Like Whatever Gen-X
Remember the 1980s and 1990s and all things Gen-X. Take a stroll down memory lane, drink from a hose, and ride until the street lights come on. We discuss the past, present, and future of the forgotten generation. From music to movies and television, to the generational trauma we all experienced we talk about it all. Take a break from today and travel back to the long hot summer days of nostalgia. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
Like Whatever Gen-X
Make America Collage Again
Remember when the most exciting moment of your week was spotting the new issue of Tiger Beat on the newsstand? When you'd carefully pry open the staples to extract that Johnny Depp poster without damaging his perfect face? Nicole and Heather take us back to those glorious days when print magazines ruled our Gen X world.
This episode reveals the surprising history behind the publications that shaped our youth. Did you know 17 Magazine essentially invented the concept of the "teenage girl consumer" back in 1944? Before then, teen girls weren't even recognized as a distinct market! We explore how magazines like Tiger Beat mastered the formula of sensationalist headlines, celebrity photos, and those precious poster pullouts that decorated our bedroom walls.
The conversation meanders through personal favorites, from Time Magazine's Person of the Year selections throughout the 80s to the universal appeal of Reader's Digest. Remember those bite-sized articles and vocabulary quizzes? We reminisce about Mad Magazine's subversive humor, TV Guide's essential weekly listings, and the feminist revolution brought by Sassy in 1988. And who could forget Rolling Stone's evolution from music journalism to pop culture powerhouse?
Most nostalgic of all might be our shared memories of creating collages from magazine cutouts – that uniquely Gen X form of self-expression involving scissors, glue, and hours of careful curation. As Heather puts it, "We were vision boarding before vision boarding was a thing!" We're officially launching our campaign to make magazines – and collages – great again.
Want to join our magazine revival movement? Follow us on all socials @LikeWhateverPod, email us at likewhateverpod@gmail.com, and please like, share, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Two best friends. We're talking the past, from mistakes to arcades. We're having a blast. Teenage dreams, neon screens, it was all rad and no one knew me Like you know. It's like whatever. Together forever, we're never the best ever Laughing, sharing our stories. Clever, we'll take you back. It's like whatever.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for. By and about Gen X. I'm Nicole and this is my BFF, heather. Hello, so we have to start with the most important news of the century that came out just hours before we recorded this, on Tuesday. Travis and Taylor are engaged?
Speaker 3:Yes, they are. I feel like they've been engaged for a while, but I guess I don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:I am so excited I can't stand myself.
Speaker 3:She is, yeah, she has been busting at the seams. I'm so excited. I can't stand myself. She is. Yeah, she has been busting at the seams. I'm so excited. I guess it's going to be like the royal wedding. I guess they better televise it.
Speaker 2:I just can't decide what they'll do. I don't know if they'll have something huge and everybody sees it, or just the two of them run off and then they have a party later, or just family, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't know how you handle that.
Speaker 2:I can't decide what they would do. I think it's going to come down to whatever Taylor has dreamt of since she was a little kid. True, because Travis is definitely all about giving her what she wants, everything she wants. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's what he said in that when she was on his podcast a few weeks ago, that he went to her concert, he listened to her songs and she said, you know, the way she met him and the way he pursued her is basically what she's been wanting since she was 12. And he was like, I just listened to the songs and the words and I was like, okay, I know what she wants me to do. God bless him. Yeah, it just seemed like such an odd couple when it first started.
Speaker 3:it really did but yeah, everybody was saying, oh, that's not usually the type of girl he goes for well, and that's not really worked out for him in the past, has it so right?
Speaker 2:and same with her she must be artsy fartsy actors and musicians that I don't think any of them were loyal to her, judging by her music she just needed somebody who was not intimidated by her right stardom right and it was fun and positive and upbeat and not plus, you know as much, as much as you got to say, that Kelsey family they're a, they're a nice bunch. It would be a fun family. They are a fun family.
Speaker 3:They're very emotional. It's not like they don't show their emotions. Jason cries like every other day. He does. They show you know it's, you can tell that they're a good, good, close family and I think that they can separate life from showbiz life and I think they can. They can do it all so good for them. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty exciting I didn't have anything exciting, except for these people trying to sell this elevator. I just showed her on facebook. These people are trying. It looks like a transporter tube.
Speaker 2:It does like like the ones at the bank, yeah it looks like.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it sucks you up to the same I don't know but they want thirty three hundred dollars for it.
Speaker 2:So if anybody wants it, and they paid forty thousand for- it, so it is a good deal and it takes 30 feet a minute, which we decided took a very long time yeah, I'm pretty sure I could go up the steps faster, although my knees been hurting me a lot this week so I got some compression socks on today.
Speaker 3:They got skeletons on them. Yeah, super cute, I know.
Speaker 2:So I'm not gonna be old without being me yeah, yeah, I did watch a good show on netflix this week. I binged um the. Have you seen? It's a new series, eight episodes like 50 minutes long each, and it has. I can never remember her name or say it correctly, but Umda, umda, she was the crazy girl in Orange is the New Black.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I can never remember her name.
Speaker 2:But oh my gosh, she's phenomenal in it and it's basically a murder mystery that takes place in the White House. I mean not, basically that is what it is. It had a. I thought of Clue a lot when I was watching it, but very clever. Her character is very, very cool, like I wonder if she's supposed to be on the spectrum even because she's very dry, serious, obsessed with birds and she connects everything to birds. Same Mm-hmm. It was very entertaining. I liked it very much and a really cool cast like Jane Curtin's in it, al Franken.
Speaker 3:I haven't been watching anything. I've been playing poker. Oh, by the way, I can't give you a code. Delaware doesn't have them. You can't give out codes because I couldn't find it on there. I was like I know I saw a refer a friend thing on there, so I ended up emailing the um. Who's? A what's it and they were like no, we don't do that in delaware.
Speaker 2:And I was like, well, that's stupid delaware has the dumbest gambling laws so stupid. I've been on the forefront of casinos. Here's the issue.
Speaker 3:So you can gamble on there in maryland and you can gamble on there in delaware.
Speaker 3:I can spit and hit the maryland delaware line from where I live so sometimes it pings off the maryland towers and sometimes it pings off the delaware. It depends on where in my apartment I am standing. The problem is because I'm signed up in the Delaware so it comes out of Harrington and not the Maryland. I can't go back and forth between the two. I can't just be like well, I'm going to, so it'll say like geolocation error, so I have to move around in the house to try and find the sweet spot. I know First world problems, but I found it on my couch. I've been playing poker On your couch A lot, way more than I should, but they have penny games like a penny tournament. Come on, last night I was in a $2 tournament and I ended up winning $3.82. See there, yeah, almost doubled it. I was in a $2 tournament and I ended up winning $3.82. See there, yeah, almost doubled it. I came in seventh, so excited.
Speaker 3:Anyway that's what I've been doing. Yeah, poker, yeah.
Speaker 2:I went to the Latin Festival this weekend. Oh yeah. And the same empanadas people were there that were there the week before Excellent At the Caribbean Festival weekend. Oh yeah, and the same empanadas people were there that were there the week before excellent at the caribbean festival. So yeah, I bought extras. I have one left in my fridge. I bought.
Speaker 3:I bought a bunch of bagels from surf bagel the other day and I have a bunch of my freezer, yeah nice you're very exciting this week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank god travis and taylor got engaged.
Speaker 3:I know we'd have nothing to talk about, except for poker, and nobody wants to hear about that. Start my own poker podcast. I shouldn't. I'm terrible at it. Yeah, I am too. I just like playing the problem with a lot of these tournaments, especially the penny one. People go all in all the time and it's like like, okay, here's the thing. Nobody here is trying to make any kind of money off of this, because we paid a penny in and the most you can win is like 40 bucks or, and it's not even. I think it's. The penny one is like tickets you win tickets to play more, so you're not really going to win anything. So why are you doing that? Like we're all just here for a good time, right, just to kill three hours of our day? Why are you going all Like we're all just here for a good time, right, just to kill three hours of our day? Why are you going all?
Speaker 2:in. So it's part of the strategy to wait out the all-in-ers like play late until I try.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I try to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love to play poker, but I have a lot of tells.
Speaker 3:You should totally play this poker online. I'm telling you, I have a lot of tells you should totally play this poker online. I'm telling you. I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:And I'm a sucker for a pair. If you deal me a pair of fours, I'm like I can't fold these. What if another four comes up? I am not a sucker for an inside split, so or inside straight.
Speaker 3:That's good, I have that going for me. Okay, you can have whatever, but the chances you got to, no, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:You have to. I hate pocket aces.
Speaker 3:Yes, I know Every single time I have pocket aces. The theory on pocket aces is to go in heavy and push everybody out before the flop. That's the theory on aces, because everybody gets trapped with aces.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what I get trapped with all the time.
Speaker 2:Fucking gets trapped with aces. Yeah, you know what I get trapped with all the time fucking queens. I'll get trapped with a pair of queens bitches. And I always want to play the seven two because it's the worst hand in poker.
Speaker 3:So I'm like maybe I can make it work. My dad and I were talking about it and there's one um phil negroni. He plays um. His favorite hand is nine two. He will play it every time. It's his favorite hand and he always wins with it. I don't know how, I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I had a friend. His favorite was King-9 off suit.
Speaker 3:That was his favorite hand. I will always play aces and eights because it's a dead man's hand. I will always play it, no matter what. I will play an ace and an eight. Suited not suited Doesn't matter, I'll play it.
Speaker 2:Man, you're going to convince me, and I spend enough time on Candy Crush.
Speaker 3:I don't need to spend any time anywhere else. I did spend two and a half hours last night playing, but I made it to seventh. I can't sit still for that long.
Speaker 2:Not all of them.
Speaker 3:You can play. They have one it's called Cubed, where it's just three of you playing and you start with $500 and you just like the. It's quick, it goes up. The blinds go up like every 30 seconds and it's fast. That sounds stressful. It is a little bit, but you're only playing with two other people, and and then you, it's that game makes.
Speaker 2:Maybe doesn't even take 10 minutes have you ever won one of those?
Speaker 3:uh, yeah, I play the quarter one and I win like 50 cents, 60 cents. It's also random, so you can win up to like three. The most I ever won was 60 cents, so I don't know how, but it comes up with a random amount that you win. That's 25 cents. Hey, nicole, what? We got us a sponsor, what, what? Yeah, garden State Distillery. Hey, don't they have a perfect vodka for Bloody Marys? Yeah, you can discover the unique taste of New Jersey's coast with Norman Shuck Vodka from Garden State Distillery.
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Speaker 2:It's the best discount and the highest discount that they give. All right, so before we get started, if you could please like share rate review. You can find us on anywhere that you listen to podcasts. You can follow us on all the socials at LikeWhateverPod. We are on YouTube and you can send an email to likewhateverpod at gmailcom. That being said, let's fuck around and find out about Gen X magazines. So this idea started. I was going to do just like the teen beat kind of magazines, but there's really not a lot to say. They were just magazines full of pretty faces.
Speaker 3:Yes, they were. Tiger beat teen beat.
Speaker 2:But then, as I was looking through that, I started seeing other magazines that I really liked as a kid, so that's what I'm going to talk about. All right, liked as a kid, so that's what I'm going to talk about, all right? Um, so I got my info from worth, pointcom, new world, encyclopediaorg, mentalflosscom, encyclopediacom, edweekorg and a little wiki. Um, yeah, there's not a ton of stuff on this. It it was, so I had. I always resort to wiki when I go into one of those obscure things. Anyway, the teen magazine began with 17 in 1944.
Speaker 3:I knew it was really old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't realize that old though, Editor and writer Helen Valentine founded the magazine after publishing magnate Walter Annenberg approached her and asked her to create a new magazine no big deal. Valentine agreed to join him in this new venture only if she could mold the magazine into a publication for a specific demographic teen girls.
Speaker 3:So smart, so smart.
Speaker 2:She probably had this idea forever, but she was a woman in 1944. Nobody would listen to her. However, there was one problem the concept of a teen girl did not actually exist in consumerism. It's true, they were working. Yeah, exactly, child labor was big.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, annenberg approved her idea and Valentine began an endeavor that changed culture forever. Valentine enlisted the help and expertise of Seventeen marketing director Estelle Ellis, who created the ideal feminine teen girl. This prototypical teen girl was not only interested in boys. She was also interested in politics, relationships with parents, partners and friends, the latest fashion trends, college health, what's popular in television, movies and music, and how to be her best self.
Speaker 3:Yes, I want to know how to be my best self too.
Speaker 2:Once this model was constructed, ellis and company devised what teen girls should buy to keep up with their peers. Ellis involved advertising agencies, businesses and major corporations in creating products and ads that teen girls couldn't resist, from lunchboxes to clothes to room decorations that would help girls express themselves. With 17, ellis and Valentine demonstrated the significant role young women could play in the consumer culture. What? Even though they weren't allowed to have their own credit cards or bank accounts, I had to beg the husband for that. All right, so this? Well, they might have had husbands at teen.
Speaker 3:I'm sure they did. I guess it depends on where in the country you were living Exactly.
Speaker 2:Who was paying attention. The table of contents page from 17 provides insight on how Ellis constructed the teen girl Articles. Sections are titled what you Were and how you Look. They provided the expectations teen girls should meet. Indeed Seventeen's first issue was released in September 1944 and opened the floodgates for other publishers to follow suit. Magazines like Teen Sixteen, tiger Beat, teen Beat, teen Set, bop, j-14, m Magazine, teen People and Teen Vogue, among others, have gone down as some of the more popular teen magazines. In the 1960s and 70s, publishers released teen magazines for people of color, specifically for black teenagers, like Right On, black Beat and Word Up. I remember all those too. I don't remember those. I'll bet there was a lot of stuff that didn't hold up in there. Teen magazines follow a distinct format Sensational headlines with a lot of exclamation points. That's what sells it. To captivate the reader. Collage-style photographs of beautiful people, contest-win items owned by celebrities and the promise of free posters inside. Yes, that's what it was all about.
Speaker 3:I can tell you what posters I had carefully opening the staple so that you didn't damage the johnny depp's face. Yes, that's exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was always johnny depp for me, always uh-huh, he's actually in here, no doubt. He was one of the first male teen heartthrobs.
Speaker 2:I specifically put him in here for you Love him. Tiger B provides the best glimpse into this style. Some headlines include Danger Head David Wants you what Super Huggable, kissable Donnie Portraits.
Speaker 3:Boo.
Speaker 2:Free Chris Knight, Too innocent to kiss. I don't remember who Chris Knight was. I don't either how to make Donnie desire you. Is that Donnie Wahlberg? Because I probably read that one, I'm assuming yes, and I'm thinking Chris Knight might have been one of the. I know there were two Knights in it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was Jordan and Jonathan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say it wasn't Chris. Maybe he was another brother we forgot about. Many teen girl magazines have been criticized as sexist.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Which led to the birth of the feminist-centric teen magazine Sassy.
Speaker 3:Which really does not sound feminist-centric. It does not at all.
Speaker 2:Released in March 1988, is perhaps the most well-known example. Created to be the antithesis or antithesis, if I want to say it the correct way, either way Of traditional teen magazines. Sassy had an edge, for instance. Headlines read resisting the wiles of the male sleaze One beautiful girl and her angst. Six reasons you don't want to be popular. Heather could have written that I only need one.
Speaker 2:Dress like an artsy chick. I could have written that one too. And the dirty, scummy truth about spring break? Ew. It was created for young women who didn't feel like they could relate to the information in Seventeen or Tiger Beat. Casey Lewis from the Hairpin describes Sassy best. Sassy was the Daria of Seventeen's Quinn.
Speaker 3:That made me laugh so hard. That's pretty fucking funny. I don't remember Sassy, though I don't know that I really At 17, I did Tiger Beat. I did up until middle school, end of middle school, maybe beginning of high school, because that's when I started going goth and they didn't have the goths, of course, except Johnny Depp, but he had not become my goth hero yet, he didn't know he was goth yet. No, he didn't know he was going to be the premier gothic icon.
Speaker 2:I feel like Sassy was probably very specific to maybe certain regions. I was going to say Even girls who were like oh, that's sexist, we're still going to read those teen magazines.
Speaker 3:And fill out every one of those quizzes. Yes.
Speaker 2:And we still want to fit in and be popular. Well, not you, no, I don't. But at the root of a lot of teenage girls that's what it is it's probably parents were buying sassy for their daughters because they didn't want them reading that other stuff.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing. Like I was thinking the other day, did I ever want to be popular? I don't think I wanted to be popular, no.
Speaker 2:I didn't like the popular girls. They were really mean. I mean back in our day they really were like mean girls. They were really mean. I mean back in our day they really were like mean girls, they were really mean.
Speaker 3:Well, but the other thing is is we only had 20 people in my class, Right?
Speaker 2:So, like. I've always just fit in with everybody and I'm still that way. Like I like you for who you are, not what you have or who you're friends with.
Speaker 3:Like I sat at the lunch table by myself, like your friends with. Like I sat at the lunch table by myself, like I just didn't want to be. I just didn't want to. I don't think I wanted, but I did read all the magazines, um, and I meant to tell you this the other day. Well, tell all of you this. Um, what was I watching? Oh, my god, I don't remember what it was, but it was a meme or it was tiktok or something, and I was like how have I always keep forgetting that my actual first crush, and probably what is wrong with me, is christian slater. Fucking love chris and heathers. I mean seriously, like that's what's wrong with me, yeah yeah let's.
Speaker 3:I probably did get to teen magazines for christian sl and all his Heather I mean the black hair and Heather and he's first of all. Heather's is like the greatest movie ever, not just because that's my name but you fucking love that movie and it's got Winona in it. It does, and Christian Slater and Shannon Doherty I mean come on, yep, yep, all right.
Speaker 2:It's important to note that not all teen magazines were wrapped up in celebrity culture. For example, 17 Magazine, though problematic in terms of diet culture, is notable for discussing important topics like the AIDS crisis, sexual harassment and divorce and other controversial subject matter. Other teen magazines, like Sassy, didn't shy away from difficult conversations either.
Speaker 3:I do remember there being like that in there, mm-hmm. Although I don't know that I read the articles, I think mostly I bought them to make collages.
Speaker 2:You didn't buy it for the articles.
Speaker 3:Which I'm hoping we talk about later collages Well, you bring them up whenever you want.
Speaker 2:They're not necessarily in here.
Speaker 3:Is that just a teen girl thing?
Speaker 2:Did you make collages? Well, I don't know, because remember when we did the episode on Arnold Schwarzenegger called I forget what it was Kindergarten Governator. You can listen to that one from a few weeks ago if you'd like. He had male bodybuilders all over his walls. That's true, and that's why his parents thought he was gay, but did he make a? Collage. I think men no, I think men had just had posters, because there was the Farrah Fawcett poster and there was Kathy Ireland and there was Cindy Crawford, but they were big posters.
Speaker 3:It's the running kindergarten governator and it's episode 42.
Speaker 2:Shameless plug.
Speaker 3:I liked. You remember when you would buy let us know in the socials or whatever, who did this. You buy the poster board and you get your little glue and you cut like words and like pictures and like eyes and lips and like I don't know. I probably put cigarettes in there and like all the shit you liked and then you just put glue over top of it. I had one still up until I left my house. I still had one. Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:I know I think back to things and I'm like I'm sure I had that for a very long time. But I have moved a lot in my life, yeah, and I'm sure it's gotten lost along the way. I just wonder how many like do y'all remember doing?
Speaker 3:and then you'd like squirt the glue. You didn't have that Modge Podge nonsense. You'd just squirt the glue on it and rub all over it. I'm going to make a collage. Do they make magazines anymore?
Speaker 2:I'm going to make a collage later. They do make magazines still. The most valuable teen magazines are bound copies of multiple issues culturally significant magazines, posters published by magazines, first editions and special editions, and autographed issues. In general, teen magazines are no different than any other vintage magazine on the market. As a result, you can find most within the range of $5 to $25.
Speaker 3:I bet if we looked in this here Eve, we might have holes in it.
Speaker 2:We can add it to our stand that we're going to take to oddities and curiosities. You know people would be down with that.
Speaker 3:Look at my collage from 1987. There's a swatch on there In case you wanted to check that out?
Speaker 2:Swatch your step. Teen magazines published for black teenagers hold some of the highest value. For example, this elegant Wait, no. For example, elegant Teen issue from 1965, which features the magazine staff visiting the set of the Munsters, sold for $2,225. Wow. Additionally, a rare premiere issue of Write On magazine from October 1971 sold for $1,000. Issues of Black Beat are also worth more than your average teen magazines. For example, the issues from March 1991 and July 1991 featuring the band BBD Bell, bibb DeVoe, sold for $280. On average, regular black beat issues sell for much lower prices. Individual posters that were once buried in magazines like treasures are often sold for more than the price of the actual magazine. Autographed issues are more valuable based on the relevancy of the celebrity. Now, do you think they were actually?
Speaker 3:autographed right, it would have just been mass produced.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But you can still get those like I don't know. Remember there was a time on eBay where everybody was selling.
Speaker 2:You knew someone very well who was making a fortune off of legitimate mass-produced headshots, yeah, yeah. So I don't understand why these autographed issues are more valuable. It's not a real. Anyway, the more expensive issues and magazine posters autographed by Harry Styles, Christina Aguilera, Justin Bieber and Madonna sold for over $150. I don't know, I don't get it. Madonna yes. The rest I don't know. I don't get it Madonna yes, the rest I don't know. Maha Bieber too. No, I'm not a Christina Aguilera fan.
Speaker 3:I like.
Speaker 2:Christina Aguilera.
Speaker 3:But like her dirty era.
Speaker 2:I like her old stuff, but my problem with her is she always sounds like she is straining. So hard to sing and it sounds so unnatural. Vintage issues and posters signed by john travolta, johnny depp or david cassidy are much more affordable, at about 20 I would pay 20 for a john.
Speaker 3:I just paid 20 for a muskrat with a hat on, so teen magazines are pure nostalgia.
Speaker 2:These magazines hold memories. They remind us of who our former celebrity crushes were, who our friends loved, what fashion trends were in style and what music ruled our lives. They are culturally significant artifacts of a time we all experienced in our lives the main one that stands out to me and all of you.
Speaker 3:There was two times a year where I actually paid attention. I don't know why, because I didn't go to either one of these things but homecoming and prom and if you remember, prom had like a specific edition where it was nothing but prom dresses you have always been a sucker for prom dress I love a fucking prom dress. I love them. Yeah, I don't know where I would wear one these days I'm just you know what? I'm just gonna go buy some prom dresses you should wear them to your poker tournaments.
Speaker 2:I should wear them just everywhere. Sit on your couch in your my progress.
Speaker 3:You might play better. Damn it, I might. I'm just gonna start. That's it.
Speaker 2:Prom dresses I'm gonna wear prom dresses to work well, and then you can walk your dog in the prom dress.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I don't wear prom dresses more yeah, you can get them at goodwill for cheap I just bought. I I just have now decided that I am entering my um blanche era. Oh yeah, I um I bought. It's supposedly a swimsuit cover-up, but it's basically not a. I do have a moomoo, though um, it's a no buttons, but it's like chiffonny jacket yeah, it's what, um what they wear.
Speaker 2:It's uh the Three's Company thing they do. Who's the lady from Three's Company?
Speaker 3:Mrs Rupert, but no, that's not her. No, she wears a muumuu, A caftan. She wears a caftan. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. No, I mean like it's like a cardigan, but like short-sleeved, and it's like silky chiffon and it flows and mine has skulls all over it, because I found it on the Amazon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been wearing those things for years, I know.
Speaker 3:But now I'm wearing them, yeah, and maybe I'll go. That's it, goodwill, here I come, you could wear your prom dress with that over it. I totally could. I'm going to start wearing it. I'm just You're. I'm just you're going to be so cute.
Speaker 2:All right, so we're done with Team Beat. No more collage talk.
Speaker 3:God damn it.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry this is so I'm going to go through a couple of ones that I liked as a kid and I was a super nerd and loved Time Magazine. From the time I had my own money I would buy a subscription to it every year and I think I loved a lot of it, that it came out weekly, so you got it a lot but and I read the whole thing like front to back so I don't remember a lot of it. But you know, whatever I read it All right. So Time was co founded in 1923 by Britton Haddon and Henry R Lucci, making it the first weekly news magazine in the United States. The two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor at the Yale Daily News. Haddon was a rather carefree figure who liked to tease Lucci and saw time as something important but also fun. That accounts for its tone, which many still criticize as too light for serious news, and more suited to its heavy coverage of celebrities, including politicians, the entertainment industry and pop culture.
Speaker 3:So because I work at the post office, I see magazines a lot and definitely Time and People are the two that I see more than really any other magazine. There'll be a Vogue every here and there. I don't see any Reader's Digest anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to talk about Reader's Digest later on. I did like Reader's Digest.
Speaker 3:I think everybody did, if you have grandparents at any point in your life. I think you'll like the Reader's Digest You're sitting around bored at your grandparents' house. Yeah, and you can look at the little cartoons and then read the jokes. But yeah, I do. Hey guys, you know how you could support your post office? Get you a subscription. Not only are you supporting the post office because it comes through the mail, but you get something to do once a week and you're supporting a dying industry. So go get a subscription to time.
Speaker 2:I do miss newspapers.
Speaker 3:We get newspapers twice a week from the local one and then we get a couple of them that come once a week.
Speaker 2:I'm talking the Sunday Fat News paper.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't get those, but there's a specific Republican, yeah, it comes through.
Speaker 2:I think that's part of what I loved about Time, though, was it wasn't just serious news, right, there was all kinds of stuff in there, so I could read the serious stuff and then reward myself with some sort of pop culture celebrity. Yeah yeah, time set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazine cover was of a single person. The first issue of Time was published in 1923, featuring on its cover Joseph G Cannon, the retired Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. People was originally inspired by Time's People page One time.
Speaker 3:I was the person of the year.
Speaker 2:I know With the Boys and Girls Club. No, oh, on Time yeah.
Speaker 3:We all were Remember the one they had. It was a mirror cover, it was like the person of the year. Oh yeah, I don't remember what year that was. Maybe, I don't know, a long time ago, 2000,.
Speaker 2:Maybe, After Time magazine began publishing its weekly issue in March 1923, lawson was able to increase its circulation by utilizing US radio and movie theaters around the world to promote both Time magazine and the politics of the US corporate interest which Time Incorporated served. According to Fielding, in 1977, as early as 1924, lawson had brought time into the infant radio business with the broadcast of a 15-minute sustained quiz show entitled Pop Question, which survived until 1925. A whole year took the weekly broadcast of a 10-minute program series of brief news summaries drawn from current issues of Time magazine, which was originally broadcast over 33 stations throughout the United States. Larson next arranged for a 30-minute radio program entitled the March of Time, to be broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System or CBS, beginning on March 6, 1931. Each week, his March of Time radio program presented a dramatization of the week's news for its listeners. As a result of this radio program, time magazine was brought to the attention of millions previously unaware of its existence. So very smart marketing. Have you ever wanted to replace any of your old gen x concert t-shirts?
Speaker 3:old glory offers 300 000 items for music, sports entertainment and pop culture fans, featuring officially licensed merch from iconic bands and top sports teams discover your perfect fan gear and save with our exclusive code at oldglorycom. You can use the promo code likewhateverpod and get an exclusive 15% off discount at oldglorycom. Promo code likewhateverpod. You know what I just thought of what? So back to my collages. That was whiteboarding. Yeah, like that's what we did, we whiteboarded, I'm going to bring it back. I think we should bring it back, guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree, Ladies whoever whiteboards subscribe to a magazine and cut shit out Words and stuff. Let's bring it back. That was fun. Let's get rid of word whiteboards and do collages and stuff. Let's bring it back. That was fun.
Speaker 2:Get rid of word white boards and do collages, yeah let's bring it back, and then with the extra letters you can send ransom and yes notes yeah, show your kids how to do that. Kidnapping notes all right, so, um, I wanted to go through the 80s, and each year Time magazine had a person of the year.
Speaker 3:I was one.
Speaker 2:One time I know I remember so in 1980, it was Ronald Reagan. I think we all know who he is. I do. It was Lech Walisa, which I know is totally wrong because the L had a slanted line through it and the E had a not normal thing. I've seen over it so I know I'm saying that wrong, but he was the leader of Poland's Solidarity Movement, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he beat communism and brought about democracy to Poland. I did read a lot about him. I didn't put it in here, but he sounds like a pretty amazing guy. He wasn't particularly intellectual but he was passionate and he was honest and he just did his shit. I don't know. He sounded kind of neat. In 1982, the person of the year was the computer.
Speaker 3:Yay, yay, I remember that one year was the computer. Yay, I remember that one.
Speaker 2:In 1983, it was Yuri Andropov and Ronald Reagan. Yuri was a Soviet politician that opposed invading Poland. Yeah, so call me, but he tried. 1984 was Peter Uberoth. That starts with a U-E, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't know how to pronounce it, but he was an American sports businessman involved in the Olympics and Major League Baseball. Oh yeah, good luck. I remember this one too. 1985 was Dang Zai Ping. Sounds good. Okay, I'm sure there are people there like listening that are like this is how you say it, you moron.
Speaker 2:But I've never claimed to know how to say things.
Speaker 3:So fuck off. Yeah, yeah, if you're here to listen to us say things properly, you're in the wrong spot.
Speaker 2:Or go give us five stars, whichever.
Speaker 3:Then go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:So Deng was the most powerful figure in the People's Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. I think he had kidney failure. He abandoned many orthodox communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate elements of the free enterprise system and other reforms into Chinese economy.
Speaker 3:I remember this one 1986, corazon Aquino Aquino.
Speaker 2:Corazon Aquino Aquino Okay, I only took like seven years of Spanish. Corazon Aquino was the first female president of the Philippines, serving from 1986 to 1992, and is known for her pivotal role in restoring democracy after the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. 1987 was somebody you've probably heard of, mikhail Gorbachev. Never heard of him. 1988's person of the year was the endangered Earth Never heard of it. Yeah, look how far we've come.
Speaker 3:We've just made it worse.
Speaker 2:So very far, and in 1989 time did a man of the decade, which again mikhail gorbachev. That's because he's tearing down the wall still a communist, though, so that was time. So the next one, another one I loved, but I couldn't always afford this one, this one was expensive.
Speaker 3:Rolling Stone, yeah. I think everybody loved Rolling Stone yeah.
Speaker 2:There were so many music magazines back then that I there was like NME, I think.
Speaker 3:I got one that was an alternative, and I can't remember what it was called right now.
Speaker 2:I probably saw it today and I meant to put those in here and I missed. I think I forgot. Maybe it'll be later, but I don't think so. All right, uh, the first magazine was released, uh, in 1967 and featured john lennon on the cover, and then one of the most um controversial covers was also him wrapped naked around Yoko.
Speaker 2:Remember that, and then it was published every two weeks. It is known for provocative photography and its cover photos featuring musicians, politicians, athletes and actors. Rolling Stone was known for its musical coverage and for Thompson's political reporting. Rolling Stone was known for its musical coverage and for Thompson's political reporting, and in 1985, they hired an advertising agency to refocus its image under the series Perception slash Reality, comparing 60s symbols to those of the 80s, which led to an increase in advertising revenue and pages. It also shifted to more of an entertainment magazine in the 1980s. It still had music as the main topic, but began to increase its coverage of celebrities, films and pop culture. It also began releasing its annual Hot Issue. In the 1990s, the magazine changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television, film actors and popular music. All right, so next, this was a magazine that I personally didn't read. My stepbrother did, but I certainly remember it.
Speaker 2:Mad Magazine Thanks to satire like the Simpsons and the Daily Show. It's hard to imagine a time when irreverent humor wasn't everywhere, but the 1950s were much different. They were Anti-establishment. Humor wasn't part of the mainstream. No, not until Mad Magazine arrived to poke holes in everything from politics to movies to advertising. And even if you never picked up Mad, you probably know Alfred E Newman, I do. It's moronic mascot. Picked up mad. You probably know alfred e newman, it's moronic mascot. Today, comic books are the source material for movies that gross billions of dollars, but in the 1950s adults generally perceive them as hot dumpster trash that would rot kids brains. Some people even took to burning them isn't it funny?
Speaker 3:it's always something. The back of it, didn't it fold up into something? The back cover of mad magazine probably I think if you folded it it was like something different. Probably I didn't read. I maybe had a couple of them, but it wasn't yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:It was too boyish for me. Yeah, um, how did comics get such a bad rep? While characters like Superman and Batman were viewed with suspicion, adults were really fixated on crime and horror comics like the ones published by EC Comics. Founded by Maxwell Gaines in 1944 and later run by his son, william Gaines, ec was the publisher behind grisly titles like Tales from the Crypt and the Vault of Horror. Sounds like your kind of comic books. The publisher behind grisly titles like tales from the crypt and the vault of horror sounds like you're kind of had a comic books um beheadings and other gore made them a little bit like the slasher movies of their day.
Speaker 2:But gaines had one employee who thought comics could do better. His name was harvey kurtzman and he was a very talented writer and artist who had finished military service and was looking to become a professional illustrator. After a series of odd jobs, kurtzman landed at EC comics, where his approach to popular war titles was more thoughtful than most of the stories being published at the time. With the Korean war raging and the experiences of his many fans in the military to draw from, kurtzman told stories that examined the human price of war, while Kurtzman examined serious topics, he wasn't that serious a guy. He had spent several years illustrating humor comics, including a stint working for Marvel mastermind Stan Lee. I've heard of him. I love Stan Lee.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:And as much as he loved his combat stories, ec Comics wasn't exactly known for their deep pockets. Kurtzman wanted an opportunity to be funny and to make more money doing it, don't we all? Yeah, the historical record gets a little murky when it comes to who exactly came up with the idea for MED. Kurtzman insisted a humor comic was his idea. William Gaines said it was his. The two never even agreed on who named it. Mad Kurtzman said he came up with it. Gaines said that he and other editors had referred to EC Comics as EC's Mad Mags for their bomb-tastic approach and that Kurtzman had merely taken the phrase and shortened it. What we do know is that Kurtzman wanted to do something new at the time a comic book that made fun of other comic books. Each issue would have a series of stories poking fun at popular genres like horror, westerns and superhero titles, with Kurtzman using many of the same artists, including Jack Davis and Wallace Wood, that EC used for their conventional titles. It was something different, and in the comics market of 1952, different was important. Roughly 3,250 comics were published that year, with over 60 different titles hitting the newsstands every week. Kids, who made up most of the comic book readership, had lots of choices and there was no telling whether a humor comic would succeed. The first issue of Mad was actually titled Tales Calculated to Drive you, mad and retailed for $0.10.
Speaker 2:Gaines printed 400,000 copies for its October-November 1952 launch and waited to get word from distributors and retailers on whether it was a hit. And it wasn't. It sold pretty poorly, actually. All of that competition had squeezed Madd out of the picture. Gaines was dismayed to see that issues two and three were also met with a lukewarm reception. Kutzman decided that if they were going to parody comics, they might as well set their sights on the biggest and most indestructible target possible Superman. A satire titled Super Duper man ran in the fourth issue and was significant for two reasons. Mocking DC's hero created strong word of mouth among readers, and it also led to DC, then known as National Comics Publications, sending a strongly worded legal letter demanding Mad stop mocking their most popular character. Did Mad comply? It did not. Did Mad get a lot of legal letters from that point forward?
Speaker 3:It did. I do remember that. I do remember that that's what part of it was. Is that they were? They would get cease and desist letters all the time that they really went out of their way, I remember that too.
Speaker 2:All because they called him super duper man get over yourself all right, we're spending too much time together, I know. Um, with momentum generated by super duper man, the circulation of mad soared to 750 000 copies per issue. More parodies followed, like starchy, a takeoff of archie which saw the riverdale gang acting more like delinquents than innocent teenagers. Under kurtzman's watch, mad was also leaning into more subversive humor. One issue had a cover printed to look like a classic composition book, which persuaded kids to try and get away with reading it in school.
Speaker 3:Oh smart.
Speaker 2:I do remember it being mischievous, yes, but I don't remember ever reading it, but I don't remember ever reading it. The success of the comic came at a good time for EC, since they were about to face a very public scolding for pretty much everything else they published. In 1954, congressional hearings were held on the potential dangers of comic books and William Gaines was called in to testify.
Speaker 3:Were you a communist if you read the comic books.
Speaker 2:Well, they do both start with C-O-M.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think Super Duper man was a communist. He's a commie bastard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anti-american. Yeah, son of a bitch, it didn't go well Also an illegal alien.
Speaker 2:Lock him up, yep, up, yep, yep, yep, uh. So when william gains went to testify, it didn't go well. He was confronted with an ec cover featuring a decapitation. Gains declared it appropriate for a horror comic, which is not what a bunch of very stern senators wanted to hear. Pretty soon, the comics industry was being forced to govern itself with the Comics Code Authority, a panel that monitored comics for good taste and made sure titles avoided controversial topics like horror and gore, for example. All the good stuff.
Speaker 3:I know why is it so controversial Horror and gore is the best. For example, all the good stuff. I know why is it so controversial Horror and gore is the best.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest mysteries behind Matt actually started more than 50 years before the first issue was printed. That's around the time an illustration of a gap-toothed imbecile began circulating in advertising material. He was even used in a political campaign against Franklin Roosevelt. Oh, snap In your face. Around the time, gaines and EC were preparing to issue a series of mad trade paperback collections. Kurtzman was in the offices of Ballantine Books when he saw this strange figure on a bulletin board with the caption me worry. Kurtzman stole the name Alfred Newman from a radio show hosted by Henry Morgan, but it was originally just used as a sort of generic stand-in name around EC, not a label for any particular character, wasn't Henry Morgan in MASH?
Speaker 3:I want to know. Okay, I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just made that up.
Speaker 3:No, it's close to that I can't remember I'll.
Speaker 2:Google it Okay. A story in Crime Illustrated, for instance, has a story attributed to Newman. According to Kurtzman, it was only when fans began applying the name Alfred E Newman to the dim-witted character that Mad editors followed suit.
Speaker 3:Artist Norman Mingo perfected Newman's dull expression and illustrated many covers for Mad. Did you find it, harry Morgan? No, harry Morgan yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Colonel Potter. Okay, alfred E Newman became so popular that a reader in New Zealand once set sent a letter to the publisher's offices in New York with no address on it. Instead, the correspondent had drawn Newman on the envelope. It made it to its destination. You, post office people are amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm going to tell you so. When I was a kid there was like seven people that lived in the town where I grew up, and the lady Janet was our mail lead.
Speaker 3:She drove a red Jeep, she knew everybody. So we lived, we moved around a lot. After we got out of the van, we moved around a lot in different people's houses, and all in the same street, in the same town. We just moved around a lot, anyway. So mail would come to my grandmother's house, the other house that they had two condos, they had two beach houses, and then it would go to the house that we lived in and then it would go to the restaurant and then when we moved, it would go to our new house. So we were still getting mail at all of those locations and Janet brought all of our mail to one spot. And now I'm so sorry, janet, I think Janet died, but but she knew everything. You could just write Libby's on there and she would know where to go. I mean, obviously, but we're pretty good about it. I have this one lady that's moved buildings. She keeps moving buildings and she never puts a forward in, but I know where she's going.
Speaker 2:That's a stalker in you Doing its work Alright. Even though authorship of the character was never discovered, it wasn't long before someone tried to claim Newman as their own. A woman named Helen Pratt Stuff sued EC, claiming that her late husband, harry Spencer Stuff, had copyrighted the character back in 1914. As Mad geared up for the lawsuit, they began researching the history of the character and found widespread use of the face. What's more, harry Spencer Stuff was, in the words of the court, most derelict in preventing others from infringing his copyright, which didn't help his widow's argument. She lost the lawsuit on appeal.
Speaker 2:In fact, newman's likeness may date back to 1894, when the Los Angeles Herald ran an announcement for a play called the New Boy. His depiction may have been inspired by an actor who appeared in the show. Huh, poor guy if that's what he looked like. I know right, but it's so funny Like doing this research, it just cracks me up coming across these things Like humans never change. No, the clothing change, the hairstyles change, the decor changes. We're all suing for dumb shit. We're all fighting over who did what. I've had it with humanity, me too, how popular did Newman get?
Speaker 2:In 1959, fred Astaire starred in a variety television special titled Another Evening with Fred Astaire, not another one.
Speaker 3:That's too many.
Speaker 2:You know they're sick of it if they're like another evening In it. Astaire performs a dance routine that's every bit as compelling as any other Fred Astaire routine, except he happens to be wearing an Alfred E Newman mask the entire time.
Speaker 3:Sounds like he was drunk to me.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna wear that on stage.
Speaker 3:It's just another evening with me.
Speaker 2:Even I'm bored with me. I need to change this up a little bit. All right, here's a biggie. This was so essential. I'm pretty sure that every single house in the country had it. You had to.
Speaker 3:It still exists and I still get it. This is the one I was. Do you get them in the mail? I don't, but they're really big now. They're like magazine size now. They're not small like they used to be, but we still get them.
Speaker 2:All right, the TV guide man, I miss looking up in the TV guide like I feel bad for kids that don't research papers and encyclopedias because when you got the tv guide you could see what the week's episode of whatever show was gonna give you a little some especially when it was the holidays, yeah, and you could look and see when, like charlie brown christmas was gonna be on.
Speaker 3:No, no, yes, no. I would like it when you could read like what's going on on the sitcom. That's coming out like what's happening on rosanna they have a little synopsis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right I also read soap opera digest you could also find out if some other dumb shit was going to be on when your TV show was supposed to be on.
Speaker 2:Like the State of the Union, Ahead of time instead of turning on the channel at 8 o'clock and being like what the fuck is this? I remember that Nobody cares what the president has to say. Shut the fuck up. In 1953, when television was still a brand new and growing phenomenon on the American scene, the president of Philadelphia's Triangle Publishing, Walter H Annenberg, conceived the idea of a national television magazine. Inspired by the wide circulation of a local magazine called TV Digest, Annenberg envisioned one central nationwide magazine with separate editions containing the different local television listings. That's quite impressive. Like you, out of one office knew what all of the stations in all of the regions around the whole country I feel like maybe that is someone on the spectrum yes, that sounds right sounds like something somebody on the spectrum would do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, as being someone on the spectrum.
Speaker 2:Annenberg moved quickly, keeping the convenient digest size and adding glossy color photographs and articles. On April 3rd 1953, tv Guide was born and remains the premier listing for television fanatics in the late 20th century.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the 19th yeah but, we're in the 21st century.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, but was it still in the 90s?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I still deliver it now. Oh true, okay, we're in the 21st century. I had three channels in the 21st century.
Speaker 2:I had three channels in the 90s and an antenna, so I don't know.
Speaker 3:I did have cable, yeah you were fancy.
Speaker 2:My dad had cable.
Speaker 3:So when I went there every other weekend I got to watch cable. There's literally nothing else to do here in the wintertime.
Speaker 2:Yeah true, beginning what was to be a tradition of exclusive reportage on television and its surrounding issues. The cover of the first issue showed one of the first photos of comedy queen Lucille Ball's new baby. That's quite a what's it called when they do that on the internet. Hard launch, there we go. Hard launch, there we go. The magazine was issued in 10 editions, each geared to a different locality, and it sold more than one and a half million copies. The idea had proved to be a good one, and TV Guide went on to become the best-selling weekly in the United States, with a circulation of more than 13 million readers. 13 million a week, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, I guess every house didn't have it, though. The 10 editions grew to 119 regional editions, and TV Guide became the name most often associated with not only television program listings but also with television journalism. Though perhaps not the most glorious aspect of the television industry, tv Guide is certainly one of the most familiar.
Speaker 3:I mean, I still call the guide on the TV the TV Guide, yeah, when I look at stuff, yeah, which I don't usually anymore. But up until a couple years ago I got rid of cable. Yeah, I called it the TV the.
Speaker 2:TV guide in your hand was so much better than that stupid manual. No, I know, but I'm just saying I would still call that the TV.
Speaker 3:I would be like pull the TV guide up.
Speaker 2:Just like there's still Mac machines where we get our money from, there are still Mac machines.
Speaker 3:You know that's a Philadelphia thing. Yeah, that's just here. Other places didn't have Mac machines. I didn't know that until I started looking at all these Gen X pages and stuff. Yeah, I didn't know that was a regional thing.
Speaker 2:I guess I didn't know that either. The main office of TV Guide is still in Radnor, pennsylvania, but the staff of over 1,300 is scattered in more than 20 bureaus around the country. Because TV Guide's competition includes the free television sections of local newspapers, the weekly had to offer viewers something special not available in the local listings. Because of this, the editorial staff of TV Guide has always employed a two-pronged approach the listings and the articles. Just like Playboy. Yeah, the photos and the articles.
Speaker 3:I just am there for the articles.
Speaker 2:That's. It Isn't that what they all say? To maximize the value of its program listings, tv Guide writers are assigned to cover individual television shows Rather than using studio press releases. These writers screened programs and even read scripts themselves to ensure that their descriptions of the shows are accurate. The National Features Department of the Journal moved to New York City in 1991 to be even closer to the television industry there.
Speaker 3:That has to be the greatest job ever that you got to see TV shows before everybody else did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then just write what they were about, because like the 90s.
Speaker 3:You're talking ER.
Speaker 2:Right, and you're only writing these tiny little things about it. It's not like you have to write.
Speaker 3:I feel like the 90s was, like some of the best time for TV.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I feel like now it's just not. I just feel like the 90s were like.
Speaker 2:It's terrible. My friend was watching American Ninja Warrior last night. Yeah, I know, and I'm not at all interested in the show, Like it doesn't appeal to me. But the guy commentating is just screaming the whole time. I'm like why is he screaming? He's so loud.
Speaker 3:I just think, like the whole time I'm like why is he screaming? He's so loud. I just think, like the TV programming, like ER and Chicago Hope, and I mean I just feel like you had some of the best TV shows, although I'm drawing Buffy and just all the other ones. Yeah, my So-Called Life, oh God I. My So-Called Life. Oh God, I love my So-Called.
Speaker 2:Life, oh, my God.
Speaker 3:Jordan Catalano Again not a good person to have a crush on, especially not now. Now he's got his own cult. Did you know that, that he is the leader of a cult?
Speaker 2:I did know that Allegedly.
Speaker 3:I did not know that. Allegedly. I did not know that. Yes Him and his brother. Yeah, yikes.
Speaker 2:Don't join a cult, kids. Don't join a cult, it's bad. Tv Guide's other approach to creating public demand for its product has been its articles. The page is not filled with program listings contain photographs of stars, reviews of weekly programs and television movies and articles. Can I just say but yes, real quick.
Speaker 3:My favorite, one of my favorite podcasts, my favorite murder. They their thing is and they had t-shirts and everything that says you're in a cult. Call your dad or call your dad, you're in a cult, yeah that's amazing, yeah don't join a cult yeah don't. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, don't join a cult. Yeah don't, although some of you.
Speaker 2:Nobody that listens to this is in the cult. No, and cults just piss me off. It's such a blatant abuse of insecurity, and especially on girls.
Speaker 3:It just pisses me off it's just men who want to have sex with a lot of women, yeah there is um on the my favorite let's just plug my favorite murder on on the mfn network. They have a. They have a show that they have recently just added. That is, two girls that got out of cults one is the two by twos and the other one is from the moonies and um, they do a whole. They have a whole podcast on on just cults. It's just crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is, and it's so cool to hear two girls that were actually in cults discuss yeah, can you imagine like I've stepped away from a lot of things where I'm like, wow, what was I thinking? But can you imagine getting away from that and being like wow yeah, here's the other thing that made that.
Speaker 3:This is just so stream of consciousness right now, because it's been a day um earlier today, because I did want to talk about this up top and I forgot. But um, so I was thinking about my obsession with serial killers because I was listening to dateline.
Speaker 2:Oh, ted bundy was an answer on Jeopardy last night. I was very excited.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I forget what it was. Oh, it was the guy that killed those college students in Idaho it was the dateline on that. They were talking about how it feels to be his family, because apparently some members of his family thought maybe he did do it and when he was at their house for Christmas went to his car and searched his car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So anyway they I would not take that chance. They no, I don't want to know, I'm afraid you'd catch me.
Speaker 3:They- had a woman on there and I think this is a fucking amazing thing and I need to start looking for her. She is the daughter of Dennis Rader, who is the BTK killer the buy and torture kill, and he was decades, decades and to me like how insane is that? Decades? And to me like how insane is that that you're his. Like I know, ted bundy's daughter changed her name and, like erased it all.
Speaker 2:Was she his biological daughter? Yes, he has a biological daughter I was thinking his wife had kids when he married her I think he has one biological kid.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm pretty sure it's a daughter. And then then I know John Wayne Gacy's kids erased that whole thing. But this Dennis Rader's daughter she runs an advocacy for.
Speaker 2:I feel like I have seen something on her. I used to watch a lot of IDTV and they're very random with their stuff and I feel like it might have been on there. It's just like how?
Speaker 3:Because she said he was my best friend. Like she just cannot.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds like a lot of them are.
Speaker 3:And that's great guys, like everybody talks about, like. I think that, in particular, is what my fascination with these people are, because they live literally two different lives. Right, just completely, just, completely like.
Speaker 2:And they're very good at both of them. Yes, like their one life, they are perfect. They great husband, great father, great community person, great in the church the guy you'd call up if you needed some help with something like all of that. They're also extremely good at. Finding torturing, killing people for decades. He did it for like 40 years I've decided after all these murder shows, it is not hard. It all comes down to what you said Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody and serial killers don't tell anybody.
Speaker 3:That's how they get away with it. Yeah, they don't tell anybody.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I digress Quick, easy, random. Don't ever kill somebody in your own town.
Speaker 3:No, can't be anybody, you know.
Speaker 2:Nobody, you know.
Speaker 3:Random killings are much harder to solve. Yeah, because there's no motive.
Speaker 2:No, but you make a lot of people's life hell when they're trying to figure out who did have the motive to do it.
Speaker 3:And a lot of husbands are probably going to jail for it. No doubt they probably did something else wrong. They deserve this dateline I want I'm. So I sit at my my. They're called a case. I sit at my case all morning and I listen to now, I'm listening to datelines all the time. The one dateline, okay. First of all, she came on, she, she, her husband, was killed, shot to death I think, and she was running errands all morning and then she came home and found him shot to death, dead, right. So that's always the excuse.
Speaker 3:It gets it just gets so much worse.
Speaker 2:She called him. Women are terrible murderers.
Speaker 3:This one was particularly bad, horribly bad. The first five minutes I was like this bitch killed her husband Like who doesn't see, and it was an hour and a half. So it's like how are we going on for an hour and a half long? I already see. She called her husband and left a message while she was out running. Um, we're supposed to I know we're supposed to have lunch today at whatever time, and I was thinking we could go to this restaurant and it's really weird that you're not answering your phone, because you always answer your phone click and then it gets worse.
Speaker 3:She calls again while she's at the restaurant and she probably thought she was so clever and says it's really weird that you're not picking up and it's really weird that you're not here, because you're never late for anything and I was like so you must be dead. Yeah, like are you. Just no one talks to their significant other that way. I don't care how much you love and care about each other, you're going to be like yo, motherfucker, where are you? I'm sitting in this restaurant by myself. What the hell are you doing? What's taking?
Speaker 2:you so long. If you even call, you shoot him a text and you're like what the fuck, bro Yo? Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 3:Where are? You're never and I'm like you just totally gave yourself okay, women are terrible at it.
Speaker 2:Well, except for, like, the really crazy serial killer ones, there have been some really good women serial killers.
Speaker 3:But all right anyway, and now there's no more serial killers.
Speaker 2:Back to the TV guide. So sorry, let's see where was I. Uh, let's see where was I. I'm just going to start here and you have to cut it out, all right, tv guides other approach to creating public demand for its product has been its articles.
Speaker 2:The pages not filled with program listings contain photographs of stars, reviews of weekly programs and television movies and articles. Some articles are the predictable fluffy pieces highlighting the off-camera antics of sitcom casts or lightweight interviews with current popular stars. Light though they may be, these articles are often exactly what the television viewer wants to see Alternate views of favorite shows and stars and the critics' opinions of the shows they watch. Favorite shows and stars and the critics' opinions of the shows they watch. But TV Guide takes itself seriously as a television magazine as well. In the sentiments of the editorial staff, tv Guide's remarkable success stems from its ability to present not only broad, objective reporting about what is on television, but also in-depth provocative coverage about the TV industry itself and the effect television has on society. Yeah, all right. So that was the TV Guide. So here's another one that I was jealous, that my friends had and I never had.
Speaker 3:I never had it either, but it was always at the doctor's office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was always screwed up. Everybody had already done all the stuff, that's true. So Highlights Magazine which I'm surprised I didn't have this one because I was a super nerdy kid. But anyway, the earliest issues had one of the magazine's signature features the hidden puzzle. Hidden pictures puzzle Although I've never been a fan of those. Trying to find what's different about the two pictures.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I hate, those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not my thing. There's too much going on there. I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for. Within two years, the most famous characters arrived, Goofus and Gallant, which I don't remember. Them either. I don't either, which shows that I did not read it that often. The young boys who consistently do the wrong thing and the right thing respectively. For some reason, the characters sported elves ears at first.
Speaker 3:Why not?
Speaker 2:Well, their names were Goofus and Gallant.
Speaker 3:I mean you've got to have elves ears if your name's Goofus.
Speaker 2:More of a dunce hat kind of name. I was just thinking like a dunce hat and donkey ears.
Speaker 2:Other features followed and door-to-door sales quickly grew in circulation, but business troubles within about four years almost led to the shutdown of the magazine. Then the Myers' eldest son, also named Gary, like his father, hit upon an idea that highlights back, to put highlights back in the black, sell subscriptions to doctors and dentists. There you go when generations would be exposed to the magazine in the waiting room. I didn't put this in here, but Gary Jr died in a plane crash. Oh yeah, downer, rip After your genius idea. Even RIP After your genius idea. Even Highlights offers a publication that is devoid of almost anything that could be considered controversial or edgy. Its pages each month are full of bright, colorful articles, puzzles, poems, young people's letters and other features. As soon as I saw poems, I was like you know, somebody got offended by something. There's no way. The magazine also steers clear politics, though. One editor says that some young readers have written in to ask when the magazine's pages might reflect their same-sex parents. According to Monica Kael, director of AFAs1millionmomscom, Can I boo them yeah, boo.
Speaker 2:Highlights editor Christine Cawley said when we do show families in the magazines, we make it a point to include diversity. We strive to be diverse in every way. In a December alert to 1 million moms, online subscribers Cole urged moms to subscribers Boo Cole urged moms to contact the magazine. It is not a magazine's job to introduce social issues to children. She said that's the parent's role. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:Except you won't do it In her most caring voice. I would like to speak to the manager of the magazine.
Speaker 2:You're not teaching diversity, you silly cunt. You are teaching your kids that white rules, sit down and just man and a woman in a marriage. Don't let your kid read it if you're, even if your Christian husband does sleep around on you. With men the way it's supposed to be, whatever?
Speaker 3:I knew you'd enjoy that I I don't tolerate the one million moms.
Speaker 2:Very well, yeah, all right, I think this is my last one. Yes, one of the all-time best magazines ever agreed. So amazing that, even as a small child, I thoroughly enjoyed this magazine and read it multiple times. Yes, the same issue. Yes, reader's Digest. Yes, man, I just love. I think I loved Reader's Digest so much because now, as a 52 year old, I'm realizing I think I have a reading disability that just went undiagnosed my whole entire life.
Speaker 2:And but I could focus on their short little articles and I could read their little comic things and get it, because I didn't forget everything else I read before I got to the punchline, like I think that's why I really loved it so much. I'm the same way on the internet, social media. If I see an article that looks interesting, I click on it and it's more than a three second read. I'm like I'm done.
Speaker 3:Someone read this to me Exactly or I just won't know.
Speaker 2:I thought you should get TikTok. I know I don't like watching videos either. Well then, I don't want to tell you.
Speaker 3:I know there's so much Taylor Swift on there, though.
Speaker 2:There's so much Taylor Swift everywhere. I love it. I can't wait till October, so my album will come. I ordered it right away, I'm just waiting, alright. In 1920, dewitt Wallace married Lillibel Wallace, lillibel if that isn't an old timey name that's a 20s name if I ever did hear one.
Speaker 2:He married her in Pleasantville, new York. Shortly thereafter the two would launch reader's digest in the basement below a greenwich village speakeasy so romantic, uh. The idea of reader's digest was to gather a sampling of favorite articles on many subjects from various monthly magazines, sometimes condensing and rewriting them, and to combine them into one magazine. Since its inception, reader's Digest has maintained a conservative and anti-communist perspective on political and social issues. The Wallaces initially hoped the journal could provide $5,000 of net income. Wallace's assessment of what the potential mass market audience wanted to read led to rapid growth. By 1929, the magazine had 290,000 subscribers and had a gross income of $900,000 a year. Wow, that is a lot of money. A lot of money back then.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of money. Now, yeah, for real.
Speaker 2:The first international edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. By the 40th anniversary of Reader's Digest. It had 40 international editions in 13 languages and Braille and at one point it was the largest circulating journal in China, mexico, spain, sweden, peru and other countries, with a total international circulation of 23 million. The magazine's format for several decades consisted of 30 articles per issue, one per day, along with an it Pays to Increase your Word Power, vocabulary quiz, a page of amusing anecdotes and personal glimpses, two features of funny stories entitled Humor in Uniform, which I remember that one.
Speaker 3:Yes, I remember that one too.
Speaker 2:Yeah that was my favorite, and Life in these United States, which I also remember, yes, and a lengthier article at the end which I probably didn't read, usually condensed from a published book. Other regular features were my most unforgettable character, the drama in real life survival stories. I remember those too, and more recently that's outrageous these were all listed in the table contents. On the front cover, Each article was prefaced by a small, simple line drawing. I remember that too. In more recent times, the format evolved into flashy, colorful, eye-catching graphics, boo and many short bits of data interspersed with full articles.
Speaker 3:I remember the Reader's Digest. I think we all. Like I said before, if you had grandparents, I think you just, I think we all, and I don't remember that I know we, I saw them. I think you just, I think we all and I don't remember that I know we, I saw them. I probably still see them every day Not every day, but once a month and I just not. I'm not remembering them right now. But yeah, I love the Reader's Digest.
Speaker 2:I just loved magazines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm telling you, we really need to bring magazines back. I think that we should. And make collages. Yeah, make collages, great again. That's our new saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean just getting a new magazine.
Speaker 3:Make magazines great again, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And even, like in the 90s, they all had perfume samples, yes, and you could use those for like a. They all had perfume samples, yes, and you could use those for like a couple days to smell like that perfume Obsession. I loved Obsession, it was my favorite.
Speaker 3:That magazine stunk the Ulta catalog stinks too, it comes with perfume.
Speaker 2:Oh, do they.
Speaker 3:I had them today and they stunk up the whole truck. Yeah, but yeah, I mean today, and they stunk up the whole truck. Yeah, but yeah, I mean 70 and all the teen magazines.
Speaker 2:That's where you learned what kind of food you should eat. Yeah, that was probably not good. You read like celebrity articles where they actually like talk to the celebrity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you got to learn what Johnny Depp likes to do at home.
Speaker 2:What he wears when he's around the house His jammies, or doesn't wear.
Speaker 3:I think 17 was probably the one I looked at the most and bought the most.
Speaker 2:I think I would agree with that. Cosmo and Vogue was just so over my head. Yeah, I would never be able to afford anything in that magazine.
Speaker 3:Well, 17 was kind of just like the PG version of Cosmo, I feel like. I feel like it was more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cosmo was fun as a teen, though, too, because you got to read about like.
Speaker 3:Dirty stuff. It was dirty, yeah, I just I don't know 17. Like I said, the fashion in 17. I just like looking at the pictures.
Speaker 2:It did feel more relatable, I think.
Speaker 3:I don't think I ever wore any of that, because they never got kids on there.
Speaker 2:But the models looked a little more normal. They weren't all like supermodels. Yeah, they weren't supermodels. They weren't like Kate.
Speaker 3:Moss, although wasn't the two sisters, weren't they? 17 models? Hadid's no, no, way back when. Way before then yeah, one of them died in a car accident. Hold on, I got it. Nikki and Chrissy Taylor.
Speaker 2:Yes, and.
Speaker 3:Nikki Taylor was one of my favorites. I think they did start. We saw a picture of her. We had to take a moment and look at it. Yes, but they were on 17.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:Chrissy Taylor died in a car accident.
Speaker 2:Yep, and like I, mentioned earlier, isabella Russellini was well, not earlier, while we were on break. Isabella Russellini was one of my favorites because I had a thing for the short dark hair and I still can't remember the girl's name from northern exposure maggie, maggie, yeah, that is it.
Speaker 2:Um, I had another point. Oh, I watched a show, I think, on netflix recently that isabella russellini was in too. It's very weird to see her old, old, because she went from being a supermodel in the 90s to you didn't see her anymore. Yeah, and now she was in this show and she just looks kind of like a grandma. It's like whoa, that's so crazy. I can't remember the show she was in, though.
Speaker 3:My sister has super curly hair and she likes bobs. My sister loves a bob, but she cannot have one.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:So I have spent my life Having bobs, having her come to me and be like can you get your haircut like this? Can you get your haircut like this, because I have a poker straight hair.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep so that's why. Yeah, I always wanted the short, like Maggie from Northern Exposure, Isabella Russellini that short boy haircut. I was thin, I had the dark hair. I could have totally pulled it off, but I had curly hair, so I did have the short hair. It was just an afro. So you know what are you going?
Speaker 3:to do Well, thank you, that was good. We'll wrap it up. I love magazines. Let's bring them back, guys. Let's get collages going.
Speaker 2:Let's start a campaign to buy magazines. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're saving so many industries. Yeah, except for the whiteboard industry, but you only buy them once. Yeah, let's bring poster boards back.
Speaker 2:Elmer's Glue is going to skyrocket.
Speaker 3:They even have clear glue now.
Speaker 2:I was so disappointed when my kids needed school supplies and it wasn't the squeezy Elmer's glue, it's the stupid glue sticks. Now what?
Speaker 3:the hell. Well, that's how you get rid of your eyebrows. To block out your eyebrows, you use glue sticks. Did you know that that's what the drag queens wear to block out their eyebrows?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Glue sticks. Yeah. Smart yeah, smart yeah, anyhow yeah.
Speaker 2:How are you supposed to put glue all over your fingers and peel it off? You can't With a glue stick. You can't. You have to stick it in the glue.
Speaker 3:How are you supposed to sniff your glue? Well, it's probably easier in a stick to sniff it, because then you can just like do it like a Vicks inhaler. I don't think it's as strong, though.
Speaker 2:No, probably not. I don't remember the kids' sticks smelling as strongly as and markers do not smell the way they used to either. Nothing does. No more getting high in kindergarten. No, god damn it Boo.
Speaker 3:That's probably what's wrong with us.
Speaker 2:Everything's non-toxic now. Like I said before.
Speaker 3:That's why we look so young because we were doing lines of stinky things. Yes, that doing lines of stinky things. Yes, that was artificially stinky.
Speaker 2:Yes, stickers from last week markers. That's right. Generations before us were taking heroin and cocaine. We were just doing lines of glue, morphine. That's what they were all doing. Just all we needed was glue and you could stick it in your finger. That's really all we needed was glue. Yeah, that's it, it is yeah, all right, that'll be our new motto. All we need is glue.
Speaker 3:It's not wrong. Thank you for listening. Thank you, you can like share rate review, Please. You can find us where you listen to your podcast, Obvi. You can follow us on all of our socials.
Speaker 2:Please. Oh, we did break a thousand on. Facebook this week A thousand followers on Facebook. So thank you all.
Speaker 3:Yes we did. You can send an email about how you personally are going to bring back the magazine and collage, or send us a picture of your collage. Oh, yes, to likewhateverpod at gmailcom. Or don't like whatever whatever bye.
