VH-1: MTV for Your Parents

Today we complete our music video duology with a dive into the mellow pool of VH-1. 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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• 1:18Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:28Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is Stuff You Should Know, the adult contemporary edition.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Video hits one.

• 1:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, did you remember that's what the VH stood for?

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think that's, I think they ran that little thing I just did. I think that was their, their thing.

• 1:49Josh Clark?

  Initially?

• 1:51Speaker 03

  I don't know. I seem to, I don't know if I just made that up or not, but I feel like that's something that's stuck in my brain from the old days.

• 1:57Josh Clark?

  Well, yeah, from what this research showed, that's exactly the kind of thing they would have run for like the first 10 years.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably. And this is on VH1, of course, and it's gonna be a great warm up for the long awaited Judas Priest show tonight that I'm going to.

• 2:12Josh Clark?

  Well, is that tonight? Awesome, man. I hope you have a bitchin' time.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it should be some fun people watching and some good music.

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  Are you gonna smoke PCP in the parking lot, like that documentary?

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Oh, you know it, baby. I got my, I ordered some PCP online. And it came in a box labeled PCP.

• 2:32Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  And I opened it up and it said, "Take two PCPs for best results."

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  So I think I'm good.

• 2:40Josh Clark?

  That sounds legit to me.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I'm all set.

• 2:43Josh Clark?

  Well, have a great time. That's cool. Did you get in touch with Nita Strauss?

• 2:49Speaker 03

  No, no. She may not be Stuff You Should Know person anymore.

• 2:54Josh Clark?

  Well, try waving to her from the audience and see what happens.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  It's me.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Maybe when you're on PCP, you'll just crawl onto stage.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe. You never know. I'm gonna take the recommended two, so who knows what's gonna happen?

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  So we're talking about VH1, which is basically the opposite of PCP.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:13Josh Clark?

  As everyone knows, who's ever seen VH1, especially if you were around when it debuted back in 1985, it's just like the older, mellower, more, well, again, adult contemporary version of MTV. And it bears a striking resemblance because it was launched by the same company that launched MTV, that whole Warner Brothers Amex weirdness.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:42Josh Clark?

  And one of the big reasons they launched VH1 is because they really wanted to put one of their competitors, Ted Turner's cable music channel, in the ground permanently.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I guess this was before, you know, because they eventually bought them out, if you remember from the MTV episode.

• 4:00Josh Clark?

  I do remember.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I was talking to dear listener, but that's okay.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  Oh, I see.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  When I address you, I address you as dear leader.

• 4:08Josh Clark?

  Thanks. I appreciate that.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is before they bought them out, clearly, because they were essentially saying, "Hey, cable companies, if you want another music video station, don't go buy Turner's thing.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Just take VH1 for free. If you're getting MTV, we'll just throw it in."

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, before video hits one, it was value add hits one.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, and honestly, what got me about researching this was they follow similar paths as far as music videos turned into original programming. But I dare say that VH1 did a better job and stayed more relevant in the long run.

• 4:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can make a case it's still quite relevant. It's definitely changed its mission dramatically, but MTV changed its mission as well. And yeah, it's VH1 still relevant. There's no better word to put it.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think they ended up having much bigger shows when they started doing their original shows than MTV had.

• 5:09Josh Clark?

  For sure. And as we'll see every once in a while, MTV likes to still pouch them because even though VH1 is more relevant, I get the impression that MTV is still more powerful in that company.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm curious with the dynamic there.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  Let's find out. Anyone who works at MTV or VH1, let us know.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  But like you said, it started out just a few years later and was, you know, they launched with Marvin Gaye singing the National Anthem and then Diana Ross and the very mellower, well, I guess you've lost that love and feeling, was always mellow. But I feel like Darryl Hall and John Oates even made it even sort of cornier.

• 5:48Josh Clark?

  Oh, you wanted to hear corny?

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  I was listening to some beautiful music on YouTube this morning as I was studying.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:56Josh Clark?

  And I heard an instrumental muzak version of Gordon Lightfoot's Sundown. And I was like, Chuck would love this one.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I probably would have.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  Because every time I hear that song, I hear you doing your impression of it, where you're just like mumbling the words.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Boy, that's when Canada turned against me personally.

• 6:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  And they forgave me. We made up.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  So yeah, it was actually a pretty solid lineup. The fourth video that they showed was John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me." So that's not a bad way to kick off a new video channel. And I was looking through the rest of the, I think, first 10 or 20 or whatever, and it was just hit after hit. And the VJs that they had, again, this is the older sibling or maybe even like parent.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, like people in their 30s watched VH1.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Really old people.

• 6:49Josh Clark?

  Right. People that David Bowie clearly said you couldn't trust any longer.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:55Josh Clark?

  That was who the VJs were. They were untrustworthy former radio vets like Don Imus.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, Imus was there, Frankie Crocker, Bowser from Shana Na.

• 7:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the best VJ I think of all.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe so.

• 7:10Josh Clark?

  There's also a guy named Scott Shannon, who we can thank for creating the Morning Zoo radio show format.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Oh, was he the guy?

• 7:19Josh Clark?

  He was the guy.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think his headstone, if he's still around, it will eventually say sorry.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it just has a fart machine that you can press.

• 7:32Josh Clark?

  That's not a bad idea.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  That's really not, actually.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  So one of the other things that differentiated VH1 from MTV is that, pretty much out of the gate, you can tell from the first two videos, it was much more willing to put black artists on its airwaves. Right? Like, we talked about MTV being like almost flat out accused of racism by the head of CBS Records within a couple of years of its launch. VH1 was not that. I don't know if they learned the lesson or if they were just more into music made by black artists than MTV. I'm not sure. But from the outset, there was a place where you could see more black artists, for sure.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also a place for comedy, you know, MTV, we lauded some of the sort of sketch shows and the remote control funny game show, but Rosie O'Donnell actually got her start as a VJ on VH1 in 1985 and a few years later, the pretty good stand-up show Stand Up Spotlight was on, and this was, you know, three or four years before the Comedy Channel launch, which would eventually become Comedy Central. So there wasn't, you know, HBO was doing some stuff, but there wasn't a lot of stand-up on television until VH1.

• 8:44Josh Clark?

  No, but apparently there already was the half-hour comedy hour on MTV, which I had totally forgotten about, but do you remember that?

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:52Josh Clark?

  That was a good one.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Half-hour comedy hour.

• 8:54Josh Clark?

  And then I guess HBO already still had some stuff too, but for the most part, there wasn't, it wasn't crowded at all. Rosie O'Donnell was an innovator in that sense, for sure.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then their first sort of big original show, I mean, Stand Up Spotlight did pretty well, but my generation, I remember in 1989 with Peter Noon of Herman's Hermits hosting, and it was, you know, it was just him DJing and spinning records, but also sort of talking about trivia, kind of like a Turner Classic Movies for Boomers.

• 9:26Josh Clark?

  Pretty much, yeah. And I was like, Herman's Hermits, I know for a fact, I know that band, but I can't remember what their big hit was. So I was looking all over YouTube, I found one of their greatest hits albums, and I just had to skip through all the songs.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:41Josh Clark?

  No, that's not it. Never heard that one before. I don't know who would like this one. And then I finally got to Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I knew where your head is.

• 9:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I know that one from the romantic montage in Naked Gun.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 9:56Josh Clark?

  And that's my Herman's Hermits story.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  You know, these videos that they were playing on my generation, a lot of them were just old, sort of, when they did promotional videos before the true music video format came out, but they also played new stuff. There was plenty of Michael Bolton and crossover stuff that also was playing on MTV that VH1 would, you know, plenty of Rod Stewart, obviously.

• 10:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Rod Stewart, turns out, was to music videos what Enya is to crossword puzzles.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:28Josh Clark?

  Like, just perennial, right?

• 10:29Speaker 03

  She just popped up again this week in the crossword.

• 10:32Josh Clark?

  Did she really?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. It's funny.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  It just keeps happening.

• 10:36Josh Clark?

  That's pretty cool. I love this ride for her.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  Um, yes, that was kind of a problem though, is because some of these acts were already past their prime when they were showing videos on VH1, they hadn't made videos. They were, they were, their prime came before that whole marketing tool that we talked about in the MTV episode. So they would have to piece together things like concert footage, um, or like you said, maybe even like TV appearances or something like that. And just basically make like a, an edited version to make a music video for a particular song. So they, VH1 was kind of hamstrung in a lot of ways right out of the gate.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's all because Peter Noon demanded it.

• 11:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  He's a tyrant.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Yes, he was quite a tyrant. Everyone knows that. You don't even have to know the song, Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good to know that Peter Noon was a tyrant.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Uh, mid nineties, they found themselves floundering a bit though, because they never really got an identity outside of being sort of the, you know, I, you know, if you were an MTV kid, you thought VH1 was kind of boring. And it was like stuff your parents might be into, kind of a little more square. And that's not an identity.

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  No.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Well, I know, but that's not an identity that you want to claim. So they had like a mishmash of different shows going on. They had a show called Archives that was just kind of rebroadcasting old TV interviews that they, I guess, had rights to. Uh, and so, you know, they, they just lacked an identity aside from being square. And they also had the same pressures that MTV had when, with competition coming in. And so much so that cable operators were like, I don't like, I don't want to, even though it's free, I don't want it anymore.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  So they were trying to get rid of VH1, uh, you know, actively. I think the biggest cable operator in the country at the time, uh, Telecommunications, Inc., uh, they were like, I don't even want this free thing.

• 12:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for free. That's pretty sad. That's, that's not good. And actually, it was a dude named John Sykes, who essentially saved VH1.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, I heard a media executive.

• 12:44Josh Clark?

  Is he?

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. Well, congratulations, John Sykes, because he definitely turned VH1 around. He was what you would call a good hire.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  Because in 1994, they brought him on and he so changed VH1 for the better. That in 1995, their subscriber base was 49 million households. Three years later, it was up to 62 million households. That's what they call the Sykes effect.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he'd walk out of the room and say, "You got psyched."

• 13:20Speaker 03

  They started new, original music programming and that was really part of the big rebranding effort that was so successful. Top 10 Countdown in 94, eventually Top 20 Countdown was sort of the big first one. But in 1996, they really, really hit it big pop culturally with a little show called Pop-Up Video.

• 13:44Josh Clark?

  Yes. I remember watching this and it was one of the things about it. So Pop-Up Video, if you've never seen it, they would just show music videos, but then there were these little kind of like cartoon word bubbles would pop up with some random fact about the artist, maybe a little trivia, something about music history, or, and this is, I think, what captured everybody, some sort of juicy little bit of gossip or random weirdness that had to do with that specific video. And the two guys who were behind it, Woody Thompson and Ted Lowe, apparently they got pushback from the parent company because the parent company also owned Blockbuster.

• 14:28Josh Clark?

  And they knew from owning Blockbuster, foreign films didn't go anywhere because people didn't like subtitles. So they were like, "No one's gonna want to read anything." But they were very wrong because in large part, Thompson and Lowe were good writers. So this kind of became known for being a much smarter show than you would guess it would be.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was very clever and a huge, huge hit. Like, I remember watching it. I don't remember like setting my my calendar to sit around and make sure I knew when it was on.

• 15:00Josh Clark?

  Sorry.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  But I definitely found myself watching it quite a bit. It was a fun show. Storytellers came out in 1996, which was clearly aimed at the kind of, you know, younger boomer, maybe older Gen X generation, because they just had classic rock artists after classic rock artists in an intimate setting, singing songs, telling stories about the writing of those songs. Very, very popular show.

• 15:23Josh Clark?

  Yes, and anytime I think of storytellers, I think of the Saturday Night Live skit with Neil Diamond.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I don't think I saw that.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  Oh, it was Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond, and he is just off the rails. At one point, he says he's on some dynamite pills, his keyboard is Kenny gave him. And he, at one point, he said, I will smack you in the mouth. I'm Neil Diamond. And it was just bizarre that he he made this Neil Diamond character. But the ironic part of it is Neil Diamond was never on storytellers.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  No. Well, maybe that's how they got away with it.

• 15:58Josh Clark?

  It's worth going back and seeing, man. It's an all time great sketch.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Better than Robert Goulet? That was pretty good.

• 16:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:06Josh Clark?

  A hundred times, maybe. Hundred and twenty five.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. You did the math?

• 16:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Legends was another big show that came out that same year in 1996. This was just straight up rock doc stuff. Pretty, you know, straightforward, one hour documentary style. Again, you know, artists like Bowie and Aretha Franklin and, you know, The Clash was in there. I mean, you know, still aimed at that audience. They knew what their bread and butter was, but they started making kind of good shows to support it.

• 16:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one reason that John Sykes kind of brought it back to music videos and then made all this original music programming is the boomers to start, and then eventually Gen X followed in their footsteps. They kept buying new music, like they kept listening to music into their 30s and 40s. Previous generations hadn't done that. Like, apparently, you were done with music when you turned 30 because life sucked and it was serious and you were in black and white. And if you were a woman, you wore an apron all day. If you were a man, you just drank scotch all day. You just didn't listen to music after a certain point, and that changed. So it made sense that you would kind of target those generations because they also had the most pocket money or spending money, too.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, new music that is like the the Mad Men guys listen to the whatever Artie Shaw or the whatever orchestra, but there were no, there were no guys in the 1950s in their 30s saying like, what's, what's, what's new out there?

• 17:35Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  What, what can you turn me on to?

• 17:37Josh Clark?

  I remember one of the more disappointing moments I've ever had in relation to my father was going through his old record collection and the, the artist he had the most 45s of was Jackie Gleason somehow.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  At least your dad had records. My dad didn't even listen to music hardly.

• 17:55Josh Clark?

  But your dad made his own music in his Jeep on a CB.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. It was weird. I had a weird family.

• 18:02Josh Clark?

  He had a whole convoy soundtrack going.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  That's true. He would get, I think I mentioned, he would get obsessed with like a song. And that's it. And he'd say, hey, Scott, go, go record that like 17 times in a row on a, on a tape for me.

• 18:17Josh Clark?

  And Scott would be like, can't you? Here's your tape of Hot Blooded 17 times.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Uh, 97 was when it really hit the big time with Behind the Music. I think Olivia helped us out with this one along with the MTV article and she aptly calls it Legends Evil Twin. Because these were one hour documentaries, but they were, it got known very quickly for being very melodramatic and very juicy with like the dirt, the stories about what happened, you know, the real gossipy stuff.

• 18:49Josh Clark?

  Lurid even, I think in a lot of ways.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it ran for a long time.

• 18:54Josh Clark?

  It did 97 to I think 2014.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:58Josh Clark?

  Um, one of the ones, one of the very famous episodes, but they had a ton of episodes on it from bands from Megadeth to Bette Midler to Notorious B.I.G.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:09Josh Clark?

  One of the ones that really kind of infiltrated pop culture though was Leif Garrett.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  He was like a teen idol in the seventies. And he was reunited in his behind the music with a friend who had become paralyzed from a car crash that Leif Garrett caused when he was drunk back in the 70s. And it was very melodramatic and very kind of drippy. And it just kind of made it out as a meme eventually. I saw Brian on Family Guy. They started one of the episodes where he was just sitting there, I guess, watching behind the music and mouthing along word for word with the dialogue between Leif Garrett and his friend.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Shall we take a break?

• 19:54Josh Clark?

  I didn't expect that, but you know what? I love that you surprised me, so sure.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  All right, it's 1997. We'll be back to jump back in time a bit and then go forward in time a bit.

• 20:18Josh Clark?

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• 22:02Speaker 03

  All right, so we're back. We promised to jump back in time and we have to because 97 was behind the music, but in 95, VH1 got into the fashion biz as well as MTV had done with Cindy Crawford. When they started, they partnered up with Vogue magazine to start hosting the annual fashion awards. And that is, well, it's well known because they did a pretty good job with that as far as the ratings go, but that's also where Derek Zoolander, who we just mentioned, I think in the MTV episode, he appeared for the first time at the fashion awards.

• 22:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was like a pre-taped little bit, one or two minute bit. But in the movie Zoolander, he faces his greatest public humiliation at the VH1 Fashion Awards. So they showed up in the movie, which I just watched.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 22:47Josh Clark?

  I watched recently and it holds up, man. It's still pretty funny. Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  I bet Ruby would like that.

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  I bet too. I would, I would definitely show it to her.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  It's just her kind of silly, I think.

• 22:58Josh Clark?

  It is a very silly movie.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  97, they launched Save the Music. John Sykes, he was principal for a day at a school in Brooklyn that had no music program or couldn't get funding. And that still exists. So that's sort of a feather in their cap as the Save the Music Foundation.

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I read that they donated 2.8 million recorders to schools across the country.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Now, are you kidding? Or is that real?

• 23:22Josh Clark?

  I'm kidding.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Are you mocking the recorder?

• 23:26Josh Clark?

  Yes, I am Chuck.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Oh, hey, if you're, if you're a recorder maestro out there, just keep on doing it.

• 23:37Josh Clark?

  Oh.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Don't listen to Josh.

• 23:38Josh Clark?

  No, don't listen to me. And in fact, listen to me for this part. If you would make us a music bumper for our ad breaks, that would be awesome.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, if you can get it, well, it'll be, I wish we could put the call out before this episode came out, so we could put it in this episode.

• 23:56Josh Clark?

  I mean, we can try.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe I'll do it on the Instagram page and see what happens.

• 24:01Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  All right, moving on to politics, right?

• 24:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently Bill Clinton was a big VH1 viewer. He donated one of his old saxophones to the Save the Music program.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:15Josh Clark?

  And they also, I guess, in return, made a documentary about him. Bill Clinton, colon, Rock and Roll President. This is 1997, don't forget.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  That's right. And they also got into the live business with their very, very successful series of divas concerts. The first one was in 1998. I remember this being a very big deal because they got Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan, Carole King, and who else?

• 24:45Josh Clark?

  Celine Dion.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you can't have a divas concert in 98 without Celine Dion pounding her chest.

• 24:50Josh Clark?

  No, that's a murderer's row of divas.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  So even despite all of this reprogramming, very, very successful and popular programming, you could argue that if this wasn't the golden era of VH1, it was certainly one of the golden eras.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:09Josh Clark?

  Cable operators were still dropping VH1. I guess they hadn't gotten the news yet, right? So VH1 kind of organized something similar to I Want My MTV, that MTV had used before it started getting picked up by cable operators. And they actually staged a protest in Denver because the, I guess, the cable operator there had dropped VH1, and they got Don Henley and John Mellencamp and Jewel to fly out there and protest. And I guess en route, they were in the air, and the cable operator got word of what was about to happen, and they agreed to pick VH1 back up.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  They're like, Don Henley's coming.

• 25:49Josh Clark?

  You don't want to mess with the hen.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  You definitely don't want to mess with Don Henley.

• 25:53Josh Clark?

  No.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  They were pretty successful in getting, like you said, all those viewers back in to the delight of ad salespeople because they had that 18 to 49 year old demographic that is so juicy. And everyone knows those are the people that have all the bucks. Or at least back then they did. And so they, you know, they were able to land some big ad dollars as a result and were seemingly thriving.

• 26:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And it didn't hurt that there were plenty of like new artists who were making the kind of music that would make a little more sense on VH1 than say MTV. Like Natalie Merchant, Celine Dion, as you mentioned, was enormous at this time. You probably would not see a Celine Dion video on MTV, but she was right at home on VH1.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:39Josh Clark?

  Alanis. Michael Bolton. Alanis probably straddled the two. Same with like the wallflowers or goo goo dolls or something like that.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Ooh. Okay.

• 26:49Josh Clark?

  And these are real deal. I watched some VH1 blocks to come up with some examples. So all of those had.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:55Josh Clark?

  Had videos on VH1, everybody. That's the kind of research you can expect from Stuff You Should Know.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think like before dad rock was a term, that was probably the angle.

• 27:05Josh Clark?

  What's dad? I've not heard that before. So what does it cover?

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Uh, dad rock is kind of like, uh, I know Wilco gets thrown in there a lot. It's like, you know, kind of dudes my age that like used to go to all the shows, but now just so I could get out to Wilco like every year and, you know, that kind of thing.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  I saw this meme on Instagram where it's this girl sitting in a, like a stadium seat. And she has a very unhappy look on her face. And it says, uh, anyone over 40, when the third opening band starts to set up at 9:00 PM.

• 27:40Josh Clark?

  It's so true, man.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  That's funny.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  It just starts too late.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm with you. Shows are starting earlier, though, I feel like.

• 27:47Josh Clark?

  I read that, yeah.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Like, these legacy shows that I'm seeing, all these olds, they're getting up on stage at like, you know, opening band at seven, regular band at eight, out by 9:30, 9:45.

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  Hey, we start at seven promptly. If we ever start later.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  We try to.

• 28:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if we start later than seven, it's the venue itself saying, please let us hold, because we're making mad cash at the bar.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually the, the, uh, audience's fault.

• 28:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really is.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Because they're like, they're not in yet. They're just getting here. There's a lot of traffic. It's actually traffic's fault.

• 28:19Josh Clark?

  And some towns are worse for it than others. Some towns are just like, we know you're not gonna start while we're getting liquor. Sorry.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, but like with MTV, um, they would, you know, start sort of changing things and rebranding. Uh, these are companies that just seemingly changed the channels, uh, not literally, but changed their programming a lot. And like, the names of the channel change a lot.

• 28:41Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Like, you know, MTV to MTV2 and MTV Classic, and VH1 kinda did the same. They had VH1 Soul, uh, which is now BET Soul. VH1 Smooth, which was, uh, more like Kenny G kinda stuff. But then they're like, who wants that? Let's change that to VH1 Classic Rock, and then just VH1 Classic. And now it's MTV Classic.

• 29:03Josh Clark?

  It's quite a ride for that channel.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, VH1 Smooth, I can't believe that ever made it outside of the initial meeting.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, true.

• 29:11Josh Clark?

  Um, so VH1, just like MTV, is like, okay, if we can't hold people's attention from video to video, we gotta come up with a different kinda show. And so they stopped playing videos, almost, it dropped almost by 50% from 99 to 2012.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  And remember, like, it had been relaunched in 94 as like, VH1 Music First, and it just, it wasn't sustainable at the turn of the millennium, right? So they started getting into countdown shows. They figured out how they could keep showing videos. They just needed to adjust it, put them in a certain kind of, um, package that would hold your attention a little more. Nothing does that better than a countdown. And they kicked it off in grand style with the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll, hosted by none other than Kevin Bacon.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:04Josh Clark?

  And this kicked off their whole great, the greatest countdowns, um, format, which started in 98, 99, sorry, and ran to 2012.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, which, you know, I was kind of thinking about it. They ended up, the last episode was 40 greatest pranks, part four. So, and I was like, what a weird kind of thing, but that was right in the middle of the, of the listicle revolution.

• 30:30Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Uh, that was going on online. And this is kind of the same version of that. Cause I was like, oh, man, I remember when you and I were writers for How Stuff Works back in the day. We were sort of fighting up against that because it seems like that was what the internet became for a period of years was just lists, top 10 list, list, list, list, list.

• 30:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, where do you think our 10 dumb criminals episode came from?

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And that's one reason why we don't do a lot of those anymore is because people aren't writing that kind of stuff anymore. I like to think we change with the time.

• 31:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Plus also they can, they can be kind of thin. Every once in a while though, it's, it's a good one. I don't, I can't think of any off the top of my head, but we've done some good top 10s that.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, they're pretty breezy, which I think people enjoy from time to time.

• 31:13Josh Clark?

  For sure. So the luridity kind of really started to, to show itself a little more with where are they now, 1999 show? That basically said, where are like one hit wonders and former child stars? What are they doing now?

• 31:31Josh Clark?

  Let's just peek in on their sad lives and see what's what.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, they got into movies. Uh, one thing we didn't mention was MTV films, uh, which had some pretty successful movies, uh, that they were putting out. I, I think I remember, uh, the movie Election from Alexander Payne, one of my favorite movies.

• 31:47Josh Clark?

  There's a go.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  I think that was an MTV film, but VH1 didn't fare as well on the movie front, but they did have one sort of noteworthy one called Two of Us, uh, which was, which was okay. It was in 2000. It was a fictionalized story about, uh, when Paul McCartney and John Lennon were hanging out in 1976, the night that, uh, Lorne Michaels on SNL, um, on air said, if the Beatles come down here, I'll pay you. I can't remember. It was like a million bucks or something.

• 32:12Josh Clark?

  I saw $3,000.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Was that what it was?

• 32:15Josh Clark?

  That's what I saw, which I was like, even in 1976, that wasn't that much money.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  I can't remember. I mean, you can watch the clip on YouTube and see him say it with his own mouth. I just didn't have a chance.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  But at any rate, it was a fictionalized version of them hanging out that night, which is supposedly a true story.

• 32:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  That they were gonna come down and play on SNL, like, you know, it wasn't that far from the Dakota.

• 32:37Josh Clark?

  What happened?

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Uh, supposedly, they were too stoned. That's, that's as the story goes, at least.

• 32:43Josh Clark?

  Uh, and by stoned, you mean on heroin, probably?

• 32:47Speaker 03

  No, I think they each took two PCPs.

• 32:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, there you go. As per the instructions?

• 32:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:53Josh Clark?

  So by this time, they finally dropped pretense. This would be VH1 we're talking about again, and they just stopped using the music first tagline, because it was just a bold-faced lie at this point. Legends ended, pop-up videos ended, uh, and it was time for a new shakeup, because John Sykes had done his, his work. And so MTV Networks hired a new guy named Brian Grayden. Uh, and he said, "We're gonna shift more toward pop culture, right? We're not even gonna show blocks of videos anymore and countdowns." And he hired a, a guy named Jeff Old, who was new. And, um, he became executive vice president for programming and production. And the thing that Old brought to this whole thing, following the, um, marching orders

• 33:35Josh Clark?

  to make more pop culture-relevant shows, is for, he gave his producers free rein to just, "You got an idea? Put it on air. And if it works, awesome. If it doesn't, whatever." It's called the Agile, um, format of project management, where you just do a bunch of stuff, some of it fails, and you just keep going.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, not a bad idea.

• 33:56Josh Clark?

  No, and the other thing about it, too, is that kind of stuff, like greenlighting a, a really easy, um, uh, show idea quickly, usually means you can make it very cheaply. And that was what they did. They made very, very inexpensive shows that still were very, very popular, because the concepts were so good.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and "I Love the 80s" was the first big, big hit out of that camp. Uh, that premiered in 2002. Uh, it was, it's not a show I watch much, but it was one that was almost kind of hard to avoid somehow. Uh, I feel like I, I remember just seeing Michael Ian Black on my screen a lot. Here and there, he was one of the comedians.

• 34:38Josh Clark?

  He was. He was on like a million episodes of it, I think.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, he did. He did great with that, but it was comedians and celebrities just sort of, you know, it was like kind of quick clip stuff of them sitting, talking head style, talking and reminiscing about whatever the decade was.

• 34:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's funny. So it was a clip show of Talking Heads, and it would frequently end up on Talk Soup, which was a clip show of Talking Heads.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:04Josh Clark?

  So Talk Soup would be covering another clip show, but it worked. Talk Soup was great.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I enjoyed Talk Soup. I Love the 80s was based on a BB show that was definitely a little more serious and sort of recounting the decade. But it was a big hit, again, in the 1849 demographic. And so they did the I Love the 70s, I Love the 90s. They did I Love the New Millennium, which only covered through 2007 because it debuted in 2008. And I think in 2014, I Love the 2000s was the last one in the series that ran.

• 35:36Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Another great show was called Best Week Ever, and then eventually Best Week Ever with Paula Thompkins.

• 35:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Because friend of the show and our pal, Paul, was the host where they recounted the last week, and this was a big launching pad for a lot of like great, great comedians.

• 35:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was. It was a spinoff from I Love the 80s. I think P.F. Thompkins was one of the comedians, one of the frequently recurring comedians on that show.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. You want me to list out some comedians who started there?

• 36:06Josh Clark?

  I would love that, Chuck. Please, please do.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  And I'm not saying that they were not doing anything, but certainly were not the household names they are now, but Nick Kroll.

• 36:15Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Paul Scheer, Doug Benson, Rob Hubel, a little comedian named John Mulaney, the wonderful Jessica St. Clair, Michael Shea, Michael Ian Black, Patton Oswalt. And I was watching some of Best Week Ever this morning, and

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Paul's wonderful wife, who we've spoken about, Janie Hadad Tompkins, was in one of the little bits. And I had no idea Janie was ever on there. So I'm gonna, I took a screenshot and I'm gonna text it to her later.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  Nice. So that, if it was launched in 2004, those people's careers did start to take off around that time or after that. So it must have been a huge launching pad for them, for sure.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a fun show.

• 36:55Josh Clark?

  But it also goes to show you, like, all of those names were pretty much recognizable today. That also is a testament to just how popular Best Week Ever and I Love the 80s was. So the H1 was doing a pretty good job shifting away from music, right? But they still hadn't gotten into what we would call reality yet. And it's about here that you'll notice we stopped talking about music pretty much altogether and get into the world of reality TV.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  All right. I guess that means a break, right?

• 37:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 37:46Josh Clark?

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• 38:08Josh Clark?

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• 39:31Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, we talked about how VH1 is transitioning into reality shows and they didn't invent reality shows. They were a really early contributor and they had a lot of reality shows over the years, still do. But they came up with the term celeb- reality. And I did not know this, but so celeb- reality is usually minor celebrities in a reality show, sometimes big celebrities. But the whole thing that kicked it off, I didn't know this, was Ted Nugent's celebrity reality show, Surviving Nugent.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I remember that being on. Didn't watch it. But that was, you know, Ted Nugent had people out to do what Ted Nugent does, which is shoot guns and shoot arrows and do, do things that the Nug was into.

• 40:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was like a competition reality show and he would have, it was, he was the arbiter of who stayed or went. And competitions would be like them carrying manure with their bare hands or climbing under an electrified fence. And it was real enough that at one point Ted Nugent suffered a chainsaw cut to his leg, self inflicted, that required 40 stitches.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  It's a lot of stitches.

• 40:48Josh Clark?

  It really is. But this was not, so again, this is, this was kind of contemporaneous to the Osbournes, which beat Surviving Nugent by a year in the same time as The Simple Life. So this was definitely, it was in the air that people wanted to see celebrities acting bizarrely in real life. And I just made such air quotes that I actually just jammed one of my fingers.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  The Surreal Life became a big hit for them after they co-opted it from the WB a couple of years after it debuted. It was a much bigger hit on VH1. And that eventually led to, maybe, I mean, I don't know, I was about to say unlikely, but maybe not, because Flavor Flav has so much charisma and personality.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  I was always so into Public Enemy from like, high school on. They were probably my favorite hip-hop group of all time. And so it was a little weird for me, all of a sudden, to see Flav, like, doing his thing on a reality show. But the Flavor of Love was a tremendous hit. It was only around for a few years, but it was like, it invaded the zeitgeist in a big way.

• 41:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so he, he became a reality TV star, thanks to The Surreal Life. I think he was in season three. And one of the other shows he was on was Strange Love, which followed his relationship with Brigitte Nielsen, who is a good two feet taller than him.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:14Josh Clark?

  Striking blonde, who, they fell in love when they met on The Surreal Life. And they shared quarters with Charo, Dave Coulier, Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. And so that spawned Strange Love and Flavor of Love. And then Flavor of Love spawned I Love New York, starring Tiffany New York Pollard, who is one of the contestants on Flavor of Love. Flavor of Love also inspired Rock of Love, which featured Bret Michaels from Poison, replacing the Flavor Flav as the Bachelor, right?

• 42:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. The, still the only show like that I've ever watched. I did watch Rock of Love.

• 43:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  I, I don't know why I started, but I started and I couldn't stop.

• 43:04Josh Clark?

  That's the sign of a VH1 reality show, right there, buddy.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. So whoever was pulling the strings, you know, after The Surreal Life was on and Flav was on there, there was some, there was some guy, some kind of square in the office that was like, who's this guy with a clock? He's fantastic. We gotta get him his own show.

• 43:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I know. It's nuts, but it worked for sure. There were two other big offshoots from The Surreal Life. There were cavalcade of them, but there were some other big shows that came from it. One was My Fair Brady, which followed Christopher Knight and Adrian Curry. Christopher Knight was Peter Brady and Adrian Curry and their unlikely relationship. They met on Surreal Life as well.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  And then the Salt- Who was she?

• 43:50Josh Clark?

  She was a Playboy model.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Ah, okay.

• 43:52Josh Clark?

  And then Salt and Pepper had their own show because I guess they were on The Surreal Life? I didn't know that, but they had-

• 43:59Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 44:00Josh Clark?

  They were reuniting or thinking about reuniting. I guess Peppa was trying to talk Salt into it, but Salt had had a religious conversion and was hesitant to take up the hip hop life again.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Wow, interesting. Well, it sort of filled a void as Libya sort of aptly pointed out that, you know, there was, there was a big boom for sitcoms about black families in the 90s and even in the early 2000s. But then there was sort of a dearth of those for a little while. So this kind of, you know, filled that void and VH1 took notice and started sort of delivering content to black America and still do.

• 44:39Josh Clark?

  Yes, and they can take some guff for it sometimes. In part, I saw it best explained on The Root by Danielle C. Belton. And she basically says they broadcast for black Americans, but they're not at all beholden to black Americans. So they can do basically whatever they want and they very frequently feature stereotypes of black women. It's like angry and violent and prone to yelling and stuff like that. So it's like a mixed bag.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:08Josh Clark?

  But however you approach it, as of back in 2014, I didn't see any more recent statistics, but in 2014, VH1 was the number one network in African-American households, followed by BET and the Oprah Winfrey Network. So they were definitely doing something that black America liked.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  They beat Oprah out. Yeah, that's, that says a lot.

• 45:28Josh Clark?

  Yes, it does.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  And BET.

• 45:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Another show that got them a lot of flack eventually was Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky. That premiered in 2008. There's a critic that Libya found named Kaylee Donaldson called it perhaps the most evil reality TV series of all time. You probably know Dr. Drew from Love Line with Adam Carolla early on and he, Dr. Drew is, was and is, I guess, a real therapist and trained at treating addiction. So he wasn't just some, you know, pretty face that they put on TV. And he claimed that he wanted to make it like a real, a real, like, meaningful show where it was like an antidote to the cruel tabloid depictions

• 46:11Speaker 03

  of these people that were suffering through addiction. But he, you know, he also had to deliver an entertaining show and those two things could be at odds and it got a lot of flack because like people started dying from their addictions.

• 46:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, by 2024, 12 of, by my count, about 45 rehab patients on the show had died. A lot of them from like overdosing or direct complications from their addictions like brain aneurysms, which I, is about more, it's a little more than a quarter, which apparently is actually in line with the success rate of traditional rehab. It's just much, much, much more visible. But it was also, again, the L word, lurid, to just show people's, you know, low points and rock bottom after rock bottom on TV for money, for ad money, you know?

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And speaking of lurid, we're loath to mention Diddy, but there was a show called I Want to Work for Diddy in 2008 and a silver lining of that is that it launched the career of Laverne Cox and also just launched the, the sort of normalization of trans people on TV. A couple of years after that show, Laverne Cox and fellow trans women Jamie Clayton and Nina Poon got their own VH1 show called Transform Me. It's kind of a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy kind of thing, but for cis women and it was one of the first shows with trans stars.

• 47:43Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Like, period.

• 47:45Josh Clark?

  And you put all this together and VH1 had its highest Nielsen ratings ever in this era. The late 2000s, the aughts, as we who lived through it call them.

• 47:58Josh Clark?

  And then tragedy struck and the publicity was so searingly bad that VH1 essentially threw the, the company that had been cranking out hit after hit for them under the bus. And it centered around the murder by a man named Ryan Jenkins, who had been a contestant on not one or had been featured on not one, but two VH1 reality shows. He murdered his wife Jasmine Fiori.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was a real estate developer. Uh, he was a, you know, they got rich guys to be contestants on a dating show called Megan wants to be, or I'm sorry, Megan wants a millionaire. Uh, and 51 Minds was the name of this company that was like churning out these shows. After the show ended, um, he married Jasmine Fiori and he got on I Love Money three, another VH1 show. And they, they said, uh, 51 Minds is like, hey, in retrospect, I remember this storyline we had, uh, it was going to revolve around him calling his new wife a lot and seemingly obsessive and jealous and very suspicious. Uh, and he ended up murdering her in August of, of 2009.

• 49:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it got even worse than that. He, um, tried to prevent her from being identified. So he removed her fingers and her teeth. Uh, he put her, folded her up in a suitcase and dumped the suitcase in a dumpster. And I read that it almost worked, but, um, they identified her, they had to identify her through the serial numbers on her breast implants. And so all this comes out and it's very clear that Ryan Jenkins was to blame. Uh, he, uh, hung himself in a motel room, uh, and in his, um, note even, he blames Jasmine Fiori for him killing himself. Uh, doesn't take any responsibility whatsoever for killing her.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  I remember that now. That's, I, I wasn't familiar, but as soon as he said that, I kind of remember that storyline.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  Yes. And all of this happens in one month in 2009. And if you are pumping out lured reality show after lured reality show, your viewership is going to be highly interested in this story. And it's gonna get out and it's gonna get out to the rest of America who's gonna make a bunch of noise about how terrible these reality shows are. And here's evidence of it. Because also that Ryan Jenkins guy, it turned out that he had been convicted in Canada of assaulting his girlfriend and it didn't show up on a, or he had been arrested, I'm sorry, of assaulting his girlfriend in Canada, hadn't shown up on a background check. So people were like, this stuff is terrible. And VH1 said, you know what, we

• 50:37Josh Clark?

  agree. It's all that company that sent us these shows. We didn't even want them. We didn't even ask for them. This company, 51 Minds, they just, they just made us run these shows and they really threw them under the bus and made it look like they were turning their back on the whole concept. And they did, largely, there was a huge shift, but there were still shows like Dating Naked that was on from 2014 to 2016. And a lot of their existing reality shows continued on past this scandal. But they did shift a little more to reality TV that was made by black creators. They, they kind of moved

• 51:19Josh Clark?

  away from the more lurid stuff to a little more engrossing, black-created shows.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. RuPaul's Drag Race has been a big hit, sort of a niche hit, but very, very popular show. It's, you know, it's RuPaul. So it's campy. It's a parody of, of reality competition that launched in 2009 on Logo, but then moved to VH1 in 2017 and then eventually MTV in 2023.

• 51:46Josh Clark?

  That's a long run.

• 51:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Love and Hip Hop has been a very big show, created by Mona Scott Young. That was, it started out with kind of being about Jim Jones, the rapper, and then eventually shifted over to his girlfriend Chrissy Lampkin and just the hip hop scene in New York and their world.

• 52:05Josh Clark?

  Same with Basketball Wives by Shaquille O'Neal's ex-wife Shawnee Henderson.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, big hit.

• 52:10Josh Clark?

  It just had its 12th season. And then Nick Cannon presents Wild Nout, which is an improv competition show. And they're still making new episodes. It started out on MTV and then moved to VH1 in 2019. And very much like Ridiculousness, reruns of Wild Nout are carrying VH1 right now, apparently, with, with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and My Wife and Kids reruns.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  I never saw Dating Naked. What was that about?

• 52:38Josh Clark?

  It was exactly what it sounds like.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 52:42Josh Clark?

  Exactly. There's no, it needs no explanation whatsoever.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Okay. I was kidding.

• 52:47Josh Clark?

  Oh, man, you got me, buddy. I think we're even for all time now.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 52:53Josh Clark?

  Uh, well Chuck said, okay, good. And we don't have anything more to say about VH1, except go watch some VH1. Uh, and that means it's time for listener mail.

• 53:04Speaker 03

  That's right. By the way, I was not, uh, bagging on Wilco. I hope it didn't come across that way. They are, uh, sort of thrown in that dad rock category, but I always love Wilco. I read all of Jeff Tweedy's books. Was big into Uncle Tupelo, so I'm not bagging on Wilco. I like Wilco.

• 53:20Josh Clark?

  Jeff Tweedy's The Spy Master and The Tinkerer?

• 53:23Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, well, yeah, of course. And The Tinkerer 2 is really good.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  Uh, hey Chuck, Josh and Jerry. I've been a listener for a few years and used to do the sandwich method for listening to the episodes, but recently decided to work all my way through and catch up to the present. Uh, I find this is a better method personally, since listener mail and references from past shows don't really make sense when listening to newer episodes.

• 53:44Josh Clark?

  That's true.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Before listening to the episodes that came before. Anywho, this is not why I'm writing in. Uh, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Chuck Stradamus struck again. Uh, the episode, April 26, 2018, Does Pyromania Actually Exist? Josh brings up John Leonard Orr, convicted serial arsonist, mass murderer, uh, former firefighter, arsonist investigator, and Chuck, around 34, 39, says, that's a movie waiting to happen. Well, my friends, seven years later, Apple TV releases Smoke, a TV show based on John Leonard Orr.

• 54:15Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  If you haven't watched the show, I definitely recommend watching, even though I've spoiled the plot. Uh, keep up the good work, guys. PS, is Chuck's ability a gift or a crazy coincidence? Uh, that is Brenda S. from Dallas, Texas. And Brenda, uh, I love that you're getting my back as Chuck Stradamus. Because of my past predictions of Hugh Jackman playing P T Barnum, and most notably that I thought Jared from Subway was a creep long before his truth came out.

• 54:45Josh Clark?

  Don't forget predicting Sharknado.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Oh, and Sharknado. That's true. That might be the feather in the cap. But in this case, I don't know if you can really claim Chuck Stradama's territory if it's just like, hey, that would make a good movie. And it became a movie.

• 55:00Josh Clark?

  I feel like you really just burst Brenda's bubble.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  No, I'm bursting my own bubble. What do you think? Can I get a ruling from you, dear leader?

• 55:08Josh Clark?

  I will allow it as one of Chuck Stradama's predictions that came true.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  All right, it's canon.

• 55:16Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  Not Nick Cannon.

• 55:17Josh Clark?

  No, we're not wilding out here.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  We're not.

• 55:21Josh Clark?

  If you want to get in touch with us like Brenda and try your luck at having us burst your bubble and have a lot of alliteration as we do, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 55:36Speaker 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.

• 55:51Josh Clark?

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• 56:22Speaker 04

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• 56:53Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.