what was called
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the physical challenge. And it was, you know, the one
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I watched today was two kids stand on one side
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of the room. and throw eggs at the two kids
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: on the other side who are blindfolded and holding like
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: marching band crash cymbals in their hand. And the first
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: one to just randomly crash a crash cymbal as the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: egg comes at them without being able to see it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: is the team who wins. So just really fun, dumb
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: stuff if you're, you know, nine to 12 years old.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like what a great idea. But not only though
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: was it like, like there were great little parts like that,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The whole thing, every single part was just operating on
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: all cylinders. Yeah. The host, Mark Summers, was somehow perfect
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: for that show.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: He was great.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He was wonderful. The set, like you said, it was
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: in the Memphis style, which was huge in the 80s.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Like Pee Wee's Playhouse was Memphis. You would know Memphis
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with the term. You've seen it
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: a million times. But those sets are just a feast
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: for the eyes. And then, yeah, the things they came
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: up with, one of my favorites was the picket, where
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: you had to, for a physical challenge, you had to
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: get a flag out of a giant nose. And to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: get the flag out, you had to pick out boogers first.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And then slime would come out of the nose. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: then after all that, you had to stick your arm
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: all the way up there and pull the flag out.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: That's just so fun to create shows like this. Like,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that's what kids want to see.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. And then the other thing. every single contestant
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: was so psyched to be there. And it took it
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: so seriously. It was completely sincere. It was just a wonderful,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I love Double Dare. I could watch Double Dare all
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: day long.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You can do a lot of this stuff all
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: day long. Can you imagine getting that phone call or
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: letter in the mail where you are picked to be
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a contestant on that show and what like that must've
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: felt like as a kid?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. For other kids, I, I, I would
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: have dreaded that. Oh, really? Yeah. I was that kid
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: who was like in the circus when the clowns were
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: coming down the aisle. I would be like, do not
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: pick me, please. God, please don't pick me. Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: That was my dad.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: What? He would, he wanted to be picked? No, no, no.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: My dad would always.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Like, I wonder if I should even say this. I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: think I will. No, I'm not going to say it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: My dad was not a participant. Let's just say that.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Well, in life like that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I'm with him on that. I just I don't like
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I don't like the spotlight, you know.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: What about today? If you like went to a theme
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: park and they were like, let's get this guy out
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of the audience. Would you do it or would because
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you've got a lot of experience on stage?
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I would have to do it. I mean, you're a
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: jerk to not just do it if they pick you.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: But you wouldn't like love being picked.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: No. And I would be just like breathlessly anxious the
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: entire time.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: They'd be like, why is that guy's hand trembling?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: That's funny because you stand on stage in front of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: like 2,000 people and are great.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I know, but think about how much stage fright I
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: had to get over.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: That's true. And you're still standing up there with your
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: hand trembling.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Have you ever seen me on stage at a
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know show and I'm picking up my
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: water with both hands? Right. It's because they're too trembly
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to pick them up by themselves.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe that's part of the magic. It makes you good.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks, man. I think you're great too because you're so
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: laid back. It's just so easy for you.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Hey, we're the yin and yang, you know?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I'm the shuddery side.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: That's right. So these were all shot at the time
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia at the WHYY studios. And, you know, it
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: was a big hit. Mark Summers, everyone loved him, like
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you said. And that was not their first, but, you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: one of the early, like, big, big breakouts that made
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Nickelodeon kind of a juggernaut.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things that made Nickelodeon a
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: juggernaut was After A & E was like, sayonara, we're
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: going to form our own full network. Nickelodeon had the
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: evening hours to fill all of a sudden. So they
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: just did what you do. They went and turned to
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: reruns of classic TV shows, but they branded it as
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Nick at Night. And I was into this too. Like
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I seriously had Nickelodeon on all the time. This is
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the stuff I would watch when I would go buy
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: a six pack of Kingsbury non-alcoholic beer and Slim Jims
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and Twix and just settle in for the night. It
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: was just sit there and watch like F Troop and Mr.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Ed and I Spy. I just, it just, the whole
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: network just spoke directly to me. Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I still say if I had like one wish,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it might be to For you and I to have
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: grown up in the same neighborhood and been the same age.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I could have learned a lot from you.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: We'd both be a lot different, I think.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so. I'd be more like you and you'd
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: be more like me.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. There's probably a lot of listeners out there right
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: now who are like, wait a minute, you guys didn't
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: grow up in the same neighborhood? I wish.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: So the network grew. They eventually would partner with Universal Studios.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And open a, like, studios there and kind of moved
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Nickelodeon there, which was a big deal because all of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a sudden that was like a tourist attraction. And if
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you were a visitor to Universal, you could sit in
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the audience and maybe even be on some of these
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: shows if you got pulled from the audience.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Not me. Not me.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And after Double Dare, they were like, these game shows
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: are kind of hot. So they had a show called
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Finders Keepers. I don't think I watched this a ton,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: but I definitely remember because it was a big, giant,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: fake house. and they would hide stuff in there and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: kids could just basically completely destroy the place looking for
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the hidden items.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yes. I don't know if I watched that one either.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I went and looked at pictures of the set and
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: that didn't really ring a bell, but I was familiar
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: with the concept guts. I'd never heard of before.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Same.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It was like, um, uh, ninja warrior type thing, I think. Yeah.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: But again, Nickelodeon years and years before Legends of the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Hidden Temple. It was essentially like a double there where
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: you would answer questions, usually geography related. And then for
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: the physical challenge, it was running through this giant temple
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: that was like cross section. So you could see the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: person running through in it. And there are secret passages
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: and stuff you need to find, like the artifact or whatever.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't watch that, but I remember seeing ads for
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: it when I was watching the next level of stuff
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: on Nickelodeon, like Pete and Pete.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the late 80s and early 90s. And this is,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you know, late high school and early college for me.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So I was definitely out of the picture by now.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: But I remember for sure the show Hey Dude. And
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I remember us in college even, I think, sort of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: ironically watching it occasionally. Okay.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, I didn't watch that. I didn't watch Salute
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Your Shorts or Clarissa Explains at all, but they were
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: all sitcoms, like live-action sitcoms. Yeah. And they were huge hits, right? Yeah,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: oh yeah. The one that gets me, and this show
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is Canadian too, if I'm not mistaken, but The Adventures
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of Pete and Pete.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a big one.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Is still one of the best shows ever made. Like,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: it still holds up. I never saw it. You're just
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: going to have to trust me. I didn't know I
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: was about to stun you with that revelation.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I was just too old and I
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: never caught it after. So I've heard the legend of
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: how great that show is. I should probably check it
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: out now.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you should. And you know who else would love
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: it is Ruby. It's totally up her alley, like the
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: kind of weird humor. I really think she'd like it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: All right. We'll check it out. The only time that
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: I've ever been starstruck, Chuck, that I can remember, like
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: genuinely starstruck, was when we did a live show in
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: San Francisco at the Mariners Hall. Uh-huh. And we followed
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: a Pete and Pete reunion. Oh, that's right. They were
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: there when we were coming in and I could not
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: believe who I was in the same room with. I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: hung out and talked to little Pete. Big Pete was
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: kind of in and out, but I just, I was
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: just barely hanging on during that conversation. Yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I remember one other time you were starstruck when we
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: got to go to the Simpson stable read and we
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: met Matt Groening.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Fair enough. Yeah.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Because I was the same. You and I were both
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: like tiny children.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: It's true. That's true.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was great. Should we take a break?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: All right. We're going to take a break and move
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: into the cartoon era right after this.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: So I think one of the things we're back, by
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: the way, Chuck, and one of the things that Nickelodeon
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: is now thought of more than anything else is a
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: place where like some really great cartoons have been birthed.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Not the least of which was Ren and Stimpy, which
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I always associate with MTV because it got picked up
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: by MTV. Like, I think while it was still original
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: stuff was running, but they syndicated it so fast that
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: MTV had it, too, if I'm not mistaken. But regardless.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: It started out on Nickelodeon.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Ren and Stimpy show, a show called Doug and,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of course, Rugrats, all premiered in 1991, which is kind
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: of crazy because those shows were all huge.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Laybourne was still the network head in 91, but left
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: about five years after that and was succeeded in 96
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: by a guy named Herb Scannell, I guess.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And he really, I guess, was like, this animation thing
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: is the thing. We should keep doing it. Um, Ren
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: and Stimpy, uh, and you know, parents, this is where
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: things get a little dodgy. If you want to tune out,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: if you have kids in the car, but, uh, the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: creator of Ren and Stimpy, uh, John Crisfalusi, uh, he
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: ran the first two years, two seasons of that show.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And it was really his brainchild. And it was such a,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: just amazing, wonderful, hysterical show. Uh, but apparently he like, um,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't stay on budget and would blow a lot of deadlines.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So he, they were like, you're out of here. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the last three seasons, I think he was not a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: part of and everyone was crushed at the time. But
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: then many years later in 2018, it was he was
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: exposed to women, came forward and was like this guy
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: sexually abused us in the 90s when we were 13
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and 15. I think one of them like he had
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a full on like relationship as a 15, 16 year old,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: which is just, you know. Horrendous and sick. And he
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: later on gave a pretty terrible non-apology where he blamed
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: his mental health at the time and his poor impulse control.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: He quit the business. The statute of limitations had passed
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to do anything about that, unfortunately. But that was, you know,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: that was unfortunately sort of the sad way that Ren
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and Stimpy ended.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ren and Stimpy, like you said, it carried on
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: without him for years and it was great. Still, too. Yeah.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: So by 96, Nickelodeon is the biggest thing in the world, basically.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: They had the most daily viewers of any cable channel,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and they held that spot for 16 years, which is
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: quite a run. They had a bunch of other big cartoons,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: one called Hey Arnold that I'd heard of. The Adventures
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of Jimmy Neutron. Boy Genius was a big one in
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the early 2000s. And then, you know, kind of leaning
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: away from these sort of wackier shows. They had shows
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like Avatar, The Last Airbender, and then it's spinoff, The
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Legend of Korra, which is voiced, Korra is voiced by
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: friend of the show and friend in real life, Janet Varney.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. It's pretty awesome.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: It's the best. Ruby really got into that show and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: for a while I was watching it with her and
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's really good and Janet was very sweet and would
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: send Ruby birthday videos with her like kind of talking
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: as Korra and it's just, Janet's the best.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember you telling me that,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and now I've connected the dots.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've gone way out of my wheelhouse now.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: The last one, the last cartoon that I watched consistently
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: came out in 93. It was Rocco's Modern Life, which
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: was really great. And I also used to watch Doug.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: It was a sweet cartoon.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember Doug.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Kind of like a Diary of a Wimpy Kid kind
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: of thing a little bit, too. You know, he's just
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: too gentle for, you know, his age group or something
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: like that. But far and away, the biggest cartoon that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: ever came out of Nickelodeon, the biggest cartoon that maybe
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: had ever been on television was and is SpongeBob SquarePants.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: And that started in 1999. And a guy named Steven Hillenburg,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: who I guess studied to be a marine biologist kind
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: of famously, he created SpongeBob SquarePants instead. And I think
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: it was probably a pretty good move on his part.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Great move. It's still going today. It's in its 17th season.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: As of two years ago, when it hit its 25th anniversary,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the world learned that Nickelodeon had supposedly earned $ 16 billion
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: from SpongeBob retail stuff.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Toys and clothes and, you know, you name it. Like
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: anything up to and including a Broadway musical.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Hillenburg... Got a substantial chunk of that. He
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: had negotiated, I think, from the outset, like a pretty
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: decent amount of the merch percentage. Yeah.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: George Lucas advice.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The back end is what you want, right?
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Well, no. Lucas was like merchandising. Like he negotiated that
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Star Wars merchandising early on. And from then on, everyone
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: was like, that's the move.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's always really paid off for us in ACES.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I think they got mad at him about that, though, right?
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can kind of jump ahead a little
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: bit because today there's a lot of Nickelodeon fans who
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: are just really upset and heartbroken and frustrated because they
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: feel like the network was allowed to really get run
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: into the ground. And they lay the blame mostly at
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the head of the network from 2006 to 2018. Her
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: name is Saima Zergami. And she is apparently well known
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: for not being happy that Hillenburg made as much money
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: as he did from the SpongeBob. rev share arrangement. And
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: so she made sure that if you were a new
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: creator coming to bring a show on to Nick, you
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: got zero bagel percentage of the merch sales from your creation.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: So that would scare away new creators who had anything
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: good under their belt, right? So that was one thing.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: So much so that they actually had what can really
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: only be taken as a desperate attempt to attract new talent.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: They had a Nickelodeon animated shorts program in 2012, which
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: is like, hey, if you're unknown, submit a brief version
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: of your cartoon and maybe we'll pick it up. You
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: don't do that if you have like established creators coming
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: to you with shows, right?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's kind of a sneaky way to get free programming.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Or to get people who you can exploit because
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: they're hungry to get their foot in the door, right?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: So there's that. She also turned down Adventure Time when
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: it was picked to Nickelodeon first, which is like if
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: you're a cartoon fan and you turn down Adventure Time,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you're just a pariah. Yeah. And then also, Chuck, and
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: this is much more serious, she is basically, she's really
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: criticized for essentially turning her head the other way, looking
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: the other way, while a guy named Dan Snyder basically
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: carried out a reign of terror among a lot of
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: the live action fans. shows that featured child actors who
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: did not get enough protection from the network.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Like there was a systemic, um, child
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse problem at Nickelodeon. That's the only way to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: say it.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Uh, there was a documentary, uh, did you ever see it?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: No. Uh, what's it called? Quiet on the set. Yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Quiet on the set, colon, the dark side of kids TV.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: It was a couple of years ago and I watched it. Uh, it's,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: it's pretty upsetting, but I'm sure, um, you know, you're
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: a big Nickelodeon guy, so I don't know if you
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: want to, You know all this happened, but it might
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: be upsetting for you to actually see the documentary.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, even without being a Nickelodeon guy, I'm
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: sure it's upsetting, right? It is.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: But Dan Schneider, you may know him. He was an actor.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: He was Dennis on Head of the Class. He was
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: in Better Off Dead with John Cusack.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: That was him? Yeah, yeah.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: He was the sort of loser neighbor who the exchange
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: student lived with.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I never put those two characters together, but yeah,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I see it now.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: So that's where I knew him from. But he started
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: out as a writer in 1994 on the sketch show
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: All That and created some of their biggest live action shows.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes, Drake and Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Henry Danger. Like these are humongous shows. And at the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: time he was being criticized, like even while he was
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: there of like, man, this guy's like putting pretty overt,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: like sexual humor in these shows. Shows and like making
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: girls do like really kind of pretty obvious sexual things like,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: you know, things that were very phallic. Like, obviously, like
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: when you see clips in the documentary, it's just like, man,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Like, why didn't someone say something?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: It's just so obvious. Well, later on, he denied like
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: we never did anything like that intentionally. He basically gaslit
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: everyone with his apology later. But there was more abuse
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: going on, too.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Drake Bell, who I didn't watch it, but
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing he was one of the characters on Drake
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: and Josh as well. Yeah. He started out on The
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes. He had a dialogue coach
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: who sexually abused him, a dialogue coach named Brian Peck,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: who was convicted in 2004. 2004 was also a bad
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: year in that production assistant named Jason Handy, who worked
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: with some child actors on All That and The Amanda Show.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: He got a six-year sentence for sexually abusing two girls.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: And then a few years after that, another Nickelodeon worker,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: an animator named Ezel Channel, was convicted of sexually abusing
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: boys at the studio. So this is what I was
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: saying when I was saying, like, Saima Zorgami is– not
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: very well thought of among fans, just at the very
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: least for that, just for not doing anything about that.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: And even if she or the other heads didn't know
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: what was going on, the fact that there was that,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: that it was that easy for people to prey on
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: child actors. You got child actors, man, like they deserve
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: special protection, even more than your average kid. Because your
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: average kid is not in a situation with a bunch
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: of creators and teamsters and whoever else. Right. Like when
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: my niece Mila is on the set, both of her
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: parents are there. And at least one of them is
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: there all the time. Oh, yeah.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Like that's just what you have to do if you
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: have a child actor. And apparently that's just not what
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: was going on everywhere in these shows. Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: No, it was way more lax back then. And, you know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you hear all this stuff and you're just like, what
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: is going on at Nickelodeon? And the sad truth is
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: it was a kid's network with kid shows with kid actors.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And that's where, like, someone who's a predator will, like,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: go and get a job. And it's deeply, deeply upsetting
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: that that happened and was allowed to happen. And there
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: weren't more protections in place. Like, the documentary is just
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: a brutal watch.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: I bet. So Dan Schneider finally, after I think 24 years, maybe? No. Yeah.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: 24 years at the network. He was fired because an
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: actress named Jeanette McCurdy, who was on iCarly and also
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: starred with Ariana Grande on Sam and Cat, which is
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: an iCarly spinoff. She basically came out and was like,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to keep quiet any longer. And she
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: started essentially like saying like Dan Schneider did this, Dan
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Schneider did that. Dan Schneider insisted that I wear a
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: bikini for a hot tub scene, even though I wanted
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to wear a one piece. He encouraged us to drink
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: as like 16 year olds and stuff. Right. So that
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: was enough to get Dan Schneider pushed out. But then
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: she went further. She published a memoir in 2022 titled
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I'm Glad My Mother's Dead. And there's not some ironic
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: twist to that title. Like it's exactly what you think.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Or it sounds like she was glad her mother's dead,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: in part because her mother pushed her into acting and
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: basically set her up to be exposed to the stuff
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: she was exposed to. And in that, she refers to
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Dan Snyder as the creator. And she just alleged some
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: more stuff, too, that really just put a really negative
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: light on Nickelodeon.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean— Viacom CBS at the time, they did
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: an investigation and came out and said, well, we don't
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: have any evidence of sexual misconduct, but Dan Schneider was
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: verbally abusive, we found out, and he threw tantrums, so
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: he's out of here. When she, and this is even
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: more upsetting, when all this came out, after Salmon Cat
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: was canceled, she had a conference call. This was Jeanette McCurdy,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the actress who wrote the book, and the victim, one
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of the victims, she had a conference call with a
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of agents and managers, and She was offered, and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: didn't take it, but she was offered $ 300, 000 just to
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: never talk about it again. Don't talk about Dan Schneider.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Don't talk about Nickelodeon. And she turned it down. And
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: then after that, there were leaks to the media that, well,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the series really ended because she was mad that Ariana
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Grande was paid more than her, which is about as
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: vile as it gets.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: What scumbags, man. That's just terrible. So, like you said,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: that docuseries came out and really just kind of got
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: the point across about what was going on. There's a
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: journalist who was part of the documentary Scotchy Cool. And
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: they said that a lot of these people are still
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: working in the industry, by the way.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: So like you said, Schneider, Dan Schneider issued an apology
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: on YouTube, but you said it was a non-apology. I
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: didn't watch it. Yeah.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, he basically gaslit everyone and was like, yeah,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you know what? I did some embarrassing things, but I
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: didn't intend to have any sexual jokes on the show. Like,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: you're just seeing what you want to see, basically.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Right. And then Nickelodeon didn't do itself any favors by issuing, like,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: a really legalese non-apology itself, saying they couldn't corroborate or
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: negate allegations of misdeeds decades ago. Like, get over it.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: This sexual abuse is, like, 20 years ago. Yeah.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Pretty disappointing. Nickelodeon, like you said, has really gone downhill
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a lot since then. And, you know... partially because that's
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: kind of what happened to a lot of cable TV networks.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Like people, including kids, obviously have been moving away from
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: traditional television and that model. And kids probably like quicker
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: than even older viewers. So their ratings have dropped a lot.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: You know, they were number one for 16 years, the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: number one cable network. Now they are the 60th, six
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: zero most popular cable channel with about 122,000 daily viewers. But,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: you know, they're diversifying. They're doing programming for other TV
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: networks and also doing like web stuff and app stuff.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I looked that up. It's about it's about the
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: same that Disney Channel, not Disney Plus, but the cable
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Disney cable channel gets every day. So it seems like
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: it's not just Nick, but they also have about two
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: point five times what Cartoon Network gets. But it's only
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: a third of what TV land gets every day.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: So.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. People go nuts for those Friends reruns.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: I watch those in hotels a lot.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Do you?
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, you know, flipping it around. They have the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: awful motion smoothing on all the hotel TVs.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: No, you hate that.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. Of course I do.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: I just don't even know what you're talking about.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll have to show you sometime.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: But some of those older studio audience sitcoms don't look
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: as bad with that on.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: So that's why I watch that.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, once I've seen the Friends without the laugh track videos,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I can't watch it anymore.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I forgot. Those were fun.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a big loss. But anyway, that's Nickelodeon, everybody,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: for you. Sorry to end it on a bummer, but
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: that's the state of affairs right now. Hopefully it'll come
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: back and get great again. And in the meantime, while
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: we wait for Nickelodeon to get great again, how about
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: listener mail?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: All right, this is short and sweet. Hey, guys, this
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: is On Rope. When rope is cut to length and
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: used for a purpose on a ship, everybody, it becomes line.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Chuck was using line when hoisting jibs and sails. I've
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: never sailed myself, but whenever I talked with my boss
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: who did sail, I would say rope and he would
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: correct me and say, no, it's line on a boat.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: So as soon as Chuck said rope in his Nantucket story,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I stuttered. it's all good to me though guys but
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: passing this along in honor of my old boss and
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: that is Bill from Latitz I guess is how you
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: pronounce it L-I-T-I-T-Z Latitz Latitz.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: What is that in a state or is it its
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: own micronation I've.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Never heard of it. I'm going to look it up
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: right now, though, while you chit-chat.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, thanks a lot, Bill. We're going to try
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: to figure out where you're from.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Okay. Pennsylvania. I could have guessed that.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lancaster County. I love it. Sure.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. Oh, hey, Bill hangs out with the Amish there.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: That's right. All right.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Well, Bill, be sure to tell the Amish we say hi.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: And if you want to be like Bill and correct
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: us ever so gently and kindly like Bill did, you
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: can send it in an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.