The Cliffs Notes on Cliffs Notes

When a man named Cliff packaged book summaries in yellow and black booklets he changed the way kids learned. But was he just creating a cheat code? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And this is the Brief Overview of Cliff Notes.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  We're not going to do the exhaustive, encyclopedic, documentary-length Cliff's Notes episode.

• 1:30Josh Clark?

  Nope, we are doing the Brief Overview of Cliff's Notes. I said it wrong the first time. It's never been Cliff Notes. It's Cliff's Notes.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the first thing we should probably say, because Jerry, in the pre-show banter, even got it wrong, even though I said, Jerry, we're doing an episode on Cliff's Notes. She said, I used to get Cliff Notes. It's not Cliff Notes. I used to say Cliff Notes, too, in high school, but it is Cliff's Notes, as in, the person's name was Cliff, as we'll soon find out. It used to have an apostrophe. Then it just became Cliff's, two words, Notes, without an apostrophe.

• 2:08Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Then it became Cliff's Notes, all one word, but with that N capitalized.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  So stylish.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  But it has never been Cliff Notes.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  No, but everyone, basically, in the world calls it Cliff Notes.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Right, and we should tell everyone what this is if you don't know. I do know that they went around the world a little bit, but it feels like a very American thing. It is a study aid. It's basically sort of, I was about to say a CliffsNotes version of the book. Cause it's so in the lexicon now, but it's like if you went to read a book in high school in the eighties, like The Scarlet Letter, and you're like, oh god, do I really have to read The Scarlet Letter? You would go to a store and you would buy this yellow and black, very thin pamphlet. I don't remember how much they were then, they're only about $8.99 now.

• 2:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  And it would contextualize the work, it would summarize the work, give you character descriptions, basically everything you needed to know the night before to pass the test or write the paper.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and like you said, it's entered the lexicon. Most people can recognize it just that from that yellow and black cover. It looks like a Men at Work album cover.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, or a striper.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  Striper, yes, very nice. Maybe that's where striper got it.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 3:24Josh Clark?

  And then, yeah, just, most people in America know what we're talking about. I do wonder how well-known it is around the world, though.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  I mean, I think it's ended up going to 39 countries, but it just feels like a very lazy American thing, especially for Gen Xers to be like, I'll just get that and that's fine.

• 3:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because it's been long, basically from the outset criticized for being this thing that students read and use instead of actually reading the material, the book that they're supposed to read. That actually ran afoul, I guess, of what the guy who invented these things intent was. He always said, no, this is not what that's for. You're supposed to read the regular, you know, book. You're supposed to read The Scarlet Letter, Chuck, and whether you like it or not, doesn't matter. And then you get the CliffsNotes and you understand it that much more fully. That was the point.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  That's right, and of course, we're talking about Keith Hilligas. Oh, I'm kidding. Clifton Heath Killigas. His name was Cliff. Gentleman was a true cornhusker, as we'll see. He was born in 1918, out in the rural sticks of Nebraska. His father was a mail carrier and he was a- A very smart kid and I would assume a smart adult because he studied physics and math at Midland Lutheran College and then was going to grad school for physics and geology at the University of Nebraska. Go Cornhuskers.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  But dropped out in 1939 to marry a classmate named Catherine Galbraith, at which time he got a job at Long's College Books as a clerk. And that company would later become the Nebraska Book Company.

• 5:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, long story short, Cliff Hilligas was a very smart guy. I saw that he was said to read five books a week, basically, his whole life.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Or, did he just read five quick summaries?

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I just don't know. Because he's dead now and we can't ask him.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  That's right. But he worked at the NBC Nebraska Book Company up until World War II when he went to the Army. He was a meteorologist for the Army Air Corps, so again, pretty smart dude. Ended up a captain and his wife Catherine worked as a clerk for the Manhattan Project. So she was sharp as a tack as well.

• 5:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, also, I want to give big ups. Are we still saying big ups?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Heck yeah, man. We're old people. We can say whatever we want.

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  I want to give big ups to Livia who helped us out with this because there is not a lot of information on Cliff's notes out there.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  It's like, it's just not out there. You can get like the, like appropriately enough, the brief overview of Cliff's notes and its history, but to really dig in and get the details, you gotta get out there. So, thanks to her for that.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  She did it. I think she broke into the estate of the Hilligas estate and stole a diary.

• 6:18Josh Clark?

  She did.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 6:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then also, I want to give big ups to Mental Floss too, because they did some really good reporting on it too. Some good digging.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. All right, so back to Cliff Hilligas. He was in the Army, then after the war, he went back to his old job at the Nebraska Book Company.

• 6:38Josh Clark?

  They said, "We knew you'd be crawling back."

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he helped transform them into a wholesale textbook distributor. And he ended up sort of traveling all over the country, buying and selling used textbooks. When a little trip to Toronto, Canada, ended up being quite a good thing for the course of his life, right?

• 6:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, depending on who you're talking about. It wasn't that good of a thing for a guy named Jack Cole, the guy who we had dinner with in Toronto, who was a bookstore owner. And Jack Cole was like, "Hey, man, I'm gonna let you in on this business opportunity. I have these condensed pamphlets that basically are analysis of Shakespeare's plays. I publish 16 of them." And I think the quote from Cliff Hilligas was,

• 7:28Josh Clark?

  Jack Cole said, "Yes, I know."

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:30Josh Clark?

  He said, "I want you to be the American distributor of these pamphlets, which I call Cole's Notes." And Clifton Hilligas said, "All right, I'll give it a shot," and started selling these things, publishing them and selling them in America. And what happened from Cole's Notes, Chuck?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Well, first thing we should say is he took great risk. And I'm not like, you know, weighing in one way or the other of the ethics of any of this. But Hilligas did take upon great financial risk. He got a loan for $4,000 to make this happen, close to 50 grand today, and printed up 33,000 copies of these Cole's Notes. Himself and he and his wife Catherine and their three young kids, like packed and shipped these things in their house, out of their home for a little while, and were selling pretty good. And then what happened, Josh?

• 8:25Josh Clark?

  Well, yeah, so they were paying royalties to Jack Cole. That was the setup. And within the first year, I guess Hilligas was like, "Nuts to that. I'm just gonna rename these things Cliff Notes, Cliff's Notes." So they went from Cole's Notes to Cliff's Notes. I think Cole was heard to say,

• 8:45Josh Clark?

  And Cliff was like, I can't hear you. I'm down in Nebraska. So I just see people gloss over this all the time. Like it's, I just don't understand why it's not at all controversial because he clearly just took, he just lifted the intellectual property of Jack Cole and took it as his own. To be fair, he rewrote and phased out the Cole's Notes stuff, but the whole concept and even basically the name was the same.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would argue that maybe the name is intellectual property, but I think in a court of law, a judge would say like, you can't claim like doing a condensed version of a book as like an original idea that no one else can do. Because there were summaries before this. They didn't invent the idea of a literary summary. You know what I'm saying?

• 9:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but if Law and Order has taught me anything, it's that you can't predict what a judge is going to rule.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  No, that's true. But and I do, I'm not like going to bat for Cliff. I'm just saying that I don't think that's one of those ideas. You can say like, I hold the idea for condensing a long novel into a shorter version.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  No, I understand. And I'm not trying to like gun him down. I just hadn't gotten my gotcha today. So that was.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  I do feel bad for Cole, though, if it helps.

• 10:02Josh Clark?

  I do too. And I saw nowhere what his, his, his reaction was or what he did. I made up his quote of, um, that was a joke. But yeah, everybody just walks right past that stuff.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 10:15Josh Clark?

  And I refuse to.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Well, people, I feel like everyone is called out online for, for doing something like this, but old, old Cliff gets a pass, I guess. Cause everyone got through school because of him.

• 10:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's the thing. So, uh, yeah, this is not to paint him as a bad guy. If you want to know about him, he treasured letters that he got from students thanking him for helping them get through school. Which you and I can attest, getting a, a letter and email like that is really great. So I guess that makes us really great too. If I'm saying that that's a, that makes him a good guy. That's wonderful. That really worked out.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, he sold a lot of these pretty quickly, though. I do like how Olivia put he gradually phased out the original material. It seemed like that happened within that first year. But he was, I also couldn't find when he stopped paying the royalties. Was that during the first year or two?

• 11:07Josh Clark?

  I'm guessing when it became Cliff's Notes, he stopped paying royalties.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Probably right. But nevertheless, between the start of when he started doing that in August of 1958, and just yet six months later, at the end of that year, he had sold 58,000 copies of these book summaries and pamphlets. And by 1964, but six years later, he was doing all this on the side from the Nebraska Book Company. He was able to quit that job by 64. And just the 60s were a big decade period. He quit that job in 64. He changed the name in the 60s from Cliff's Notes without the apostrophe to Cliff's Notes. Big, big deal. And then he got divorced in 1966 and got remarried.

• 11:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, later on, he got remarried to a woman named Mary.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:56Josh Clark?

  And I guess he adopted her two kids. Another thing that shows he's a stand-up guy. Really, the only blemish on his entire lifetime is how he treated Jack Cole.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  That's true, but did those kids' biological father get royalties? On those children?

• 12:10Josh Clark?

  He named them Cliff's kids. They were originally Jack Cole's because he stole his wife, Mary.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Oh, man. And everyone just glosses right over that. Should we take a break?

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  Sure.

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• 15:57Josh Clark?

  So we should say, despite legendarily reading five books a week, Hellegast didn't write any of the Cliffs Notes. He was more like the business guy. He had the idea, you would put in scare quotes, and he was running the whole operation. He had the vision for it, right? So he hired other people. And initially hired literature teachers, like hardcore, like hardcore, like they have crew cuts and wear like army boots and stuff like that kind of lit teacher. But he realized something very quickly that I'm sure developed. A hardcore lit teacher who's been teaching the same books, been teaching A Scarlet Letter for, I think we should not mention a single other book besides A Scarlet Letter in this episode. What do you think?

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  All right, let's give it a shot. These hardcore lit teachers who have been teaching A Scarlet Letter, The Scarlet Letter, sorry, for 20 years. Technically, I just named another book, Chuck.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:54Josh Clark?

  For 20 years, these people know too much. They understand the book too well. They know all the details that they just get mired down when they're writing a synopsis or something. It's just too intense for the audience, which is high school and college readers, usually undergrad readers.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump your brakes. I'm trying to sell these to lazy kids.

• 17:16Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Like, broad overview, please. He ended up with grad students mainly, saying that they did the best work, which makes sense.

• 17:24Josh Clark?

  Sure, they work for free, too.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  That's right. But we mentioned the iconic yellow and black design. That was something Cliff thought of himself.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  I remember the mountain cliffs even being on the editions I had when I was, you know, a student in the 80s. I don't think they have that anymore, but they have these yellow and black stripes that is, it looks, I mean, it's a genius branding move just to do that simple little thing, because Cliff's Notes were so identifiable from across a bookstore. The night before a test or something, you could zoom over to that spinning rack of yellow and black pamphlets.

• 18:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they would, you'd walk in the bookstore and they'd call to you, "Don't bother. Come by me."

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 18:10Josh Clark?

  So, one of the big things, I didn't know this, but one of the big reasons Cliff's Notes became the brand that it is today, which is to say iconic, is because they advertised a lot in the 60s. And they very wisely went to where their readership was. They advertised in Seventeen, they advertised in Playboy, they advertised in, well, the Scholastic Journal. I don't know how much of a return on investment they got on that, but they also advertised in college newspapers.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Bingo.

• 18:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so like, if you're, if you're going to high schoolers and college kids and saying, "Hey, we have something that you, it's going to keep you from having to read a Scarlet Letter, the Scarlet Letter." Like, "Don't you want that?" And they say, "Yes, I want that so bad." Like, it just, it just rooted that business and simultaneously made it take off like a rocket.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  That's right. And you would open up the Scarlet Letter Cliff's Notes and it would say, "The letter is A. The end."

• 19:08Josh Clark?

  That's why I keep calling it a Scarlet Letter.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably. Because it is, it is literally A.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  A for awesome.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Not quite. One thing Cliff had in his corner was all his work for the Nebraska Book Company and being a traveling salesperson and all these relationships he had with bookstores, because he owned the market for this. Eighty percent of the market for guides to literature belonged to Cliff, because that was just it. I mean, I think, I think for a long time, I mean, competitors would come along, and we'll talk about that, but I think he had a number of years, maybe even decades, where everyone was just like, well, no, there's already Cliff's Notes. Like, why even bother?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  He owns it.

• 19:56Josh Clark?

  Right. That wasn't enough to keep people from coming along as competitors, but it does seem like they really didn't start to emerge until much, much later in history.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  Like decades and decades on.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 20:09Josh Clark?

  One of the things that Cliff's Notes have long been criticized for, though, is like, they write the, they write the book on The Scarlet Letter, and that's that. Like, what you are reading could have been written by a grad student in 1968.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:29Josh Clark?

  Even though you just bought this thing like, last week. That's not the case any longer. It's changed hands, and as it's changed hands several times, they've definitely been dusted off and brushed up and all those idioms. But for a very long time, it was like, this is really old fashioned stuff.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  Especially like, the language they use, the points they're making. A lot of, one of the things that Cliff's Notes was known for is putting works of literature, specifically The Scarlet Letter, into a historical context. And that can change as people understand history more, but if you don't go update it, it's the understanding of it in 1968.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. You know, we mentioned the 60s. You just mentioned 68, for crying out loud.

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Uh, being a kind of a big decade for the business. It was toward the end of that decade that things got a little rocky. Uh, it was around 1969 that a couple of things happened to, um, sort of dampen the business, I guess, a little bit. Uh, and this is something I didn't know, but apparently, um, starting in 1969 and through the first, you know, bit of the 70s, the classics, people are like, hey, all these new teachers came along and like, hey, we don't need to read the Scarlet Letter anymore. We're gonna read another unnamed book that's a little more current.

• 21:47Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  And so the classics kind of fell off a little bit. And apparently, a lot of high schools and colleges started the pass fail thing. So a kid wasn't as incentivized to ace a test. Um, they were just incentivized to pass a test. So they're like, I don't even need the Cliff Notes. I can just kind of fake my way through and pass this thing.

• 22:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  As a result, uh, they dropped about a million bucks a year in sales, uh, up until like the mid 70s, when they were like, oh my God, what were we thinking? We gotta put the Scarlet Letter back on the reading list. And we have to grade these kids according to their grade. This pass fail thing is not doing anyone any favors.

• 22:23Josh Clark?

  It's chaos.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  It's chaos.

• 22:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, not only did they drop a million in sales, they dropped a million units in the mid 70s.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought that was sales.

• 22:31Josh Clark?

  No, like, the number of sales that they made dropped from 2.8 million to 1.8 million.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Oh, I was, I was pretty sure that was dollars, but...

• 22:40Josh Clark?

  And I'm sure...

• 22:41Speaker 02

  If you're positive that it's units, we'll move on.

• 22:43Josh Clark?

  I'm 78% positive.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Well, that tracks, because I was 22% positive.

• 22:48Josh Clark?

  Okay, good.

• 22:51Josh Clark?

  Um, yeah, and Cliff Hilligas was like, you hippies.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:55Josh Clark?

  For that huge loss in sales for the mid 70s.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:00Josh Clark?

  Um, so there was another stumble that they made Cliff's cassettes, which was a good idea, if you ask me.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  It was Cliff's Notes, but on, in a cassette version that kids could pop into their Walkman and walk around listening to.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Want to be lazier?

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. You don't even have to walk around. You can lay there and listen to this stuff with your eyes closed and your hands soaking in palm olive.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  If you don't want to read the Scarlet Letter, and you don't want to read the 47-page summary, how about you just pop in that cassette and lay on your bed and smoke some grass?

• 23:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and listen to Ed Asner tell you what the Scarlet Letter means.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. Was that planned, or did you just come up with that?

• 23:40Josh Clark?

  I just came up with that.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so great. Uh, this was only about a six-month thing. It did not go over well, despite being a pretty good idea. That got me thinking about just audiobooks or books on tape and when that was a thing. Uh, apparently that started in 1932.

• 23:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, the American Foundation for the Blind opened up a recording studio. So it was a thing, but I feel like it didn't really take off until much, much, much later.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  Until The Walkman. Did you have a Walkman, by the way?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, of course I did.

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  Nice. I did, too. I associate it specifically with my cassette of Huey Lewis and the Newsports.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  One of the great records of all time?

• 24:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is. Really good.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever had a Discman.

• 24:23Josh Clark?

  I didn't either.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Uh, I think I went straight from Walkman

• 24:29Speaker 02

  to, geez, I guess iPod as far as walking around.

• 24:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. I never had an iPod. I went from Walkman to iPhone, I guess.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  I had the first iPod.

• 24:43Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I had the first, not the, you know, not Steve Jobs's iPod, but, you know, the first, the first edition. I still have it. It still works.

• 24:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, do you really? Wow, that's really saying something.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I put pictures of it on my Instagram not too long ago, actually, because I found it, charged it. And I just put up the opening screen because, you know, the first Walkman had everything in alphabetical order just on the screen when you opened it. And, boy, it was, uh, eight, eight or nine bands locked in time from, uh, I guess, like 2000 or something, whatever that was.

• 25:14Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Yeah, I didn't have one of those.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  I'm sorry. I'm gonna get you a, maybe a Nano.

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  No need. Those things were tiny, though. They were like the size of a, a thumb of steak.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, or a square of chocolate, actually.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:32Josh Clark?

  We'll keep going, right?

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mentioned Hilligas was a true cornhusker. He kept that company in Nebraska. He felt very strongly about that and donated 10% of its profits to Nebraska organizations. Was a big curator of the arts, so the Museum of Nebraska Art was a big one that benefited from his stealing that idea from coal. And they have, if you've ever looked up, like, hey, what does this guy look like anyway? You might see a bronze statue of him, and that is from that Museum of Nebraska Art.

• 26:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's standing up in some bushes like a creep with a book open.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  What else? What happened in 1983?

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  He, this is, this, I think this also kind of puts a certain, like, it paints a picture of this guy. That's what I'm trying to say.

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  At age 65, on the dot, he retires. Okay?

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:25Josh Clark?

  Like, that's just the kind of guy he was. But he didn't actually retire. He just stepped down from company president to the head of the board of directors.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:34Josh Clark?

  And he still went into the office every day.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and instead of calling him Mr. Hilligas, they said, you can call me Cliff.

• 26:41Josh Clark?

  Right. He would show up in like a smoking jacket and ascot after he retired.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Exactly. But he still called the shots.

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  Right. But, but that's just, I mean, I can totally, because don't forget, he was trained in geology, math, physics, like, he had a certain way of looking at things, for sure.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. That, a couple of years later, in 1985, there was a Chicago Tribune article. So this is mid 80s. They had a staff of about 25 people. And they had published 225 guidebooks, or book guides, rather. 60 million copies in circulation, and, yes, I nailed it, 39 countries in circulation. And apparently, there were some countries that used them to help teach American English in different countries.

• 27:25Josh Clark?

  Sure. Especially the English used by Americans in 1968.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  That's right. By the end of the 80s, they were taking in about 11 million bucks a year, which is pretty good scratch.

• 27:35Josh Clark?

  It's about 28 today.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  28 million? Yeah, that's even better scratch. And by the end of the millennium in 1999, at the age of 81, he sold it off. He was like, alright, I'm 81. I want to live out my remaining years as a super rich guy, and not just a medium rich guy. So he sold to IDG Books, who was the publisher of the Four Dummies guides that everyone knows. And he sold for only 14 million, which kind of surprises me. Fully retired and sadly died a couple of years later at 83 from complications of stroke.

• 28:12Josh Clark?

  I've always wondered what that is. Like, guys in particular retiring and then dying like very soon after that, it's kind of a thing. And even if you don't die, you can, like, a lot of people just get like really sick for a while afterward. And I don't know if it's like you've been running on adrenaline the last five years, or what the deal is. But it's like when you, when you finally, your body finally resets, like, I don't have to go to work anymore, something happens to you.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Are you saying this personally to me, so I?

• 28:43Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Can consider this as I weigh my future?

• 28:45Josh Clark?

  Don't even think of retiring, Chuck.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  It was bought and sold a few more times, though. In 2001, John Wiley and Sons bought the brand. They changed the name this time. This is when they squashed it together as Cliffs Notes with the capital N. Then Houghton Mifflin Harcourt bought it in 2012, and then Course Hero bought it in 21.

• 29:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, well, that makes sense, too. Course Hero is an online tutor. Essentially, they have courses, and they're heroes for it.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  And one final thing before we take the break is, it is, I think, the New York Times in the early aughts did a report, and they found that it's not just lazy high school kids that are buying these books. They found out it's lazy adults in book clubs that just want to, they want to participate in a book club, but they maybe don't have the time to read The Scarlet Letter. So they'll get the Cliffs Notes, so they can go and have some wine and talk about the abridged version.

• 29:41Josh Clark?

  Right. You can tell the ones that read the Cliffs Notes of The Scarlet Letter, because they're the ones who thought it was really good.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  That's right. And it's also, the yellow and black is sticking out from their fanny pack.

• 29:53Josh Clark?

  They have a little piece of it in their teeth.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  All right, shall we take our second break?

• 29:59Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be back and pick up on where we are today with Cliff and his notes.

• 30:18Josh Clark?

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• 30:41Josh Clark?

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• 30:56Speaker 02

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• 31:21Speaker 02

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• 31:40Josh Clark?

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• 31:57Speaker 02

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• 32:24Speaker 02

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• 32:35Josh Clark?

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• 32:58Josh Clark?

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• 33:10Speaker 02

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• 33:35Speaker 02

  All right, as promised, we're going to talk about CliffsNotes today. You can still buy these pamphlets. Like I said, I looked up online. If you want to buy the Scarlet Letter and hold it in your hand, I think it was $8.99, somewhere a little less, but they're kind of in that ballpark.

• 33:49Josh Clark?

  Aren't they used, though? They're not newly printed?

• 33:53Speaker 02

  I don't know. I mean, they sell them on Amazon. That still could be used, I guess.

• 33:58Josh Clark?

  That was my take that they're used, but who knows?

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Maybe. I do know that their main source of income now is the website that offers most of this stuff for free, which is weird that they also have a fee model. Attached.

• 34:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so you can subscribe to CliffsNotes today for, I think, $9 a month or $36 a year. And you get all of the free stuff, but you can also download it as a PDF. So if you learn better by like reading in on print or on paper, you would need to do that. But they also have other stuff, too. There's like much more in-depth guides and analysis and stuff like that behind their paywall. So it's not like you're just a total sucker for paying for free CliffsNotes because they have a bunch of stuff that's not just free.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I got, we're not going to go through this list, but Livia was kind enough, I think, because she needed to fill a word count, to list out what you get in the actual free version of, let's say, The Scarlet Letter. And my take is that you get a pretty good like summary and chapter by chapter thing and character analysis and all that stuff, but it's just even a lesser version than the more robust paid monthly.

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  Right. And I mean, it's even more, it's like, there's pretty good detail in it, like for their, their analysis of The Scarlet Letter, they talk about how The Scarlet Letter fits into dystopian fiction in general.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:32Josh Clark?

  Or how, how Big Brother in The Scarlet Letter can be compared to Hitler, Stalin.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:38Josh Clark?

  Or when Hester Prynne develops Newspeak, what all that means.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And a biography of George Orwell, the writer of The Scarlet Letter.

• 35:48Josh Clark?

  That's right. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. I went in and poked around and it is a lot of free stuff. Like you could write numerous, really good slam dunk papers on The Scarlet Letter just from the, the free stuff that they have available. So I'm a little curious, too, what their business model is because it doesn't really make sense to me, unless it's a portal to Course Hero, now that I think about it. I'll bet it is. I'll bet they get you with the free stuff and then they get you into Course Hero and they turn you upside down and shake you by your ankles until all the change falls out of your pockets.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  They're like, you want to be a better student for $9 a month?

• 36:29Speaker 02

  So we should talk a little bit more about the elephant in the room, which is that this is just a way for kids to cheat. I mean, the other elephant is we haven't discussed our own Cliff Notes, Cliff's Notes use. I will volunteer my own. You don't have to answer.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  I've never used them.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Okay, well, go ahead and just make me look bad right before I say that I leaned on them.

• 36:49Josh Clark?

  No, worse than that, I never, I didn't even bother to use the Cliff's Notes. I didn't read the material either.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 36:56Josh Clark?

  I was just a really, really lame high school student in high school. I was not good at all. I didn't blossom until college.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Okay, I do remember that now, but you were setting me up to look like a chump.

• 37:07Josh Clark?

  No, I scooped in and saved you.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 37:10Josh Clark?

  Like Hester Brine did in The Scarlet Letter.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  That's right. I did use Cliff's Notes, not exclusively. I was always a believer, and this is not right, kids, of, I love to read. I was an English major, for heaven's sake.

• 37:25Josh Clark?

  I know.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  So I love to read, but I wanted to read what I wanted to read.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Emily still sort of challenges me, not on just reading, but like Chuck only does what he wants to do. That kind of thing. It's not the best trade, everybody. You should not be like Chuck. But I wanted to read what I wanted to read. I didn't want to read The Scarlet Letter, so I got the Cliff's Notes. And, you know, probably perused The Scarlet Letter, the books that I was like, I totally want to read that. I can't think of another book title.

• 38:00Josh Clark?

  Like The Scarlet Letter.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would read that Scarlet Letter. I wouldn't read the one they assigned to me. So I did use Cliff's Notes. I did, that was in high school. Did not use them in college as an English major because I felt like it was time to get a little more serious. And I chose that major willingly, so I should probably do the work.

• 38:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  And that was the only work in college I really, really enjoyed was reading and writing. So I didn't use them in college. But, all that to say, the elephant in the room is like, is this just for lazy kids? And you mentioned that Hilligas was like, no, but how would he enforce that? Or encourage that, rather.

• 38:33Josh Clark?

  With a stern note.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:36Josh Clark?

  At the beginning of every copy of CliffsNotes, he had a little note, his signature was next to it, too. He said that a thorough appreciation of literature allows no shortcuts. And students who use them to avoid reading the actual material or having to go into class for discussion groups about the the material are denying themselves the very education that they are presumably giving their most vital years to achieve. And I feel like he took a bit of an utopian approach to how he viewed his customers, but surely there were some out there. I do wonder if there is a single CliffsNotes buyer

• 39:19Josh Clark?

  who read that note and was like, you know what? I'm going to change my ways. I'm abusing these things.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  I doubt it, but I'm sure there were students like I did at times where a book was a little over their head and they used the CliffsNotes as intended to help with the book.

• 39:36Josh Clark?

  I saw also that some teachers did that. They actually suggested CliffsNotes for some students, which meant that your teacher thought you were a dipstick.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Well, teachers also were on record as using it for lesson planning sometimes. Cause they didn't want to read the Scarlet Letter either.

• 39:54Josh Clark?

  That's really hilarious. That's so Mrs. Kravapal.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Totally is.

• 40:00Josh Clark?

  And then a lot of them actually use CliffsNotes for the opposite reasons. They would, they would know, like if, like if you're a high school English teacher, there's a handful of the Scarlet Letters that you've assigned during the year and you assign the same Scarlet Letters over and over again, year after year. So you probably know the CliffsNotes on those things by heart. So you can very easily pick out when somebody is not only using the CliffsNotes, but way worse than that is actually plagiarizing the CliffsNotes.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Lowest of the low.

• 40:32Josh Clark?

  Laziest thing you could possibly do prior to ChatGPT writing your, your paper for you.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is coming from two Gen Xers and we wrote the book on how to get away with lazy.

• 40:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I didn't even read the material or the CliffsNotes. That's pretty lazy.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Certain universities took charge. In 1997, Villanova pulled Cliff's Notes from their college bookstore. Other bookstores maybe didn't sell them, but they're the only one that Livy could find, at least, that actually pulled them off the shelves.

• 41:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they famously sent in a hit squad that ended up trashing the bookstore and tore up all of the Cliff's Notes. And when they left, they threw flashbang grenades into the bookstore as they took off.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And yelled, hut, hut, hut. Cliff did not like this, and they took out a full-page ad. I guess he was passed away by this point, but the company didn't like this. And they took an ad in the Villanova student newspaper, called it censorship, and the college was like, they can still buy these things anywhere. This is sort of a symbolic gesture. Calm down.

• 41:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah. We kind of touched on, and we didn't say it overtly, but there were a lot of teachers out there who were okay with Cliff's Notes, and some who even encouraged their use. That seems to have come along like a generation after Cliff's Notes came out, which is not coincidental, because a lot of those people who grew up to be English teachers and English professors used Cliff's Notes when they went through school themselves. So at the very least, they had a certain fondness of it. And at best, they were like, this is actually super helpful as a reference material.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And if you have a set of Cliff's Notes that you have read recently from later in the company's story, you're like, hey, man, I didn't see any note from Cliff saying, these aren't shortcuts. PS, enjoy the shortcut. This didn't have anything in it. I think the minute he sold that company, they were like, let's get rid of that note.

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  It's a real drag.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a real drag. And not only that, like, our advertising should actively encourage the fact that this is a shortcut.

• 42:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's pretty much what they did.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Let's own it.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and they did own it. I think they kind of walked it back a little bit. So there's like a watered-down version of his note, essentially saying the same thing. But they definitely did, they said the unspoken part out loud, I guess is how they put it.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Is this, here's the big question, though, and I'm glad Livy posed this question. Like, is it bad to use Cliff's Notes? And the very idea of like...

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Do kids need to read The Scarlet Letter? Or is the only reason they're reading The Scarlet Letter to just not not look like a dipstick? When someone brings up The Scarlet Letter, like, do you just need to be acquainted with this stuff? As a cultural touch point in life, or to get a Jeopardy answer correct? Or I'm sorry, Jeopardy clue, correct?

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Nice catch.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  We almost got our membership revoked. And, you know, this is me speaking. I think, yeah, like, you should read these books. And a lot of people are on record saying, yeah, I mean, not necessarily just The Scarlet Letter, but it's, I believe, there's a literature scholar from the University of Kentucky named Alan Nadel that calls it the labor of witnessing. Like, to to actually read the thing is the thing. It's not reading the Wikipedia. I think there was, she found a Redditor East, TX Josh, that said, "It's like reading the Wikipedia on Beethoven's Ninth, but not listening to it." There's something about experiencing the thing that is different and valuable.

• 44:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, and reading all this, Chuck, made me realize how much I missed out by not reading all those books in high school.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  You still can, buddy.

• 44:26Josh Clark?

  Right, so I went on a couple of, like, I searched "books you should read before you die", and that brought up numerous lists, and there's some that appear on all the lists. And I'm still searching for which The Scarlet Letter I'm gonna read.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Which single book?

• 44:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if you have any recommendations for one to start with, let me know.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Well, you know what would be fun is our mutual friend Joey Ciara,

• 44:51Speaker 02

  of the Henry Clay people, who are friends, who wrote and performed the theme song to our television show, and still a good friend, I'm gonna see, he's going to Glengarry with me this weekend.

• 44:59Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  He is a Moby Dick aficionado and collects copies and versions of that. And he said, "That is the best book of all time." He said, "It's not my favorite book." He said, "It's the best book."

• 45:11Josh Clark?

  You mean the Scarlet Letter, the one with the great white whale?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right. I got the name wrong. So sorry.

• 45:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. All right. Yeah, I saw that one. I was like, I don't know. I read-

• 45:22Speaker 02

  It might be fun if we both read that.

• 45:24Josh Clark?

  Okay. I have a feeling you're gonna be like, you're still reading that two years from now? But-

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Well, let's, let's put it this way. Joey gave me a copy probably two years ago and it sits untouched on my shelf.

• 45:35Josh Clark?

  All right. Do you give me a two-year head start and then you start and we'll finish at the same time and talk about it?

• 45:41Speaker 02

  I gotta put down this Mike Campbell book of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the R.E.M. one before that and the Mudhoney one before that. All I'll read is these rock books. I need to put them all away. And by the way, those are all called The Scarlet Letter.

• 45:54Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  My story in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  Right. And also Chuck, I mean, if rock and roll rots your brain, reading about rock and roll really does.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Should we mention one more point that teachers make or I'm sorry, that problem with study guides? Some people are like, hey, these study guides just give you one lens to look through to view this thing. And what you need to do is read the book and go to a class and hear it from a teacher. But some people say, yeah, but that teacher is just looking at it through their lens. I disagree. As an English major in my classes, the teacher would present perhaps their analysis and then say, this is what other people think and what do you think?

• 46:36Josh Clark?

  Right. And you have to have read the Cliffs Notes to say what you think. What else? You want to talk about any of these parodies or spinoffs or competitors?

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we can just mention kind of quickly, Spark Notes became the biggest competitor in like 1999. There's one called Schmoop founded in 2008 that became a pretty good competitor.

• 46:59Josh Clark?

  That's pretty good. I went and read some of their stuff. It's much more loosely written, like what's up with yada, yada, yada.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 47:07Josh Clark?

  What's up with that letter A?

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Interesting. I do want to mention this one spoof at least, Thug Notes.

• 47:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Did you watch any of these?

• 47:16Josh Clark?

  I watched the one on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you mean The Scarlet Letter.

• 47:22Josh Clark?

  Man, I got it too. We both went down.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Thug Notes is on YouTube.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  I was talking about the movie.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Oh, right, right, right. It's a YouTube series from comedian Greg Edwards. He plays a character, a PhD named Sparky Sweets, who summarizes a commentary on 100 different books. They're generally about five minutes long, and it's a comedy thing. You know, it's Thug Notes. He does African-American vernacular and breaks down these books in a fun way, in a very quick way, but he's got 3.14 million subs. And if you watch one of these, like you did, you will soon learn, like, it's a joke, but he's laying down some real truth on some of these as well.

• 48:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Like, when you finish watching one of these Thug Notes, like, you understand what that book was about, like, fully. Like, he does a great job with it. But, yeah, there's just this whole shtick to it that's pretty awesome, too.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I watched a few of them, but the one on the Scarlet Letter by George Orwell, at the end, in the analysis, he explains, he talks about censorship and book burning and Stalinism and double talk and all that stuff in a very fun way. And I can only think that, like, there might be young students that identify with Greg Edwards and what he's doing, that it might provide a little real insight and inspiration.

• 48:42Josh Clark?

  I hope so.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Even though it's just a joke.

• 48:45Josh Clark?

  Did you say that the name, did you say the name of his character on Thug Notes?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  I did.

• 48:49Josh Clark?

  I love it. I guess that's about it, huh?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  That's all I got on CliffsNotes.

• 48:53Josh Clark?

  Okay. I think, man, hats off to us, hats off to Olivia, hats off to Mental Floss, hats off to Sparky Sweets PhD. We made it through CliffsNotes.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Hats off to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and Hester Prynne, too.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:09Josh Clark?

  Uh, let's see, since we took our hat off to Hester Prynne, of course, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  Hey guys, this is about Broadway. My name's Reagan. I've been a listener for 10 years. My husband, Paul, and I love to listen to you guys while we cook dinner. And we listen to reruns on long car trips. I'm writing in because Broadway, Broadway episode, because I am a theatrical costume designer, and I wanted to offer some more insight about previews that you guys were discussing. Previews have a cool function where they are actually used by the production team to keep changing, like Josh said, and fine tuning a show based on audience feedback. Especially on a brand new show, new lines and music may even be written and added during the process. Changes can also include restaging and cutting, or adding technical elements like costumes or props. However, Chuck was right, and that toward the end of previews, the show will be frozen by the

• 50:03Speaker 02

  director, which means no further changes are allowed to be made. And it's after that time that critics will be invited to attend during previews, after they're frozen, before opening night.

• 50:14Josh Clark?

  Got it.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  So that totally clears it up. Thanks for doing such a great job covering Broadway. It really touched me to hear about the theater world on my favorite podcast, because I listen to you guys almost daily in the costume shop. And that is from Reagan McKay, interim costume shop manager at the Roundhouse Theater.

• 50:29Josh Clark?

  Wow, that's awesome. I think we talked about the Roundhouse Theater, didn't we?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  It sounds familiar.

• 50:34Josh Clark?

  I hope we did. That's, thank you very much, Reagan. We love it when we hear from experts in the field about an episode we talked about, especially when they say we got it right. And if you want to be like Reagan and send us an email where you're like, hey, I know what I'm talking about, and you guys did a good job. We love that kind of thing. You can send it to [email protected].

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 51:13Josh Clark?

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• 52:17Speaker 08

  That sound? That's pro squash. Some of the fastest rallies in sport played inches from the crowd. The National Squash League is back in full swing for season four. The sport is heading to the 2028 Olympics for the first time, and you can see it up close right now in a city near you. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.