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

[00:19] Jessica: I am Meg and I am 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.

[00:28] Meg: And where we podcast about New York city in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:35] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:38] Meg: And I believe we had some feedback about last week's episode.

[00:41] Jessica: Yes, I think on our last episode we we agreed that our BFF Alex has to be elevated to contributor, I.

[00:51] Meg: Think is what you said.

[00:51] Jessica: Or editor at large, bless him. After our last episode he came back with a piece, a nugget of trivia and a little bit of his own memory lane regarding said trivia. Share. So while all of the articles that I read about Rock Lobster and Fred Schneider's experience with Rock Lobster indicated that they were really crawfish, Alex came back with nay, nay.

[01:21] Meg: All right.

[01:22] Jessica: It is actually a kind of Maine lobster. So I'm wondering perhaps they are both valid, you know, claiming the name. Yeah, I don't know as I am not a neither a marine biologist or a frequent chef of crustacean life, I can't say. But there was that. And then he also gave us a little, a little nugget from his own blog that we have referenced many times. Vassifer that is also Flaming Pablum. Alex, you gotta work that out. But he wrote, he wrote on December 15, 2021 called Exhuming The B-52's, which I personally take umbrage at because they not dead bitch. I don't know what you thinking, but he had something fun to say.

[02:17] Meg: They were guests on RuPaul's Drag Race not too long ago.

[02:20] Jessica: Yes, as well they should have been because that is their milieu. So here's what he wrote about his own memories. He said "they were just silly. I mean, Rock Lobster? What the hell is that? My sister's tireless spins of that now iconic single and Dance this Mess around, another fan favorite, frequently prompted me to skulk back into my own room for yet another world weary spin of Pink Floyd's The Wall, the ponderously self indulgent magnum opus unleashed on the world just four months after the Athens band's comparatively sprightly debut. I Suppose I figured I find more solace in the bitterly heavy handed exhortations of Roger Waters than the giddily nonsensical declarations of Fred Schneider. It's odd now to think that these two vastly different records were released in the same era." And I will not read the rest of it, but I will say that Alex went on to learn to appreciate the The B-52's.

[03:22] Meg: Oh, good. I'm glad I remember.

[03:24] Jessica: I can't say he's a fan, okay, but appreciated.

[03:28] Meg: I remember when The Wall was everywhere. You could not get away from it, and it just didn't stick with me. It will not be a shocker to you that I was not a fan. I was just like, what? Why? Unfun.

[03:43] Jessica: I'm gonna bring up another The Fleming School memory. There was a teacher named Charles Borkus, and the kids called him Chuck. And then Chuck Borkus became Chork. When that came out, the older kids would run around singing, we don't need. Wait. We don't need no education. We don't need no chalk Control. Control. And that is. That is whenever anyone says the wall, that is the first thing I think of.

[04:11] Meg: Chork, control.

[04:11] Jessica: Chork control. Which is also evidence of how, like, there. There was a certain era, and boys latched onto Monty Python. Endless memorization and just repetition of Monty Python sketches and The Wall. And I was like, you're right.

[04:32] Meg: That's it.

[04:32] Jessica: I can't anymore.

[04:33] Meg: I just had such a flashback.

[04:34] Jessica: Right. Did it hurt your heart? You clutched your chest?

[04:37] Meg: I don't want to go back there. My engagement question for you, Jessica. When did you learn about sex? And how.

[04:58] Jessica: Why did I feel like the second that you said when? I was like, this is gonna be a sex thing. I just know it in my bones. I have a ridiculous story about that.

[05:09] Meg: Great.

[05:10] Jessica: Okay. I don't recall my parents specifically telling me what it was, but I do know that they did. And knowing my parents, particularly my mother, it was indubitably delivered in very clinical terms. There was none of the, like, when you're in love, you know, it was like, this is how babies are made. And I have this really vivid memory. So I was little. I must have been, like, six or seven. So it's that maybe that this is even after I learned. But I was 6 or 7. I was at Claremont Stables. This is proof that synapses fire in all weird kind of ways. They had a weird setup where there was, like, they had, like, a lobby area that was, had big windows. You could watch the horses and the kids, you know, doing their thing. And then, like, their tack room. But right in the lobby area, they had, like, a semicircular, what must have been, like, a shower curtain rod and a thick curtain that concealed the bathroom entrance.

[06:24] Meg: Yeah. I'm so nervous. No, no, no.

[06:27] Jessica: This is just how children's brains work.

[06:28] Meg: Okay?

[06:29] Jessica: So I remember just being like, huh, that's weird that there's a thing there. And then in my little brain went bathroom. And then I went, I wonder where people have sex. Because that had not been covered in the tutorial. And I was like, well, if it's, it's a thing to. To have, it's a bodily function to have a result. So it must be in the bathroom. That must be where you have sex.

[07:01] Meg: I. I hear the logic there.

[07:02] Jessica: Yes. And. And I just sort of. And I. I must have asked my dad or something, because my dad was the one who always took us, and he. He was probably like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine.

[07:14] Meg: Sounds good.

[07:14] Jessica: Whatever. Whatever works for you, you know? Cut to many people I know, including myself during our reckless years and indeed, the bathroom did come into it in all kinds of really rum environments. Clubs, bars. Sure.

[07:31] Meg: So I remember my parents taking me to see An Unmarried Woman.

[07:37] Jessica: Oh, my God. I saw that with my parents on HBO and John and I were frozen solid the entire time.

[07:45] Meg: And, you know, this was in a theater Jessica.

[07:48] Jessica: How awful, I'm deeply sorry for you.

[07:50] Meg: And I was so young that I didn't understand that when she kept her underwear on, like in the loft sex scene, that that was just the beginning. I thought, oh, well, that's how you have sex without getting pregnant.

[08:04] Jessica: Well, that makes perfect sense in a way, actually, that's true. Yes.

[08:08] Meg: All right.

[08:08] Jessica: Yes.

[08:09] Meg: Moist. My sources are.

[08:10] Jessica: Did you just say moist sources are? Yes. You did. Okay. I am all here for this.

[08:17] Meg: All right. My sources are a documentary, and I'm not gonna say what the name is because it gives it away.

[08:23] Jessica: Okay.

[08:23] Meg: And The New York Times and a couple of other articles. In December of 1985, Ann Scarpellino, a librarian from Ramsey, New Jersey, purchased First Love: A Young People's Guide To Sexual Information by Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

[08:42] Jessica: And so excited right now. Go ahead.

[08:44] Meg: Ann was a mother of three, and she was planning to read the book first before putting it on the library shelf. She was shocked when she read in chapter 10 on page 195, about when to have sex if you wanted to avoid pregnancy. This is what the book said, quote, "the safe times are the week before and the week of ovulation."

[09:08] Jessica: What?

[09:09] Meg: Ann immediately called the publisher. Warner Brothers, not only took her call, there was a 911 emergency alert sent out, and they immediately recalled 115,000 copies of the book due to the egregious and potentially devastating typo. Dr. Ruth, at this time the country's best known sex therapist, was both mortified and incredibly grateful to Ann and invited her to lunch.

[09:43] Jessica: Now, I want to know if the copy editor got sacked that day or if they tortured her for a while.

[09:48] Meg: First, I'm going to guess that you can do a German accent.

[09:52] Jessica: Yavul.

[09:53] Meg: I. So, I, I. Yes.

[09:57] Jessica: You're looking for.

[09:58] Meg: Exactly. I need some Dr. Ruth. Because I. If I. It. It just. It would suck.

[10:03] Jessica: All right, well, it's going to be terrible, but it will be the best I can do.

[10:06] Meg: Exactly. And I'm going to point to you when you read these quotes. And they're bullet pointed.

[10:12] Jessica: My God.

[10:12] Meg: Okay.

[10:13] Jessica: This is so like Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'm very so into this. Okay.

[10:18] Meg: Okay, ready? So your first thing is coming up soon. Dr. Ruth said at the time.

[10:24] Jessica: "Thank God not so many have been sold."

[10:27] Meg: Thank you, Jessica. Beautiful. And a corrected version of the $3.50 paperback was quickly issued. Dr. Ruth was born in Germany to a Jewish family in 1928. They sent her to an orphanage in Switzerland as the Nazis began to gain power, and it saved her life. She calls herself an orphan of the Holocaust rather than a survivor because she was never in a camp. Her entire family was murdered by the Gestapo. After the war, she immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, the future state of Israel, and joined Haganah as a sniper when she was 17. A diminutive 4 foot, 7 inches, she was a crack shot. Fortunately, she never had to shoot anyone. She married and moved to Paris, where the Sorbonne University agreed to educate war refugees. And there she studied psychology under Jean Piaget. But her first husband moved back to Israel and she didn't want to go back. And so she remarried and immigrated to the US in 1956, arriving in New York City. I mean, so much happens, so I'm just gonna list it. She learned English. She had a daughter. She divorced her second husband. She put herself through grad school working as a maid. She earned her doctorate in 1970 when she was 42 from Columbia Teachers College. Then she went to work at Planned Parenthood in Harlem. And while she was working there, people kept asking her questions she couldn't answer. So she realized she had to learn more. And that's when she went and trained as a sex therapist under Helen Singer Kaplan at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Wow, that brings us to 1980, our favorite year. When she was 52, she gave a lecture to broadcasters about the importance of sex education programming to help stem the tide of unwanted pregnancies. Betty Elam, the community affairs manager at radio station WYNY, liked what she saw and needed to fill a notoriously dead time slot. Betty offered Ruth $25 a week and the show, Sexually Speaking, was born. For 15 minutes every Sunday at midnight, Dr. Ruth answered call in questions no one had ever dared ask publicly. Like why can't I have an orgasm? Why do I have an orgasm too soon? What's the best time of day to have an orgasm? Is it okay to have an orgasm? Is it okay to fantasize, to masturbate?

[13:13] Jessica: "If you want to believe that a whole football team is in bed with you, that's fine."

[13:18] Meg: Oh my God, you are so brilliant. I'm so happy for you. Oh, Jessica, you make me so happy. Her philosophy was simple.

[13:27] Jessica: "Anything that two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom or kitchen floor is all right with me."

[13:34] Meg: In a time when the Moral Majority was gaining its voice and power, she spoke out in favor of contraception and abortion and same sex partnerships. She favored relationships over one night stands and she strongly promoted Planned Parenthood and AIDS research. To a question about having sex with an animal, she responded, "I am not a veterinarian." With all the blunt and honest guidance, it didn't hurt that she was a charm machine. With her thick German accent, she reminded people of Freud. In fact, she was nicknamed Grandma Freud. People trusted her. In a few months her radio show had attracted 25,000 listeners purely through word of mouth. The station did zero promotion. It was extended to one hour, moved to 10pm and went live. By 1983, her show was the top rated radio show in the Tri State area, which was the country's largest radio market. Soon she was syndicated and that led to her TV show Good Sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer on Lifetime. She was and is a cultural phenomenon and a household name. I always think about the montage in Tootsie when Tootsie's beginning to become famous and they show him like on the cover of People magazine and Time magazine and stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, they must have been thinking about Dr. Ruth during that, don't you think?

[15:11] Jessica: Just the styling, how he looked and.

[15:13] Meg: Just the whole like and then this happened and this cover and that cover and the.

[15:18] Jessica: Just the phenom.

[15:20] Meg: Yeah, the phenom element of it.

[15:22] Jessica: Yes, she was. You couldn't turn around. Well, I wouldn't say you'd turn around and see her. You'd have to turn around, look down, and there she was.

[15:29] Meg: Some fun facts about Dr. Ruth. She was married three times and the third was her true love, Fred Westheimer, whom she met skiing in the Catskills. He adopted her first daughter and then they went on to have a son. She was the first doctor first name. So, like, before Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Drew, it was Dr. Ruth. And it was because no one could really pronounce her last name. So she was like, just call me Dr. Ruth. She has always lived in Washington Heights. She has said she never wanted to leave because of the community of German Jewish World War II refugees there.

[16:06] Jessica: "Because of my experience with the Holocaust, I don't like to lose friends."

[16:12] Meg: She didn't instruct her two children in sex education.

[16:16] Jessica: That is surprising.

[16:18] Meg: They both say she just left a lot of literature around the house for them to teach themselves. Her husband Fred has said, quote, "the shoemaker's children have no shoes." And she never discusses her own sex life, but she does talk about her sexual awakening, losing her virginity atop a pile of hay in a kibbutz.

[16:42] Jessica: Itchy.

[16:47] Meg: She is a vocal proponent of contraception access and abortion access and specifically cites Planned Parenthood as being an essential health care organization. She doesn't consider herself a feminist, but believes in equal pay for equal work and has said,

[17:06] Jessica: "I do believe that women can have it all with an exclamation mark. I do believe that they can have a family. They have to know that husbands have to participate."

[17:15] Jessica: "She can't have it all alone."

[17:17] Jessica: "She has to have a partner."

[17:19] Meg: Her biggest controversy happened in an interview she gave in 2015 promoting her memoir. She said, "a woman may not change her mind once she is naked in bed with a man."

[17:32] Jessica: "No such thing is possible."

[17:34] Jessica: Okay, now I'm like, having a neurotic breakdown over what she just said.

[17:39] Jessica: "No such thing is possible. In the Talmud, in the Jewish tradition, it says when that part of the male anatomy is aroused and there's an erection, the brain flies out". Later, she tweeted.

[17:51] Jessica: "I am 100% against rape."

[17:56] Jessica: "I do say to women, if they don't want to have sex with a man, they should not be naked in bed with him. That's a risky behavior, like crossing the streets against the light. If a driver hits you, he's legally in the wrong, but you are in the hospital."

[18:12] Meg: She has written a crazy amount of books, notably Sex For Dummies, which I'm actually curious about, isn't it?

[18:20] Jessica: Isn't that like every human being on the planet in some way? Like, all of the anxiety, all of the worry, like everyone's sort of a doom cop in this area.

[18:31] Meg: Yeah, that's why I feel like we should get this book.

[18:34] Jessica: All right, we'll do. We'll do dramatic readings from it.

[18:37] Meg: Another book. Stay or Go: Dr. Ruth's Rules for Real Relationships where she actually tells people, if you should stay in a relationship or leave the relationship. The Art of Arousal, Dr. Ruth's Sex After 50 and The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life and Joie de Vivre.

[18:51] Jessica: "I believe sexual education has to be done with humor. If a professor leaves his students laughing, they will walk away remembering what they have learned."

[19:01] Meg: Further, she acknowledged.

[19:04] Jessica: "It also has a little to do with my accent. The mixture of German, French, Hebrew and English has not harmed me."

[19:11] Meg: Some of her advice. "I do suggest that people have sex before they go out to dinner."

[19:20] Jessica: No, you won't hurry through the meal. Honestly, enjoy your food.

[19:24] Meg: Really good point. Yes. "You don't have to share your fantasies. If you have sex with your partner and the woman thinks about a whole football team in bed with her, that's okay. But keep your mouth shut about it."

[19:36] Jessica: Fair.

[19:36] Meg: Yeah. "Men want stronger sperm. Eat walnuts." Get out. "Make up your own events. Like an onion ring tossed onto an erect penis."

[19:47] Jessica: That does not sound like good advice. That's, you know, and everyone has an air fryer now, you know, some putz is going to be like, ah, it's right out of the air fryer. Here we go. Sizzling like, no, thank you. Okay.

[20:07] Meg: "Parade your body in front of your partner. Show it off. Try to feel good about it." I love try to try.

[20:13] Jessica: Exactly "in midst parade. Don't have second thoughts. Blindly go with the confidence that you chose in the first place."

[20:29] Meg: So yes, Dr. Ruth, this was a request from my good friend Jordan, who thought for a sec, he was like, how can you not have covered Dr. Ruth?

[20:39] Jessica: Oh, is this Jordan who's like, is Jessica Jewish?

[20:41] Meg: Yes.

[20:42] Jessica: Yeah. Okay. Now I understand why I'm doing the.

[20:45] Jessica: Dr. Ruth Westheimer accent is here in the house.

[20:51] Meg: Thank you. So you know she's alive and well.

[20:54] Jessica: Well, did you know about her new thing?

[20:56] Meg: I do and I'm glad you do.

[20:59] Jessica: Oh, hell yes. She petitioned our governor to become the minister or ambassador.

[21:06] Meg: Ambassador to loneliness.

[21:09] Jessica: And that after Covid, it became very evident to her that was all what was already an epidemic that harms people's mental and then physical health. Loneliness, solitude, isolation. After and during COVID it became an epidemic and she decided she was going to do something about it. And I think that there is an ambassador to loneliness someplace else than she got inspired in the world and that she was inspired by this person. So she got. She got the gig and she is now on a mission. I suppose it's just another side to the coin of good sex, that being.

[21:49] Jessica: Lonely is not good.

[21:51] Jessica: And if sex happens, how nice for you. But not with an animal.

[21:56] Jessica: I am not a veterinarian.

[21:59] Jessica: Um, that's. Yeah, she's amazing. How old is she? 95.

[22:03] Meg: I believe she's 95.

[22:06] Jessica: 95. Total baller. Love her. Love her.

[22:10] Meg: And the documentary is, not surprisingly called Ask Dr. Ruth. And it is so good.

[22:18] Jessica: I don't think. I think you have to be made of stone to watch her and not love her. Like, you have to be a real mental case.

[22:25] Meg: Absolutely. And it's interesting, the whole feminist thing, because her granddaughter in the documentary is like. But you are. She's like, nope, nope, I'm not.

[22:36] Jessica: I don't like labels.

[22:38] Meg: I mean. Yeah, I. And I. It made me think about that whole generation of women who just have a bad connotation to the word. I feel like it's a semantic issue.

[22:47] Jessica: Yes. Maybe we should come up with a word that everyone likes.

[22:49] Meg: That would be awesome because I think we're all pretty much on the same page. There are a few outliers, self loathers, but for the most part, women, at least the ones that I know, would rather not be subjugated.

[23:02] Jessica: I love Caitlin Moran, the writer. And she. She wrote a book a while ago, I think it was How to Be a Woman. And she talks about this whole. Am I a feminist? Are you a feminist? What is a feminist? And she had. And I'm really paraphrasing, this is not terribly good. It's a. It's a very short list. It's. Would you like to be paid the same thing as everyone else around you?

[23:27] Meg: For doing the same job?

[23:27] Jessica: For doing the same work? Stick your hand down your underpants. Do you have a vagina? You are a feminist.

[23:35] Meg: Well, but men can be feminists.

[23:37] Jessica: She was speaking to a female audience. I think she was. To your point about the lo. The self loathers, the outliers, it was. Get real.

[23:47] Meg: Yeah.

[23:47] Jessica: Get a life. Come on. Yeah. That's a great book. Anyone who ever wants to read. She was a rock journalist and then wound up writing a couple of books about women and feminism and her own life that are just so fabulous.

[24:03] Meg: Yeah. So now we have to get Sex For Dummies too. I'm actually like, we're gonna be doing.

[24:08] Jessica: Dramatic readings on this show.

[24:10] Meg: Yeah. We started with Gayle Greene and now we move on. Well, it's probably gonna be pretty clinical, don't you think? Well, we don't know. We don't know.

[24:17] Jessica: I would imagine that she would not have been able to resist going into sliding into some anecdotal God knows what. But who knows? We'll find Out. Hi, Meg.

[24:38] Meg: Hi.

[24:38] Jessica: Are you ready?

[24:39] Meg: I am.

[24:40] Jessica: Okay, so I got a phone call and an email, subsequent email from my friend Lauri, who used to be my business partner. And Laurie is delightful. And she and her husband Stuart are artists, artist types of the old school variety that we talk about a lot here in. On this podcast. Laurie's one of those people who's always on the scene in one way or another. Like, remember how I talked about my landlord, Burnt Knobber? The white guy who is always like. Like she knew who he was. Like, you know, and. And she at one point had a. She's an art school person and she had a relationship with a mustachioed individual who was in a band that rhymed with schmal and schmotes.

[25:26] Meg: Oh, okay.

[25:28] Jessica: So she was on the scene. You know what I mean? Like, she knew things, she was around, and then.

[25:32] Meg: You can't say that out loud.

[25:34] Jessica: I don't know if. How she'll feel about it. So, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm.

[25:38] Meg: I'm. Well, that was subtle.

[25:40] Jessica: I don't know. I don't know.

[25:41] Meg: You know, they're having a lot of problems.

[25:44] Jessica: Oh, my God. The freaking Daryl Hall is insane. And has. Has taken out a restraining order on little tiny John Oates.

[25:52] Meg: Well, who knows which one is insane?

[25:54] Jessica: Sounds like Daryl Hall is is an established crank. Okay, he has established as a crank now.

[25:59] Meg: So you're blaming Hall and not Oates now?

[26:02] Jessica: Look, I'm opening the door to the possibility that Hall went feral. Like something happened. Oates went feral and not Hall. Oates. Oates went feral.

[26:10] Meg: Okay, Anyway, whatever. We don't know what the hell is going on.

[26:13] Jessica: But when I saw Daryl Hall has restraining order against Hall, against John Oates, I was just like, fuck you, Daryl Hall. Like, I know this is you. I know it in my bones. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it. But seriously, let's let the record show that I'm waiting for future developments. And Laurie was married and then had a second marriage to the person who really is her soulmate, and that's Stuart Shapiro. And Stuart Shapiro is a really fascinating guy, sort of an impresario and entrepreneur around the arts scene. In my opinion, a bit of a genius because he launched something that we may have talked about on the show.

[26:57] Meg: We have. We had an episode about Night Flight.

[27:00] Jessica: Okay. But I found out a few more things that I thought were really, really interesting. Okay, you're giving me the. The look of. You did this already? A little bit.

[27:11] Meg: There's new stuff there's like Night Flight Part two.

[27:14] Jessica: It is sort of Night Flight Part Two, but. But there's another piece of it which is, you know, when the actors and writers strikes took place over the last, you know, this year, it was very disruptive and we learned a lot about how entertainment is made and how everyone participates and what doesn't happen if certain people don't show up. And we also learned a bit about, well, if you don't have writers on your show, or if you do have writers, but they aren't entirely necessary, should you be canceled if you go back to work? Drew Barrymore, question mark? Are you aware of this?

[27:53] Meg: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously she has writers on her show.

[27:57] Jessica: She said that she was going back and using, I guess, non-union writers because everyone else on her show wasn't working. Exactly. And that she was concerned about the lighting people and so on. Which is, which is real. Like all of those people were out of work. I know you have different feelings.

[28:14] Meg: Well, yeah, the unions had decided to be in solidarity with each other. So it doesn't work if the unions don't support each other.

[28:22] Jessica: Well, we're gonna, we're gonna loop back around to Drew Barrymore another time. But anyway, I thought it was just really interesting about what did or did not happen. And what I learned about Night Flight also has to do with MTV. So I always thought that Night Flight had started. So Night Flight, for those of you who have not listened to the earlier episode, Night Flight was this groundbreaking late night four hour TV show. And it showcased music videos and films and composites and like film collages and really cutting edge stuff. They were show. They were airing videos that were controversial, things that MTV could not or would.

[29:10] Meg: Not air, like specific music videos that.

[29:13] Jessica: MTV and, and short films like all kinds of stuff that was just not going to fly anyplace else. And you know, it wound up being an offshoot sort of of the other cable, the cable access shows that we talked about a while ago that were all just kind of like, to use your word, loopy, out there, you know, experimental stuff. And that's what Night Flight was for. Little did I know it came into existence because of a writers strike in 1981. So in 1981 there was a giant writers strike. And it actually took Saturday Night Live off the air. And so everyone was scrambling to see what could they rerun, like what did they have. And there was a new network in New York City that was originally called the Madison Square Garden Network. It quickly became USA Network.

[30:18] Meg: Okay, Right. I was trying to remember what station it could possibly have been on.

[30:23] Jessica: Yes. So USA Network was coming up at exactly the same time that all of the weirdo cable access stuff was going on. And they were ready to do anything. And it's not coincidence that they were in New York, which is the only place where this cable access stuff was happening, where that was the headspace that was acceptable. So Stuart and his partner pitched Night Flight and they were so desperate for any kind of material they put them on. And in fact, they were so desperate for material that they gave them four hours, which I thought was fascinating. And what that did was it gave all of these video artists, who were a new thing coming up at the time, the opportunity to experiment and to do things that honestly, there was no other platform.

[31:17] Meg: Am I crazy? Didn't Andy Warhol have a show on Night Flight?

[31:21] Jessica: He might have been featured on Night Flight.

[31:23] Meg: I think he actually had a show. But anyway.

[31:25] Jessica: But Night Flight was a show. So there were segments. He might have had segments on Night Flight because there was everybody. Joey, I always mispronounce his name. It's so embarrassing. Arias and that ilk and Klaus Nomi and all of the, you know, brilliant and misfits of the East Village and beyond. So they interspersed those people's work with. They recut everything from the Three Stooges to Bela Lugosi films. They were the first ones to do voiceovers. Like Mystery Science Theater 3000. Exactly. So they did all of that stuff. And it's notable because it came out of a writer's strike and because a new network needed content, which is also, of course, reflected right now with all these streaming services where they're like, shit, we are now a machine chewing through material and we need to get as much as possible. So for all of those new video creators, take a page from Stuart Shapiro and Night Flight. That was really interesting to me.

[32:33] Meg: So would you call it like, so it was a four hour show. Would you call it like a variety show in that it.

[32:38] Jessica: It had segments, Right. So to my mind, a variety show is always like something with an emcee, you know, and like someone introducing acts. This was programming within a show. So the show had music videos, it had interviews, it had these recut films. It was sort of an explosion and a celebration of video.

[33:03] Meg: Did it have a host?

[33:04] Jessica: No. Interesting question. They had a voiceover MC. There was never a host.

[33:10] Meg: Was it the same voiceover MC.

[33:13] Jessica: For about 75% of the time. They had a brief replacement when there was some activity at USA Today. USA Today, USA Network. And Then it returned to the other person.

[33:23] Meg: So that voiceover would just introduce the next.

[33:27] Jessica: Exactly.

[33:28] Meg: Film section.

[33:30] Jessica: Yes. It was sort of like the beginning of sitting back and letting it wash over you. Like, do you remember those. Those Maxell Tape commercials where he was the guy in the chair and the Maxell sound would come out and it would blast his hair back and he was a cool dude. And then the. The wine glass would would because of the the blast of the sound, the wine glass would slide backwards on the table and he'd catch it.

[33:58] Meg: Right.

[33:59] Jessica: That's how I imagined Night Flight was that it was just you could sit there for four hours and be bombarded, which was. Is now normal. Like we like.

[34:08] Meg: Right.

[34:08] Jessica: But at the time, there was nothing like it.

[34:10] Meg: You know what it kind of reminds me of and just go with me for a second.

[34:14] Jessica: I'm with you.

[34:15] Meg: But the way that Sesame Street and The Electric Company were structured.

[34:19] Jessica: Yes, please elaborate.

[34:22] Meg: Where as a kid, you would just sit there for an hour and you wouldn't know what section was coming up next, but there were different sections. Is that what we're calling them?

[34:34] Jessica: But segments.

[34:34] Meg: Segments. Yeah, segments is better. And one would be about the alphabet, and one would be about color and then Kermit would show up, and then, you know, hey, you guys. You know, I'm confusing the two shows, but I loved. They both had the same format.

[34:51] Jessica: Yes. And that there was a sometimes there was a loose lead in and sometimes just. Nope. Here. Next. Yes. The other thing that I thought was very interesting and something that we take for granted now. Night Flight was the first to do it. And again, it's about this celebration of video. MTV launched in August of '81. Night Flight preceded it. It launched in June and from the very beginning, Night Flight, for all of its music videos, was listing the name of the director, which did not happen on MTV till much later.

[35:33] Meg: Very interesting.

[35:34] Jessica: Right? So again, celebration of film and filmmakers. And then I was like, huh, what else happened because of writers strikes. You know how my brain works. And I'm like, okay, here's the rabbit hole. What's the next question. Okay, so writer strikes, super important. They're horrible. But they also give rise to new material and new ways of looking at creating entertainment. So the next writer's strike was in 1988. And though this is not New York, I can't possibly not talk about this. In 1988 there is a newish network Fox and Barry Diller, here's our connection. Barry Diller is originally a New Yorker. So we're just going to pull. Okay, we're just, I just hit myself in the face with the microphone. We're going to pull him in as the New York connection. So Fox, new network like USA looking for material. Boom, they're hit with a writer strike. What do they do? Well, two guys, John Langley and Malcolm Barbour, who were documentary filmmakers who had been making movies about urban ills that were happening around the country. And so, you know, if it was a drug thing or whatever, and then they would film like the interaction of the, you know, the offenders and the, the police and da, da, da, da. They had a brilliant.

[37:03] Meg: I know what you're gonna say?

[37:05] Jessica: And they pitched Cops.

[37:08] Meg: Oh, my God, that was 1988. Oh, man.

[37:10] Jessica: It aired for the first time in 1989. And for those of you listening who don't know what Cops is, Cops became the ne plus ultra of trash tv. And we talked about The Geraldo Rivera Show on our last show. And in fact, these two guys did a whole bunch of exposes for The Geraldo Rivera Show. So they were right in the pocket already. So it was unscripted. All they had to do is what they were already doing and follow cops around, go on, ride alongs.

[37:44] Meg: Right? And most of them were DUIs. But then sometimes you would get like, you know, a bar fight. And that was exciting.

[37:51] Jessica: But as time went by, there were more and more drug related incidents. And there were, you know, there are also some really hairy, like domestic abuse things. Like it got really, really grim. But it was the ultimate in can't look away. And there was also something so over the top about it that it had a camp factor. It was campy. And as they learned more and more about what was going to make for good tv, they narrowed where they were filming to mostly Florida.

[38:26] Meg: Oh my God, of course.

[38:29] Jessica: Yes. And so if you watch, if you watch Cops, like, if you've never seen it, find it on YouTube. You will find that it is a mostly shoes, shirt and tooth optional scenario.

[38:41] Meg: I mean, basically, it's probably what local news looks like right now. Yes, I mean, I, you know, overstating it a bit, but I wonder if it's just become so normalized now.

[38:52] Jessica: Yes, yes, yes, yes. To, to that point 110%. And I, I think that the, the need to shock and show grimness just.

[39:01] Meg: And down and dirty, just voyeuristic nonsense. And to your point last week, at least my life is better than that, right?

[39:12] Jessica: I'm not running in my underpants trying to get away from the cops in Nashville because I've got an eight ball in one pocket and a gun in the other. Hooray America. Bad boys, bad boys Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do? When they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys. So, you know, lately on this podcast, I've been having a lot of fun finding, like, what are the wackadoo connections in the rabbit holes. So writer strikes responsible for the very highest and the very lowest of video production when you don't need writers.

[39:56] Meg: Nice, Jessica. Before we find the tie in for this week, I just want to bring up that we missed a beautiful tie in for last week.

[40:18] Jessica: Oh, God, Yes.

[40:19] Meg: Which was RuPaul.

[40:20] Jessica: I know.

[40:21] Meg: Who actually credits The B-52's with one of his biggest breaks. Her biggest breaks. And on The Geraldo Rivera Show show actually said, for the first time, "we're all born naked and the rest is drag."

[40:36] Jessica: Oh, nice. Go, Ru. Was the big break in the Love Shack video?

[40:43] Meg: Yeah, yeah. RuPaul taught them how to do the Soul Train line because they wanted to do it, but they couldn't figure it out. And, yeah. Ru was like, I gotcha.

[40:56] Jessica: I'm in heaven. I'm in heaven with that piece of information.

[41:01] Meg: So what's our tie in for today?

[41:03] Jessica: I think our tie in is that, you know, Dr. Ruth was doing unscripted.

[41:09] Meg: Right.

[41:10] Jessica: And it was born of necessity. And, you know, the shows that I've talked about are also born of necessity. I don't know. What do you think?

[41:21] Meg: And also, both Night Flight and Dr. Ruth, they weren't, nobody expected them to take off or become, like, wildly.

[41:31] Jessica: Right. It was a gamble.

[41:32] Meg: Yeah, it was just like, this is unusual, risky. What the fuck? Let's just do it.

[41:37] Jessica: As was Cops. I mean, they were all like, I don't know, take a shot. See what happens.

[41:43] Meg: See what happens. And then everything became a cultural phenomenon, you know?

[41:47] Jessica: And that's just a quick note I would like. There's a quick note I would like to make, which is everything is in. In video, television, film production now, the idea that you can take a shot no longer exists with networks or streaming services or anything. Taking a shot is exactly where we are right now. Love you, man.

[42:11] Meg: Love you.