[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:27] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:33] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: Welcome home, Jessica.

[00:37] Jessica: Thank you. And belated happy birthday, Meg. Thank you. You are welcome.

[00:43] Meg: You know, a lot of listeners wrote reviews in for my birthday. Isn't that nice?

[00:47] Jessica: Bless their hearts.

[00:48] Meg: I know it really makes a big deal.

[00:51] Jessica: It is amazing.

[00:52] Meg: There's a whole, you know, algorithm. I don't know what it is, but in the podcast world, they like the reviews.

[00:58] Jessica: I love that, for me, at least. I don't know if this is the same for you, but when anything happens that I can't truly understand, I'm just like, it's the algorithm. I don't know what that is or I mean, I know the concept, but, yeah, I have no attachment at all to what it actually is and how it works and what the outcome is.

[01:24] Meg: Right. It's the thing that we kind of have some influence over, but there's so many other things that we don't have influence over. So we're just really grateful when it works in our favor and we know.

[01:36] Jessica: What those things are that tips it in our favor like reviews.

[01:39] Meg: That we do know. So that I've been told.

[01:44] Jessica: That gives ss a shred of control, right? The illusion of control that we're like, ah, reviews. Do something. So, yay. Thank you, listeners. Yes, I was away. I was in London, and London was, as usual, marvelous. And I stayed with dear, dear friends who are listeners, and so that was very exciting to get positive feedback from them in the flesh. And I did a couple of things that were really fun, and one of them I just want to recommend to anyone who is going to London at any point in the near future. I had never been to the Sir John Soane's Museum. Go. It's super weird. Definitely weird.

[02:25] Meg: Weird on what way?

[02:26] Jessica: So Sir John Soane, I think he died in, like, the 1840s. He was an architect and a collector of art and architectural pieces. When I say art, I also mean, like, a plundered sarcophagus is in his basement. So he was just like a mad collector. And if he liked it, he collected it. He bequeathed the house and everything in it to the City of London to be kept as a museum, exactly as it was when he died, not to be touched. Nothing.

[02:56] Meg: Fascinating.

[02:58] Jessica: And they. And that has been preserved so you.

[03:01] Meg: Just honor his home.

[03:02] Jessica: Right. But his home is not a normal home. It's filled. It's like walking into someone's head. You cross over the threshold and you are thrust into this man's psychology and you're like, oh, you're brilliant and totally out of your freaking mind. Great. I am in. That is my sweet spot. So anyway, it's super great. And the other thing I did when I was in London was I read the Britney Spears memoir, autobiography The Woman in Me, from front to back.

[03:33] Meg: Wow. I'm listening to it. It's being recorded. Or it was recorded by Michelle Williams.

[03:38] Jessica: Really?

[03:39] Meg: She does an incredible job.

[03:40] Jessica: Oh, well now, now I'm gonna have to listen to her version rather than just have my own voice in my head.

[03:45] Meg: Britney does the intro.

[03:47] Jessica: Oh, does she?

[03:48] Meg: Uh huh. And then she says, you know, I couldn't record this because I'd be, you know, re-treading all the trauma. Poor Britney.

[03:57] Jessica: You know, I'm not gonna give you any spoilers.

[04:00] Meg: Yeah. I'm still in childhood. There's been a lot already, but I know what's coming too.

[04:05] Jessica: Yeah, it's bananas and bonkers. What I will say is I never followed her in any way. Like I obviously I'm alive on the planet, so I know the story, but I never like, scoured the tabloids for what was going on. But I do follow her on Instagram and when she started dancing with knives, I was like, this is a bad sign. This is not good. And then after reading the book, I understand what she's doing and I encourage it. So let that be something to look for as you continue listening.

[04:41] Meg: Have you seen the documentary?

[04:43] Jessica: No.

[04:43] Meg: Okay. That is highly recommended. And she doesn't speak on the documentary because at that point when the documentary was made, she wasn't allowed to. So that's interesting too. So that's an entirely outside perspective, which is illuminating.

[05:00] Jessica: Interesting. Well, I'm really interested to hear what you think of the book when you're finished listening. In contrast.

[05:05] Meg: Absolutely.

[05:06] Jessica: To the documentary. Because that's gotta be, you know, just another layer of who knew? Anyway, welcome back.

[05:13] Meg: Thank you. Welcome back.

[05:14] Jessica: Thank you.

[05:25] Meg: Jessica, have you ever broken a bone?

[05:28] Jessica: No, never.

[05:30] Meg: ****, ****. ****. Not even like a foot bone?

[05:33] Jessica: I may have. I mean, I've stubbed my toes many times. Maybe I've, I've cracked something, but I never, I've never. No, my, my instinct is that no matter how dramatic I was at any particular point screaming that I had fractured my foot, the reality is I, I don't think I have.

[05:50] Meg: ****. I was hoping to get a really good story out of that because I never broke a bone either.

[05:55] Jessica: I can tell you a story about my brother that he wouldn't mind.

[05:58] Meg: Cool.

[05:58] Jessica: Okay, so. And this works perfectly. Cause this is the '80s, this is 1984. Collegiate School sent the kids, who, the boys who had the highest GPAs, on a trip called Hellenic Studies. And they went to Egypt and Greece with Coach Italiades. You know, obviously they had a great time. And these were, you know, they are mischievous boys, but studious boys, but still total idiots while he's away. So this is right after the graduation or whatever. The. My mom. My parents get a phone call in the middle of the night and I hear it. And you know, my mom was never good with being awakened. She was one of those people, like instantly, like, what is it?

[06:43] Meg: Yeah.

[06:44] Jessica: What is happening?

[06:45] Meg: That's me, actually.

[06:46] Jessica: Yes. And so she picks up the phone, she's told that John is broken, but fine.

[06:53] Meg: Oh my God.

[06:54] Jessica: And then we find out what the story was. And here's the story in brief. John and his idiot friends had, they were, I think, in Egypt and they bought those like, headdresses, like King Tut, like tourist, you know, like the equivalent of buying a sombrero. Right, Got it. John, always the shutterbug, was taking a photo of his idiot friends in their headdresses and keeps backing up. This is so John to get the perfect photo and backs off a cliff.

[07:28] Meg: Oh my God.

[07:29] Jessica: Backs right off a cliff. And his friends, you know, are they.

[07:34] Meg: In Egypt right now? They are.

[07:36] Jessica: Okay, so his friends, I mean, get the visual is they go and look over the side. So like, imagine if you're down at the bottom and you've got four heads in these stupid headdresses, like, eh. And Coach Italiades comes running over and the line. I forgot which one of them said it was ah, Coach, John fell.

[08:01] Meg: I can't believe you remember your brother John's coach's name.

[08:07] Jessica: That is crazy, because it was such an integral part of the story. Right? And so John, again, like John had many mishaps, but was never actually messed up. So what did he break? His wrist. Okay, and so he. But he.

[08:24] Meg: So he probably tried to break his fall, right?

[08:26] Jessica: But he landed like, you know, two feet away from a bunch of rocks. So that's why I'm like, John is totally cursed and totally blessed at the same time. So. So he was in a cast and I and he being the game dude that he is, you know, continued the trip and you know, with his Egyptian cast and his idiot friends. And when he got home, you know, I think that my, my parents didn't sleep for the rest of the week that they were gone.

[08:58] Meg: He's broken, but fine.

[09:00] Jessica: Yeah, exactly. So you are a parent. I mean, I of course think of it as the younger sister and it's like, you idiot. But as a parent, I'm sure you hear this in a very different way.

[09:12] Meg: Yeah, absolutely.

[09:13] Jessica: So is that a good broken bone story?

[09:14] Meg: Yeah, that was great. That was great. And in the '80s, beautiful.

[09:17] Jessica: '84 in Egypt, who knew?

[09:20] Meg: My sources are Newsweek. An episode of a television show, but I'm not gonna say what it is, cause it gives it away. And The New York Times.

[09:30] Jessica: I'm excited.

[09:32] Meg: On Thursday, November 3, 1988, 20 year old John Metzger, a member of the White Aryan Resistance youth.

[09:41] Jessica: Oh, a great kid.

[09:43] Meg: Sat on a panel of guests on The Geraldo Rivera Show

[09:50] Jessica: I'm excited.

[09:52] Meg: And that panel included Bob Heick, Director of the American Front, and Michael Palasch, Director of the Skinheads of National Resistance. The show was titled Young Hate Mongers and pitted the three men against Roy Innis, the National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, and Rabbi A. Bruce Goldman, the President of the Center for Creative Jewish Living. Incidentally, the level of discourse with this particular episode, incredibly disappointing. Billy watched the episode with me and actually said, were people in the '80s like dumb? That's a direct quote. Not one of them completes a sentence, including Geraldo.

[10:44] Jessica: Well. Oh God. Well, that's. I was gonna say The Geraldo Rivera Show's producers must have been very good choosing the most inarticulate bad guys.

[10:52] Meg: It's actually Geraldo's fault. Like he.

[10:54] Jessica: Everything is Geraldo's fault. You know how I feel about Geraldo. After I was on his show.

[10:59] Meg: Oh my God, we're going to have a conversation about that.

[11:01] Jessica: You don't know that I was on The Geraldo Rivera Show.

[11:03] Meg: Go ahead. I'm sorry, put a pin in it. One thing at a time. One thing at a time. But yes, what Geraldo did, which was so lame, was he didn't ask questions, he put words in people's mouths. You know, I know it sounds crazy, but each of the hate mongers did have in fact a different thing that they were hating on. And. But they weren't allowed to distinguish themselves from each other because Geraldo kept saying he was confusing them or he was melding them all together so they kind of look like stunned and like, well, that wasn't a question. Do I correct him? Like, that's not what I hate. I hate this other thing was just a poor interview. I mean, just subject matter aside, **** poor tv, to be honest.

[11:49] Jessica: From the man who, who failed with The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults.

[11:52] Meg: Yes. When John Metzger said, quote, "I'm sick and tired of Uncle Tom here sucking up and trying to be a white man," referring to Roy Innis, who was black. Yes.

[12:07] Jessica: Okay, Roy Innis, please tell me he got up and punched him in the face.

[12:12] Meg: Better. Wrapped his hands around John's neck and lifted him up out of his chair, choking him.

[12:23] Jessica: Well, I love a good choking. This is excellent.

[12:27] Meg: Then the whole studio erupted into chaos with the panelists and audience members throwing chairs and punching each other and shouting all kinds of stuff that needed to be bleeped out. So when you watch, it's like, bleep.

[12:41] Jessica: Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.

[12:42] Meg: Geraldo scuffled with one of the white supremacists and another one hit him in the shoulder with a chair and then smashed his nose with a roundhouse punch from behind.

[12:53] Jessica: Oh, that's the thing.

[12:55] Meg: Yes.

[12:55] Jessica: Oh, famous photo of Geraldo all up fucked up. Fabulous.

[13:00] Meg: Once security, which actually looked more like beleaguered PAs, restored order and sent all the white supremacists away in a van somewhere, Geraldo finished the taping of that episode and taped two more after that with his broken nose. He didn't press charges stating, quote, "these racist thugs are like roaches who scurry in the light of exposure. I do not want to be tied up with the roaches." He also defended Roy Innis's actions. Quote, "if there ever was a case of deserved violence, this was it." So there's no discourse, there's, there's no conversation, there's no self reflection. It's just a friggin mess.

[13:49] Jessica: Well, if memory serves, that was also, you know, like between The Geraldo Rivera Show.

[13:55] Meg: We're getting there.

[13:56] Jessica: Okay, I'm not gonna say anything.

[13:57] Meg: As it turns out, this wasn't the first time John Metzger had been on stage with Roy Innis.

[14:06] Jessica: Ohhh.

[14:08] Meg: They had screamed at each other several times on a few episodes of The Morton Downey Jr. Show. White supremacists and skinheads were favorite guests of what Newsweek at the time called trash tv, otherwise known as confrontainment. Have you ever heard that term?

[14:30] Jessica: No, but it's great. It says everything about that era or.

[14:35] Meg: Tabloid TV that I remember. This is a quote from Newsweek. "Battered by dwindling audience shares and the encroachments of cable and home video, the television industry is fervently embracing a radical survival tactic. Anything goes as long as it gets an audience. Shock them into attention, hammer their ideological hot buttons, inflame their libidos, deliver a visceral rush by playing to their most primitive fascinations. Journalism may never again look quite the same." Shows like The Geraldo Rivera Show, says Richard Salant, former President of CBS News, are, quote, "supermarket checkout counter journalism. Nothing on television surprises me anymore. There would be none of this stuff if it did not have an audience." Close quote.

[15:28] Meg: Shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Phil Donahue Show, which we've talked about a little bit, which definitely had titillating topics and guests, morphed into this new thing, TV's version of shock jocks with shows like Sally Jesse Raphael (Sally), The Jenny Jones Show, and eventually The Jerry Springer Show. In 1988, the same year that Geraldo's nose was broken, Oprah interviewed skinheads on her daytime talk show. She was planning to expose their vileness on national television, but instead, the skinhead succeeded at proselytizing for an hour. White supremacist Dave Mazzella said on air, quote, "everything that's created around here was created by white people. Blacks, they still live in the jungles of Africa. White people teach these people. They didn't create anything over here." So good old John Metzger, who you recall was in the audience of that episode, and he stood up and said he refused to sit next to any black person because he saw them as, quote, "monkeys, it's a proven fact." And Oprah turned to him and said, it's a proven fact that I'm a monkey. During commercial break, Oprah had John Metzger kicked out of the studio and a bunch of his friends went with him. So when they came back from commercial break, like, half the audience was gone. When they were back on the air, Oprah said, quote, "we asked our friend Mr. Monkey comment over here to leave. And some other people followed him. I have to agree with this woman down here who said, quote, "I have never felt such evilness and such hatred in all my life."" Now, Oprah has said in recent years, quote, "I realized in that moment that I was doing more to empower them than I was to expose them. And since that moment, I've never done a show like that again. A lot of my affiliates were like, well, don't tell people you're going to take the high road. You'll lose the numbers. And we did. The numbers dipped. But I thought, either I'm going to do what feels right for me or I'm going to leave the business." Close quote.

[17:44] Meg: In 2011, Oprah re-interviewed two of the skinheads from that show.

[17:51] Jessica: Oh, My God.

[17:52] Meg: Including Dave Mazzella. And this is a quote from him. "First and foremost, I'd like to express, absolutely, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for how we were on your show. We were rude, we were arrogant, we were disruptive and hateful." Referring to himself in 1988, he said, "that kid was lost." Dave Mazzella was eventually reformed in prison, where he was sent for assault. This is another quote from him. "The crew they put me on was entirely black. These guys accepted me for who I was. They already knew about my past because it was tattooed all over my back and my neck. I had swastikas all over me. But they treated me like a human being. It just taught me that everybody's a human being and we can't just hate people." John Metzger, on the other hand, did not have a change of heart. In fact, he doubled down. This is a pretty long quote from him from around. From the '80s. This is from the '80s, "When I did The Phil Donahue Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show, out of those two shows, I received about a thousand letters. After each show, I responded to them all. Within a month, I've had people send me 500 bucks, 200 bucks. People find out that they like me and that they believe in me, and I send them letters saying, like, we need so much money for a laser printer. I have so many contacts now, about a thousand different people that would drop 10, 20 bucks if I told them to. So that's one way we get donations, by asking. I do a lot of syndicated shows. See, they like me because I'm young. They're always dwelling on me. Like, a lot of them say, you're articulate, you're nice looking. I like our movement being portrayed that way because a lot of us are just normal people." Close quote. And what was the fallout of the broken nose for Geraldo? During the 1987 fall season, Geraldo ranked 54th among 152 syndicated shows, with an average of 2.7 million homes tuned in nightly. After the broken nose, the show rose to 16th with an average of 5.4 million households watching each night. David Halberstam, an author and social critic, said in The New York Times, "in terms of civility, the incident with Geraldo and the chair was a low moment for television. For Geraldo, it was his finest hour because his ratings soared. This kind of programming is wildly demagogic and dangerous. One of these hosts gets a **** on the air, another gets two Nazis." As for Geraldo himself, he loudly defended his show and others like it. Quote, "these are all programs done outside the network news divisions, nonfiction TV has become more diversified and more democratic. Overall, news programming is now more interesting, vital, and less pretentious. An audience numbering in the tens of millions is not a lunatic fringe nor a gullible cult, it is America and it is watching." So he was making a distinction between uptight news like 60 Minutes or the evening news and saying.

[21:19] Jessica: Well, he's saying, why bring anyone up, let's sink to meet a lame headspace and idiocy.

[21:27] Meg: Well, I think what he actually said was that network news or traditional news is being filtered for the elite.

[21:37] Jessica: No, I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying you're right.

[21:39] Meg: It's the same thing.

[21:40] Jessica: Yeah.

[21:40] Meg: Oprah recently interviewed Phil Donahue. This is just in the last few years.

[21:45] Jessica: Oh, neat.

[21:46] Meg: And they reflect on how they both influence TV journalism and culture. And they hope that there's a distinction made between what they were doing and the likes of Jerry Springer. But they also accept their part in it all. And Phil doesn't apologize for it. This is a quote from Phil, who we love. "If you want to know about America's culture in the last half of the 20th century, watch some of these programs."

[22:14] Jessica: I have commentary.

[22:16] Meg: Go.

[22:17] Jessica: I think that those TV shows had their roots in sideshows. They were sideshow tv and what those producers were doing and the hosts of the shows, as producers of the shows, were finding the biggest freaks and geeks that they could find to put them on display. They did not have an agenda of education.

[22:42] Meg: Nope.

[22:43] Jessica: Or insights. Nothing. It was.

[22:44] Meg: They didn't want to understand.

[22:46] Jessica: No.

[22:47] Meg: It was where it was coming from or where it was going. They had no.

[22:50] Jessica: This was the bearded lady and the pinhead.

[22:53] Meg: I think you're absolutely correct.

[22:55] Jessica: Yeah. And so I don't think that they created something new. I think they just dragged a pretty messed up tradition onto, into a new medium. The other thing is our dear friend Sasha and I used to watch The Jerry Springer Show when we were feeling low.

[23:16] Meg: Wow.

[23:17] Jessica: And we would always say, well, at least that's not us.

[23:20] Meg: Well, seriously, Right?

[23:22] Jessica: Yes. And there was. I hope she's listening, because she'll be like, oh, my God, I can't believe you talked about that. But there was. Just to prove my point about sideshow is when they. When those shows were not doing hate mongering, they really were trying to find the most messed up stuff. So they were finding, like, incestuous families with children and putting the children, like, messed up kids and one duo that The Jerry Springer Show put on air at least once a year. It was conjoined. Twins. Two girls joined at the head. They faced in opposite directions. And one of them was very little and was on a like, a barstool that had wheels on it.

[24:08] Meg: Oh, my God.

[24:08] Jessica: And they would wheel around and the one on the bar stool cause, he like, he created, like, a home for them, which at the time, could have possibly been perceived by someone as, well at least they have attention. I don't know what the hell, but it was. It was gruesome. And the one who was on the stool wanted to, she expressed that she wanted to be a country western singer. And he then set her up to do that. It's proof, I feel, that this is really not a cultural moment about, you know, making a point about skinheads, like. Cause who. I think it was Donahue, he had the club kids on, like, they just found. And the club kids came on, you know, like, the kids from The Limelight, who eventually, like, there was the murder. But they, like Michael Alig, they came on dressed insanely and with makeup and really as provocative as humanly possible. And they knew what their role was. But that, to my mind, was really more the thrust. I think that The Geraldo Rivera Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Phil Donahue Show and The Jerry Springer Show and The Morton Downey Jr. show, the fact that they called it journalism was absurd.

[25:36] Meg: Well, I would make a distinction between Oprah and Donahue and Geraldo and Jerry Springer, especially because I just watched a whole bunch of YouTube episodes.

[25:45] Jessica: Okay, but. But I mean. But to your own point, they accepted that they were part of it. They were not. And I think that with Oprah, it's important to note, you know, as her empire grew, she gave chances to people who had been on her show. And, you know, she supported them on whatever platform they wanted to grow on. Dr. Phil is. Or was the is. He inherited the exact same format and approach as the Jerry Springers of the world. And it was tarted up. As a. You know, he's not a psychologist. I remember when my first book came out, I wound up on Geraldo, and I was interviewed by Jeanine Pirro.

[26:36] Meg: Oh, my God, she's horrible.

[26:39] Jessica: I took that ***** down.

[26:40] Meg: Did you?

[26:41] Jessica: I took her down.

[26:42] Meg: Can we find that on YouTube?

[26:43] Jessica: Yeah, we can post it. I wrote a book called The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and their Hapless Victims, and it was found on the desk of these two identity thieves. And so I wound up getting all of this PR that no one could have possibly seen coming. And the kids lawyered up, so they were not available. So my publisher was like, you go on tv, I was like, I don't wanna go. So I did. And Jeanine Pirro, as part of the, you know, the Geraldo machine, was just pushing and pushing with, you are responsible for, you know, these thefts. And, you know, you taught them. And. And I absolutely refused to take the bait. And by the end of the segment, she was like, okay, you know, all right, all right, all right. But I was asked to go on Dr. Phil, and I flat out refused because his whole thing was to yell at whoever was on his show. And it was just, you know, not only is it the, the people who produced and hosted these shows, but the people who elected to go on. I realized, like, who is it who says, I want to go on the show so you can scream at me and humiliate me? Which was the format. So back to Oprah. Yes, she wasn't doing it on her show, but she was funding it and supporting it. And I think that's just. I'm not trying to prove a point. I just think it's interesting to recognize that that format still lives.

[28:15] Meg: I did watch The Club Kids just because, you know, once you start down a rabbit hole, you keep going. And. Oh, and RuPaul was on that The Club Kids episode, and I'm a fan, and that's a The Phil Donahue Show. And he was asking questions. What do you do during the day? You know, what do you think when you see somebody conservatively dressed? How did you get here? He was actually, like, trying to get to the bottom of it. And that's, I think, why I make a distinction between him and the **** show that I watched on Geraldo that had no intellectual curiosity of any kind.

[28:53] Jessica: Well, and to your point, on The Jerry Springer Show, I don't know if you recall this, but the bouncers had to come on stage every single show, part of their whole shtick. And one of them wound up having his show.

[29:08] Meg: He had a spinoff, Got his own show.

[29:10] Jessica: Yes, because people loved him. Maybe he had a few, you know, pithy comments or something. He got. He got his show.

[29:19] Meg: So I thought it was very interesting in all of this that one of, you know, kind of the professional skinhead of all of them was. Was like, thank God for those shows. That's how I made money. And this is pre Internet, but he was basically describing a business model that was, now that people know who I am, they send me money, and they got to know who I was because I was invited to all these shows. Now all he has to do, of course, is just get on Patreon.

[29:47] Jessica: Or Patreon, however you pronounce it.

[29:48] Meg: Yeah, easy peasy. You know, this is a precursor to all of that.

[29:53] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, as far as Phil Donahue goes, I completely take your point. I'm not debating it. But what I do think is notable about him and how he got away with having these shows, what his spin was, was that he took on the role of the people who were theoretically in his audience. So he approached these interviews with these fringe people with sort of assuming you're insane now prove to me that you're not.

[30:24] Meg: I'm not sure that's true. I was a devotee of The Phil Donahue Show. If I watched any show. If you were watching Jerry Springer, I was watching Phil. And I don't think that that's what. I see what you're saying as far as, like, he put himself in the role of the audience member and asked the questions he would expect them to ask and actually ask them to ask questions. But it was not confrontational. It was all like, let's figure this out together.

[30:49] Jessica: I know. I agree with you.

[30:50] Meg: And not like your weirdos. He didn't treat them like they were crazy. He treated them like let's figure. Let's find out what we all have in common, which I think is a much healthier approach.

[31:00] Jessica: It's interesting because first off, I. I agree with you. I don't think he was confrontational at all. I think that his magic was that he was, he had charm and warmth. I am interested.

[31:11] Meg: Find a commonality. Don't find a difference.

[31:13] Jessica: I'm interested to go back and watch The Club Kids one, because I have such and admittedly you just saw it. I have not. I just remember having a visceral reaction. That was basically what I just said.

[31:28] Meg: Well, it's pretty silly because they're dressed like they should be in a nightclub, but they're in a fluorescently lit studio. So that alone is just awkward.

[31:38] Jessica: Yes, awkward is a great word for it. It definitely. But, yeah, this was a fascinating time. And I agree with you. And I think that what's really, really interesting, and I never, ever would have thought about it before, is that there is this continuum from sideshows like the movie Freaks through to the Internet with every wackadoodle having a platform and finding the people who want to see the sensational **** or be affirmed by their nonsense. And it's kind of like, well, I guess that's human nature. And that it is, as with all things in media, it is a reflection of humanity, because to make money, you just show people themselves.

[32:29] Meg: Or like you and Sasha. Well, at least I'm not as bad off as that?

[32:34] Jessica: Absolutely. I mean, think about what mind, what. What headspaces we were in at the time to be like, well, we're not the conjoined twins on the stool. My God, we were not doing well. Holy Christmas. Okay, I have an engagement question for you.

[33:00] Meg: Okay, I'm ready.

[33:01] Jessica: Do you like parades?

[33:04] Meg: Yes. To be more specific, yes, please. I enjoy watching parades on the television set as opposed to being in a crowd of people on the side of the street, which I would never do. Or watching a parade from somebody's beautiful apartment who lives on Fifth Avenue. That would be awesome.

[33:25] Jessica: Yes, indeed. I feel the same way that you do. I don't like being out and about amongst a crush of people and especially because I'm short. It's just annoying. It's just a bad scene for me. The one parade that I did attend street level was the Gay Pride Parade when I lived in Greenwich Village. And I'm so predictable. And our dear friend Nick is going to listen to this and be like, oh, God, it's true. She's telling the truth. I would stand on the corner of, I think it was like 13th Street and 6th Ave where I lived, crying every year when the gram, like proud grandmas of. Of gay kids. Like, I would lose it every single time. And one time I was watching, like, you know, because, like, there were always, like, dykes on bikes and whatever. And one year, right after dykes on bikes were gay handlebar mustache guys on bikes. And I was looking at one of the bikes, like, that is a. Like, I don't care about motorcycles. But I was like, that is a beautiful motorcycle. And I looked up, it was my hairdresser. What Ted on it. He's like, hey, how you doing? I was like, this could not be more New York and more Gay Pride Parade if we tried. This wins the one parade that I have certainly never been to in person, but was in it, like. A huge part of growing up in New York City was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Did you ever. Did you watch that on tv?

[35:01] Meg: I always watched it on tv. I. And now that I have to pass Macy's at least twice a week, I've been watching them preparing for it over the last couple of weeks. And. Yeah, and I love it when they stop right in front of Macy's and they do the performances. And we just watched Avalon. Do you know that movie?

[35:23] Jessica: I love that movie. Oh, my God. That's a. That's a Barry Levinson. Yes. Oh, love. Like that is a heartstrings movie.

[35:33] Meg: It is. And Billy was a Little annoyed that I had him watch it because I didn't remember that it ends in not the happiest of ways. And he was like, why did you make me watch this on Thanksgiving? But the Thanksgiving Day parade comes up frequently.

[35:49] Jessica: Is it the whole you cut the turkey situation?

[35:53] Meg: They never make up.

[35:54] Jessica: Yeah, I know. They never make up.

[35:56] Meg: That's horrible. I kind of was expecting them to make up. Even though I've seen that movie so many times I haven't seen it for forever. And I was like, they're gonna make up.

[36:03] Jessica: Nope, you cut the turkey. You cut the turkey. You cut the turkey without me. You didn't wait. It's sad, but you know, Barry Levinson, he was good with like the details that rang with truth. Like, do you remember in Diner the relationship between Ellen Barkin and Shrevie? Who? Daniel Stern. And it was just, they were young, they got married young. It was a terrible match. And just watching the two of them desperately trying to remember why they liked each other, like, it was painful, but it was so true that it worked as the backbone of this story that was eventually about love. But yeah, I love him. I think he's great. But Avalon. So you, you watched Avalon and in.

[36:52] Meg: That film, in the background of that film, because it also. He weaves in television. Like once the television comes into the house, the family dynamic begins to change. And you know, it's. The whole movie is structured around the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. Those are the two benchmarks. And so after a certain period in the movie, the Thanksgiving Day parade on the television in the background becomes a recurring motif.

[37:25] Jessica: Yes, that's a good example of I like it from afar. So even not even watching it on tv, watching it in a movie, watching it on tv.

[37:34] Meg: Right. I did tune into it a little bit while I was cooking.

[37:37] Jessica: Oh, well, so this is partly. So this is sort of a. This is a classic Jessica. It's meandering, but it makes perfect sense, at least to me. In recent years whenever. Cause like you can't live in New York and not be aware when there's like there's a new float or there's a new balloon. And it's become so evident that everything is about licensed characters and it's very heavy handed advertising and all of that stuff. And I don't remember it being that way. I remember it always being an advertisement for Macy's. Like that was the point that it was for Macy's. So I decided to go back and take a look at what was the Macy's Day, Thanksgiving Day. Parade when we were kids. So the 54th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was in 1980.

[38:30] Meg: Okay.

[38:31] Jessica: And so I'm going to take you back and I'm just going to share a few things that took place during that parade, which surprised me. That year Snoopy was not in it.

[38:45] Meg: Ooh.

[38:46] Jessica: Because he had had a giant gash in his leg. Something had happened to poor Snoopy. And adorably, in 1981, he returned and they mended him with a giant band aid.

[38:57] Meg: That's so cute.

[38:58] Jessica: Isn't that the sweetest and the cutest ever? So I went through the list of, like, what are the balloons? What are the what? And who sponsored them? All of the balloons, except for Superman, which was a new addition from DC Comics. Mickey Mouse, Happy Dragon, Linus the Lion Hearted, Smokey the Bear, Kermit the Frog, Underdog, and Bullwinkle, except for Kermit, all sponsored by Macy's.

[39:27] Meg: Okay.

[39:28] Jessica: Every single one of them. The floats, I'd say half of them Macy's. But the floats, again, like a simpler time. One of them just says Turkey. Oh, right. There's also one from Schaper Toys. That is. I think I remember this toy, but seeing it in print made me laugh. It's called Cootie.

[39:48] Meg: What's it look like?

[39:49] Jessica: Well, I remember it being a toy that's like a worm that had, like. It was like modular pieces.

[39:55] Meg: Okay. Yes, yes.

[39:57] Jessica: Right.

[39:57] Meg: That had little legs.

[39:58] Jessica: Yes, yes. And it moved. It was like a little kid's toy. The Loch Ness Monster. Random, Right?

[40:05] Meg: You're not going to sell anything. No, but I appreciate it.

[40:09] Jessica: Exactly. Doodle Bug. Don't know what that is. Macy's. The Lunar Moth. Don't know. Mother Goose. Pirate Ship, A dollhouse.

[40:21] Meg: Okay, so these are themes.

[40:23] Jessica: Yes.

[40:23] Meg: Of toys that you might want to buy your children in the coming months.

[40:28] Jessica: Exactly. And then there were the specialty units that were very New York or Macy's, I guess, but, you know, like the NYPD mounted unit.

[40:37] Meg: Love it.

[40:38] Jessica: So the horses would come by. We love a good horse sighting. Holiday treat for children everywhere banner. I don't know. The New Milford Volunteer Fire Department Number Two. And it was the 13th time they had been in it, bless them.

[40:55] Meg: So specific brands aren't sponsoring. Macy's is like, hey, we're a really big store. We're right here. If you see something that catches your fancy, we probably have something here.

[41:09] Jessica: Exactly.

[41:10] Meg: In the theme of Turkey or Mother Goose.

[41:14] Jessica: Right. We are the home for these things. The only big, like, Ocean Spray did one.

[41:21] Meg: Okay.

[41:21] Jessica: And there's DC Comics. And Jim Henson comes up a few times.

[41:26] Meg: Lovely.

[41:26] Jessica: And then there are the marching bands, you know, and the marching bands are all about community support. Right. And, like, getting the kids out.

[41:34] Meg: I saw a group of kids in their in their jackets, and they were from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I passed through them. At first I was a little annoyed because they were, like, in my way, and there were a lot of them. And then I read the back of their jackets, and I'm like.

[41:50] Jessica: Like I am now, in the spirit of the season, you can walk in front of me and I won't kill you. Yes, you did. And I take that back. I take that back. Take that back. Oh, my God. Yes. Sorry. Well, that's not what. That wasn't my intent. Yeah. So you saw the kids and you were annoyed and then felt chastened and pulled again.

[42:15] Meg: Well, because they've been traumatized, which is why they were invited to march in the parade.

[42:19] Jessica: So they didn't need you further traumatizing them by saying, screaming, get out of my way, you little *******.

[42:25] Meg: Exactly.

[42:26] Jessica: That's good of you.

[42:27] Meg: Thanks.

[42:28] Jessica: So there are also some guest stars that were very 1980, such as Sister Sledge. Oh.

[42:34] Meg: Cause they stop in front of Macy's and they sing.

[42:36] Jessica: They sang We Are Family on the turkey, on the turkey float. All right. The cast of Barnum, Famous Amos. Remember Barnum, the show? My mom took me to see that. And little did we know.

[42:51] Meg: Jim Dale.

[42:52] Jessica: Yes. Little did we know.

[42:54] Meg: And Glenn Close.

[42:55] Jessica: Was she Jenny Lind?

[42:57] Meg: No, she played his wife.

[42:59] Jessica: Ah, interesting. Well, that was the first performance I had ever been to where they broke the fourth wall and played with the audience.

[43:08] Meg: And you were freaked out.

[43:10] Jessica: I hated it.

[43:11] Meg: Yeah.

[43:11] Jessica: Yes. So when the clowns came around, I was like. I was telling my mother, like, don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. Make them go away. So there was Famous Amos of the cookies. The cast of Brigadoon, Chita Rivera, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, which clearly would not fly these days. Stephanie Mills sang Never Knew Love Like This Before, The Spinners, Cupid Draw Back Your Bow, Captain & Tennille.

[43:42] Meg: Love it.

[43:42] Jessica: Melba Moore singing Everything So Good About You, like, how great is that? And as if it couldn't get any better, there were a few pre parade acts. Most notably Todd Bridges. Yes singing.

[43:58] Meg: What?

[43:59] Jessica: He sang Summer Dancing.

[44:02] Meg: Why?

[44:02] Jessica: I don't know. Well, maybe the. Because the show was big at the time, so that's a difference. For those of you who don't know, that's Willis From Diff'rent Strokes, as in "what you talking about, Willis?" And also Ed McMahon, who sang the Thanksgiving song.

[44:20] Meg: Okay, so he's sort of a Santa-ish, avuncular presence, I suppose.

[44:26] Jessica: But now we're gonna get back to my favorite part of this entire parade. Because I went through all of this information and something caught my eye and I was like, I have a hunch there's a story here. There is a classification of floats that are called push floats. And all of them were sponsored by Macy's. And there was Bear Bee. I suppose it's a bear and a bee with a honey pot. Who knows? Rocking Lion, Rocking Tortoise, Rocking Horse, Airplane, Rocking Kangaroo, Snail, George Washington and Ben Franklin, Pilgrim man and woman. And then there's a Rocking Lobster, okay? And I was like, hold. Hold the phone Macy's. So that. That was in 1980. In 1978, The B-52's recorded and then released their very first single, Rock Lobster.

[45:32] Meg: Okay, so it predates the Rocking Lobster.

[45:35] Jessica: The Rocking Lobster. In 1979, it has its US peak chart number 56. I'm sorry, the album peaked in '79, but the single Rock Lobster peaked in May 1980.

[45:56] Meg: So they did that. Somebody said, oh, this'll be funny.

[46:00] Jessica: Yes. And they had an even stronger showing in the UK but the dates line up perfectly. This is a rocking a rock lobster. So then I was like, I wanna know more about Rock Lobster. Because I remember, like, the very first time I heard it. I remember I was in the car with friends, like, from growing up who lived on Long Island. And we stayed in the car, like, we begged our parents to leave us in the car listening to it because it was so crazy. We were like, we don't even know what we're listening to here. It's so weird. As with all things, it has more of a story than you'd think. So I'm going to read a little bit from songfacts.com and who knows if they're correct, but I'm going to give them the Jessica Dorfman Jones stamp of approval here. Fred Schneider of The B-52's stopped eating crustaceans at the age of four after going crabbing with his family in New Jersey and watching the crabs get boiled alive. He explained in a video he narrated for PETA that he got the idea for this song when he was at an Atlanta disco called 2001, where a projector displayed images of lobsters on a grill. He thought, rock this, rock that, rock lobster. I don't know how that goes with the grill, but Fred Schneider is a very unique individual. The band jammed on the title and Rock Lobster was created. They made a lot of fish noises on the song to, what's a fish noise? Well, if you recall the song, they have a lot of like. Like underwater. So that was Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson. And they did it as an homage to Yoko Ono, who famously, you know, like, Yoko Ono's recordings are a little hard to take, but they are very enthusiastic, nonverbal vocalizations. That's the nicest thing I've ever said about her recordings. But here you go. The Yoko Ono influence on this song was clear to John Lennon, who heard it playing in a Bermuda disco in 1979. It reminded him of Yoko's music so much that it inspired him to return to the recording studio after a five year retirement. Resulting in the 1980 album Double Fantasy, Lennon's last before he was murdered. The B-52's guitarist Keith Strickland recalled that at the end of the song, quote, "Cindy does this scream that was inspired by Yoko Ono. John heard it in some club in the Bahamas. And the story goes that he calls up Yoko and says, get the axe out. They're ready for us again. Yoko has said that she and John were listening to us in the weeks before he died." Yoko confirmed the story in her 2013 interview. She recalled listening to The B-52's, "John said he realized that my time had come so he could record an album by making me an equal partner. And we won't get flack like we used to up until then." Rock Lobster bizarrely unifying the unbelievable album Double Fantasy and a very peculiar float in the 54th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

[49:20] Meg: That's great. I remember in every single school dance, that was the one song that people would dance to. It was a little scattered. It was hard for the DJ to know what was gonna get like a bunch of, you know, teenagers out on the dance floor. But Rock Lobster was a surefire hit because it told you what to do. And so everyone was like, oh, great. So I don't have to make any personal choices that I'll be judged for. I will just do the dance that they're telling me to do.

[49:51] Jessica: Gonna go with the motion in the ocean.

[49:53] Meg: But also the down, down, down. Oh, yes, that whole thing. Yeah.

[49:58] Jessica: Yes. Well. And also it was such a bananas song that just doing any kind of weird.

[50:03] Meg: Nene nee, nee, nee, nee, nee, nee.

[50:05] Jessica: Like any weird contortions like you could do.

[50:08] Meg: It was very freeing.

[50:10] Jessica: You know, I hadn't remembered that what I always associated with that time in our lives as the song that everyone responded to was The J. Geils Band, Centerfold.

[50:21] Meg: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[50:23] Jessica: The number of bar and bat mitzvahs that I went to where kids were like, the DJs obviously knew when it was time to get them on the dance floor. They hit that button and everyone's like.

[50:47] Meg: What's our tie in?

[50:49] Jessica: The only thing that I can think of is that The B-52's were very invested in not being normal. They were avant garde. They were. You know, they were. They were a little.

[51:04] Meg: I think I know where you're going with this.

[51:05] Jessica: Yeah, they were a little wacky. And I'm just gonna draw a line between the sort of guest The Phil Donahue would like to have, like the club kids and The B-52's. Maybe that's.

[51:19] Meg: Was it called confrontainment.

[51:21] Jessica: Confrontainment. But they were so non confrontational, The B-52's, they were like, delightful. Yeah, but pure joy. Pure joy, but. But not normal.

[51:31] Meg: Lots of questions. We have questions for The B-52's. How about that? If we had our own talk show, we would have The B-52's on and we would be entertained for at least 45 minutes.

[51:45] Jessica: Well, and I would just. What I really want to drill down into, and I never will, like, in this moment, I would like to drill down into. This is like what made them so popular, considering that half of the lyrics of every song were delivered like spoken word entertainment in a nasal crazy voice by Fred Schneider. How was that popular? How did that happen?

[52:11] Meg: And beehive haircuts and everything.

[52:12] Jessica: Well, they. I mean, yes, they tapped into it.

[52:15] Meg: It was unusual.

[52:16] Jessica: It's. To quote Cyndi Lauper, "it's so unusual."