Bonjour.
Today is Monday, January 1. Last week, I wrote about the best podcasts of 2023. But sometimes there is a hell of an episode that snuck its way into a great show that, for some stupid reason, didnโt make it into my final list of best shows. This issue is dedicated to 20 of those. (Again, itโs an arbitrary number, I just shoved in as many as I could.) There were great episodes in all of the shows I covered last week. But I didnโt want these episodes to be ignored. They will go down in history as the best things Iโve ever listened to. Or, at the very least, I will register to them often. And if you havenโt even listened to them once? Man, do I have good news for you.
xoxo lp
๐q & a & q & a & q & a๐
Jeremie Saunders, Taylor MacGillivary, and Brian Stever
Jeremie Saunders, Taylor MacGillivary, and Brian Stever are the hosts of Sick Boy.
Describe Sickboy in 10 words or less.
Irreverent health podcast with a comedic twist.
What are your favorite episodes?
Jeremie: Hard to say what my favourite episode would be. But most memorable would have to be the conversation we had with Audrey Parker. She was a woman who decided to go forward with MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying). We recorded with her 1 monthย before her death day and the recording was live in front of the Dalhouse Medical Students in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was a heartwrenching, beautiful and hilarious conversation that changed my life.
Taylor: Weโve had the opportunity to speak with so many people about so many things, that the answer to this question is always shifting. Because Iโm a new dad who used IVF to have my daughter, one of the episodes that jumps to mind for me is a conversation we had with a woman named Joanne Gallant about miscarriages. There were so many things about the female reproductive system that I was so egregiously ignorant of, that it was just a phenomenal learning experience. It also completely changed the way I thought about sharing important information with people in my life, so that in the event of something tragic, I donโt feel isolated or alone, but Iโve got support from people who understand what Iโm going through.
Brian: All the episodes that featured Brandon Thomas. Brandon was first introduced to us in episode 27, โOsteosarcoma/Life as an Amputeeโ. We met Brandon after he had gone through a surgical procedure known as a โVan Ness RotationPlastyโ, where his the top half of his leg was amputated and the bottom half was turned around and reattached to the head of his femur so his ankle could function as a knee joint. Brandon was 21 when we met him and we quickly became best friends. He slept over at my house countless times, we hung out on evenings and weekends together. It was like weโd known him our entire lives. Brandon appeared on the show multiple times over the next two year period as a guest and at times as a guest host. Devastatingly Brandonโs cancer kept coming back and he died in 2018. The single greatest thing Iโve taken away from doing this podcast is my friendship with Brandon and the conversations we had with him in those early years helped lay the foundation for the show as it exists today.
Why are you the perfect hosts for this show?
Jeremie: Personally, I think Iโm a perfect host because Iโm a legit sick boy. Iโve lived with Cystic Fibrosis for my entire life, and when I was a kid I remember being teased by another boy in my class. He called me disease boy. It stung at the time, but when we created the podcast I decided to take back the hurtful nickname and make it my own. Sickboy rolls off the tongue a hell of a lot better than Disease Boy.ย
Taylor: Since the moment I met Jeremie, we laughed about some of the ridiculous things that come along with him being sick. Whether itโs the Avenger-esque six pack he sports from nearly coughing himself to death, or the nebulizer he uses for medication that I was convinced was a weed vape (way before it was legal), humour has always been a part of our relationship to his illness.
Brian: Jeremie has a knack for hosting and steering conversations effortlessly. Taylor, with his inquisitive nature, is brilliant at posing thought-provoking questions, making every discussion enlightening. On the other hand, I find myself delving more into the emotional spectrum. I am keen on understanding the emotional impact of a moment on someone, rather than getting caught up in the details of the event. I think in some part these roles are representative of who we are as individuals, but I also believe that through recording this show for almost 9 years in some ways these roles have also shaped us.
How are you all different? What do you each bring to the table?
Jeremie: Aside from bringing the perspective of the sick human to the show I think I also bring a deep sense of curiosity to the table. I went to University to study acting. A big part of acting is digging into all of the aspects of humanity that make us tick in order to understand a particular character. Why do we make the decisions we make? What past experiences have shaped us into who we are? I think training at a conservatory style acting school has really hammered home this fascination with what makes humans human and what better a place to hone that curiosity when speaking to strangers about some of the most intimate and challenging aspects of their lives.
Taylor: On Sickboy, I bring a philosophical lean to the conversation, which, I think, opens up discussion that feels much less like weโre interviewing someone, and rather just asking interesting questions that opens up the floor for our guests, and also Bri and Jer.
Iโve spent a lot of time in my life studying mindfulness and yoga philosophy, and it gives me a way of questions that get to the heart of the human condition, but also creates a great framework for me to understand the experience of others, however different it may be from mine.
Brian: Guys, I already answered this question above. Why donโt you guys ever listen to me!!!???
Jeremie, do people reach out to you about Cystic Fibrosis?
Jeremie: Constantly. Whether itโs new parents of a CF child, or patients who have lived with the disease for years, or perhaps a new partner of someone living with CF. This might be one of my favourite aspects of doing this show. Speaking to others about CF is my way of advocating. Encouraging patients or their loved ones to advocate by sharing my experience and knowledge on the disease.ย
Oddly enough, we did an episode early on in the podcast about how I got circumcised at the age of 16 because of โPhimosisโ (unrelated to CF) and since that episode has come out weโve had over 15 people reach out to tell us that they never realized they had phimosis until they listened to that episode and they have had their whole life changed for the better after getting circumcised as a result. So, yeahโฆ people reach out about CF, but way more people have reached out about their semi-broken penises.ย
How does making Sickboy impact your life? Are you more in tune with people who are suffering? Are you better listeners? Are you more comfortable talking about illness?
Jeremie: I sort of mentioned this before but after we created Sickboy and it began to take on a life of itโs own, I realized that this is my way of advocating for the patient voice. Patient advocacy can be really challenging, but one of the things that make advocating for yourself or your loved ones easier is being armed with knowledge. Speaking about your illness provides you with that knowledge. Sure it might not be knowledge that you may find in a medical text book, but itโs the knowledge of your own personal experience. What you feel in your body. What you feel in your mind. When you deepen your vocabulary surrounding your own personal experience, you deepen you knowledge about what it is that you need, when you need it. And that goes a lot way for the patient.ย
Taylor: Once it was out there in the world that I have these types of challenging conversations about illness, I noticed how many people were eager to talk about what they were going through in a more casual manner, but had previously felt like talking about their illness had to be heavy because of the way people typically approach the topic.
In my personal life, it has also enhanced my capacity for empathy, which is, admittedly, not a natural strong suit of mine. That has allowed me to have better communication with my wife, and it has also allowed me to be much more thoughtful and mindful of how I want to communicate with my daughters as they get older.
Brian: Sickboy has significantly changed my life and the way I empathize with those around me. It has not only been a platform for me to channel my creative and entrepreneurial spirit but also a place where I've connected with countless incredible individuals and built friendships. Each conversation, each episode we've recorded, has been a learning expedition, expanding my understanding and empathy. It has challenged me to view life from multiple points of view, each with its unique narrative and emotional undertone. Additionally, the friendship I've been able to further build with Jeremie and Taylor over the years has grown stronger, and together we've created a space where candid discussions, laughter, and insights flourish. Sickboy is not just a podcast to me, it's a journey that continues to shape my personal and professional life profoundly.
Whatโs a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
Jeremie: Bad Dad Rad Dad
Taylor: Hello From The Magic Tavern
Brian: Just Chips Dot Com
hell yeah
๐๏ธI wrote and tweeted an Apple Podcasts rating review every single day in 2023. (Overcome Compulsive Hoarding made me a certificate!) I wrote approximately 500 reviews for Lifehacker, almost 800 in this newsletter, and about 30 for Descript.
๐๏ธArielle and I wroteย ๐ Podcast marketing and publishing: what's in and what's out for 2024?๐ซย for Podcast Marketing Magic.
๐๏ธAccording to Pocket Casts, I listened to 88 days and 15 hours of podcasts on that app alone. (My #1 show was Who? Weekly.)
๐๏ธI gave my highlights of 2023 and predictions for 2024 in Podnews Weekly Review.
๐๏ธI was on Josh Spectorโs I Want to Know.
๐๏ธRead my piece The Best True Crime Podcasts of 2023 in Lifehacker.
๐๏ธSign up for my nextย Podcast Marketing 101 Radio Bootcampย hereโI promise youโll come away with so, so, much, and have a lot of fun. Itโs January 22, 2024.
๐๏ธIโm also teaching aย Radio Bootcampย class onย podcast monetizing for anybodyย on February 26 at noon ET. The class is capped at 12.ย Sign up here.
๐๏ธRead aboutย Podcast Group Therapy, aka the most exciting thing Tink has ever done, here.
๐๏ธArielle Nissenblatt spotlightedย Everyday Positivityย in herย newsletter and podcast.
The best podcast episodes of 2023
๐๏ธOn Lights Out, Talia Augustidis (famous for her brilliant Everything List for Audio Opportunities, the All Hear newsletter and her Third Coast win for Best Short Documentary) produced Dead Ends, a project sheโs been working on for almost her entire life. Taliaโs mother died tragically when she was threeโshe was drunk and fell off a cliff. Talia pulls out old tapes from her childhood that documented her momโs short life (including a haunting clip of her mom warning her to โnot go too close to the edgeโ (of what?) to create a dreamlike soundtrack of memories and moments. You can feel the effort to find her mom, listening. Itโs, as Talia says, a conversation with a ghost. At the end, she revisits the place her mom died with her dad and sister and tries to capture with audio what happened, which would have been an emotional way to cap off this project. Something happens thatโs either tragic or absolutely perfect. I think itโs perfect. The whole piece is.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธOn Search Engineโs episode Why donโt we eat people?, PJ Vogt (from Reply All) spent an episode answering a very good question from a four-year-old named Otto: why donโt we eat people? This is a highly researched episode packed with history, a mystery, and even a recipe! Plus, the adorable voice of a four-year-old who incorrectly uses the word โsnowmansโ for the plural of snowman. This is broadly an episode on taboo things, and the thing about taboo things is that generally we wonโt even go there, we wonโt even talk about them. Here, PJ does, and I think we discover that our repulsion to cannibalism is one of those things that makes less and less sense the more we think about it. Is eating human flesh the worst thing we could do, or the most intimate? If this episode doesnโt make you slightly less anti-cannibalistic Iโd be surprised.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธDrifting Off with Joe Pera is a calming podcast intended to help you fall asleep, and the episode Christmas Tree Lit calmed me to the max (Joe talks about finding peace in staring at a Christmas tree, lit up in darkness, while everyone else is sleeping) but I was too in love with the immersive sound and Joeโs storytelling, which feels like a massage, to fall asleep. This episode embodies cozinessโlistening to it, I felt like I was looking at a lit up Christmas tree in darkness while everyone else is sleeping, something that Joe says is a theme of his life. (He asks us to consider the themes of our lives, and I want to steal his.) Whitmer Thomas tells Joe a story that feels like it was pulled from A Christmas Story, and Joe then does a perfect and beautiful reading of The Fir Tree, by Hans Christian Andersen, for a segment that made me feel warm and sad. I ended it feeling like I understood the sadness of being a fir tree. I wanted to gather my family around the fire on Christmas and make everyone listen to it together. Listen here.
๐๏ธOn Louder Than a Riotโs It ainโt trickinโ if you got it, Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael take us to Miami (โone of the only places you can go to the supermarket in nothing but a bikini and not get looked at sidewaysโ) to interview Trina, whose career sparked the โbad bitchโ moment of hip-hop, a departure from the old stereotypes of Black women in rap. It all started with Trina, who sounds shy as hell, rapping on a Trick Daddy track, stealing the show, and going on to fully spin herself off to become bigger than a verse, breaking the mold with her sophomore release Diamond Princess. Thereโs this almost cinematic moment of Trina being pushed onto stage at a show where she was greeted by a sea of bad bitches singing her lyrics. She had set hip hop on fire, birthing a universe of bad bitches. But an uncomfortable interview with Trick Daddy reveals he doesnโt want to talk about it and wasnโt happy heโd been eclipsed by the baddest bitch. He may have gotten Trina on mic, but his support ended there. (In his interview, he storms out saying, โIโm Jesus Christ, I created the baddest bitch. If you feel offended, f*ck it and kiss my whole familyโs ass.โ !) This episode feels spicy and important and a celebration of the original bad bitch, and introduces us to someone who was able to center herself and create art that struck a huge chord with people who needed it. We should all be taking notes.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธAvery Trufelman just finished a masterful series on preppy clothes on her podcast Articles of Interest. And then one day last week we got a single beautiful episode dedicated to Cher Horowitzโs Closet, The Clueless Closet. Never would I have realized what a nightmare for set directors it was to make a fantasy closet in a movie. But that closet, that we have all been coveting since 1995, is also a nightmare to recreate in real life. We got self-driving cars (sort of) before we got Cherโs dream closet? Whoโs in charge of this universe, a man? I wonโt spoil anything but thereโs an (Articles of) InterestING reason why we canโt make this closet no matter how hard we try and why really, we shouldnโt. Because, really, we already have it. The closet was in our hearts all along! Chaos is as good a stylist as any! This episode will make you love your clothes, start shopping in your closet more, and start dressing in a way that might slightly confuse others but ultimately will impress them.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธYou have probably heard Cyndi Lauperโs Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (which was #1 on the charts the day I was born) millions of times but have you thought about it, really thought about it? Sentimental Garbageโs Girls Just Wanna Have Fun episode covered the song in a sharp, fun, and academic way, which is really what this show does best. (After listening I thought host Caroline O'Donoghue could rename the podcast Girls Just Want to Have Fun.) Itโs an examination of both Cyndiโs and the original version, which was sung by Robert Hazard, who is famously a man. This changes everything if you think about it. And Caroline and guest Tom McInnes think about it. Itโs a conversation about fun, what Cyndi means when sheโs talking about wanting to walk in the sun and the fortunate ones, and why when you hear Girls Just Want to Have Fun, you donโt want to dance to it, you just want to hug yourself. Girls Just Want to Have Fun doesnโt have many lyrics, but each one carries more than its weight.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธDecoder Ringโs The slow decline of the slow dance was unexpectedly brilliant. We get a full history of dancing slow, starting with the waltz, examining how we went from dance chaperones literally pulling awkward teenagers apart on the dance floor to wishing theyโd get a little closer. The introduction of grinding is one reason that face-to-face slow dancing is dwindling, but itโs much more than that. Dancing evolves and is a reflection on our culture and how we relate to one another. Teens arenโt slow dancing (they literally arenโtโฆand itโs not just teensโnobody is) because they arenโt as comfortable doing this pretty vulnerable thing. Post covid, and with our reliance on social media to maintain our friendships and relationships, itโs not hard to see why. This wasnโt a look at the โgood old daysโ and how life was better when kids were willing to slow dance. Itโs a reminder that putting yourself out there to connect with someone in a slow dance is an art we are losing. Slow dancing breaks ice, it challenges us, it makes us more comfortable with our bodies and other peopleโs bodies, too. Itโs not silly, itโs a crucial part of what it means to be a person in this world. Slow dancing has evolved from waltzing to grinding and it will evolve again. But into what?ย Listen here.
๐๏ธSomewhere near the western end of Long Island Sound, in the northeastern Bronx, lies Hart Island or โpotterโs field,โ Americaโs largest public cemetery. (More than a million souls are at rest, with no headstones. Just numbers.) Itโs an island full of mysteries, and Radio Diaries is exploring some of them for a short series called The Unmarked Graveyard. The first story, Neil Harris Jr., tells the story of a guy who became known well by locals of Manhattanโs Riverside Park as Stephen, for sitting on the same bench every day. In 2017 an unidentifiable body was found in New Yorkโmeanwhile, locals started noticing that Stephen was gone. It took a random park goer to connect the dots and find his true identity. Radio Diaries gets to know Stephen, his real name and identity, the mark he made on New York, and the people he left behind. I listened to this episode with bated breath. It makes you think about every person you pass on the street, or see sitting on a park bench.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธI assumed Man Thinkers would be full of lazy jokes about toxic masculinity, but co-hosts George Collins and Dan Finkelstein lean hard into the bit and the result is laugh out loud hilarious. They interview real doctors and experts about testosterone, egg-freezing, and being a better man, in the characters of two Libertarian/incel gross men who were canceled by โliberalโ YouTube and have found a place for their voice on a podcast. One of my favorite episodes was Juicy with Will Blunderfield who drinks his own urine, suns his a-hole, and teaches classes in sexual kung-fu.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธYouโre Wrong Aboutโs resident survival correspondent Blair Braverman was back on the show to talk about โSupertrampโ Chris McCandless, who once walked into the Alaskan bush and died maybe because he ate some toxic plants. Chrisโ story was the inspiration for Jon Krakauerโs Into the Wild. This was a great conversation because it brought up so many things that were never mentioned in Into the Wild, like familial abuse, the complexities of Chris as a non-perfect, non-evil human being, and how new research can explain how Chris may have died.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธI had no idea how queer Jackass was. American Hysteria has an episode about Jackass that is both an exhaustive history of the franchise thatโs one of the best-written episodes of American Hysteria ever. (Chelsey reading the list of Jackass stunts is pure poetry.) And itโs also super gay. (Jackass believed it was โridding the world of homophobia.โ Jon Waters was a fan and appeared on the show.) The history of Jackass is unusual and surprising, it definitely inspired kids to try an Anaconda Ball Pit, Bungee Wedgie, or Golf Course Air Horn, and itโs a story about American culture, making heterosexual America uncomfortable, beautiful danger, and itโs about more than just a bunch of dudes falling down.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธWhile recovering from a head injury, Ellie Gordon-Moershel was prescribed to watch a movie she loved as physical therapy. She picked Dirty Dancing, started sending her friends short voice notes about it, and realized itโs worthy of a scene-by-scene study. Her podcast Butt Out, Baby! is just that. It launched last August, I got excited, it kind of went away, I forgot about it, but it seems to have popped back up, and I am excited once again. (I really hope Ellie isnโt fucking with my emotions.) This is a podcast for those who love the film but also for people interested in storytelling, film, and craft. Ellie is reading from the screenplay, which gives interesting insight into the storyโs original intentions. (Baby is an โendearing unkept puppy.โ) And often the things in the screenplay left out of the film are the most revealing. Every episode, she provides a birds eye view, granular recap, and dramatic argument for a tiny baby corner of the movie. She also provides context about the racial and sexual politics happening at the time, taboo feminism, 1950s paternalism, the history of Jim Crow, and more. Ellie has been involved with audio storytelling since 2008 (I found an episode of 99% Invisible that she made.) She breaks the rules with this podcast because she understands them so well. It feels like an audio pop-of book of original music, interviews with her family and friends, and sharp analysis that makes you realize everything about this fun movie was intentional, every moment can be explored. The first real episode zooms in on the car ride to Kellerman's, a somewhat ominous scene (with the movieโs only voice over) that sets us up for the story thatโs about to unfold. This is an ode to the film if you want it to be. But itโs also so much more. Listen here.
๐๏ธKid Fury was on Black People Love Paramore to talk about how much he loves The Golden Girlsโhow he started watching it with his grandmother, which Girl he identifies with, how the show as aged freakishly well, and the revolutionary way it talked about AIDS, HIV, drug addiction, homelessness, gambling and drug addiction, race, homosexuality, and finding love at a certain age. And of course: why on earth so many Black people love it so much. This was a love letter to The Golden Girls, a great way to hear even more of Kid Fury (if you canโt get enough of him on The Read) and a reminder that The Golden Girlsโ theme song slaps. (โIf you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.โ) Also: now that I know the Golden Girls were in their 50s (Blanche was 47) I cannot unknow it. Listen here.
๐๏ธRough Translationโs final season, Love Commandos, just dropped, and I nearly threw my phone on the floor at the end of the first episode for its sheer dooziness. Gregory starts out in India, where something like 97% of marriages are arranged, to introduce us to a group led by Sanjoy Sachdev called Love Commandos, which promised to protect love birds in different castes from their families who might not approve and help them be together. Then how did Sanjoy end up arrested and accused of exploiting the couples he promised to help? Thatโs what we have in store. What lengths would you go to in order to be with the person you love? Would you run away with them? Would you run away with them if you werenโt sure youโd be safe? Sign up for Gregoryโs newsletter Rough Transition to keep up with him after the last episode of Rough Translation is dropped.
๐๏ธStuff the British Stole is often about stuff, stuff. Things stuff. In the final episode of this season, Marc Fennell provides the true story of Matoaka, the young Powhatan girl who you probably know as Pocahontas. She wasnโt just stolen (she wasโshe was being used as a propaganda tool to show people in England that colonization was going great!) her story was stolen. We donโt really know how she died on a ship coming back to the Americas, but she was likely murdered because the British didnโt want her to come home. The false narratives about Pocahontas were established hundreds of years ago by John Smith and then embellished and perpetuated ever since, especially in Disneyโs Pocahontas. On this episode, Marc talked to Lauren DeLeary and Derek Blais, who spearheaded Missing Mataoaka, a project created by a team of Indigenous creators that presents an alternative audio track to a film made about Pocahontas, correcting the stereotypes and historical inaccuracies that perpetuate a romance between an โIndian Princessโ and a dashing European explorer. Itโs the real, much darker story. Listen here.
๐๏ธUndiscarded, the podcast spins objects of New York into beautiful human stories about the city, has an adorable episode about Spider Man, or more appropriately, Peter Parker. Somewhere in the history of the comic books, fans discovered a mailing address for Mr. Parker in Forest Hills, Queens, and started sending letters there. Lots of them were little kids who want to be like Spider Man, had questions for Spider Man, wanted to share stories with Spider Man. Oddly, the family that lived in the home had the last name Parker. (Coincidence, Mr. Stan Lee?) On Letters to a Hero, Pamela Parker (no relation to Peter) has kids read some of the letters and tells a story of the intersection between fandom and real life. Listen here.
๐๏ธSo many of our fantastical worlds involve mentors of some kindโGandalfs, Dumbledores, Yodas. Women are mentors in fiction, too, but theyโre usually absented minded older women using babbling language. (Think Cinderellaโs, whoโฆyeah she doesnโt have a name.) Imaginary Worlds jumps into the world of these invisible caretakers and guardians, who mirror the invisible women caretakers and guardians in real life. Eric talks about those feminist icons who helped protagonists think through creative problems and find their voices and women get out of abusive relationships or patriarchal heteronormative household structures, and how itโs all gotten lost in translation in many of the stories we tell. Iโve often been called a โfairy podmotherโ and it tracksโolder, absent-minded, and babbling. But maybe also a shero?
๐๏ธI listened to Moshe Kasher on A Good Cry twice. This is a show about grief, and Mosheโs episode is about losing his dad. But it ended up being one of the best conversations Iโve heard about Judaism. (When Mosheโs parents separated, his dad leaned into Orthodox Judaism.) Moshe is a great storyteller (it was his podcast, The Champs that got me hooked on podcasts in the first place) and he speaks about Judaism in a way Iโve never heard. For me it was a new way to see Shiva and think about hell. For this 64 minute podcast episode, religion made sense to me. This episode is a) very funny and b) must have converted at least one person, I would guess more. Listen here.
๐๏ธEight new lesbian bars have opened in the U.S. since Cruising (the lesbian bar road trip podcast) launched in 2021. Itโs back for season two, and Sarah Gabrielli, Rachel Karp, and Jen McGinity are taking us to every single one. But this isnโt just a road trip podcast, itโs a time warp. We go back in time, to 1930s San Francisco, to 1990s New Orleans, to meet lesbians in history who were hidden or forgotten, but in one way or another stuck out their necks to protect queer people and the spaces for queer people. Okay so itโs a history podcast on the road, about bars, but also packed with some of the most beautiful, gooey-ass love stories Iโve ever heard. The episode Femme Bar is about a cute couple, a loss, and the bar they built together to heal from it (I Google-stalked them.) The episode Charleneโs is sweet enough to make you believe in that kind of forever love that youโll have until your very last breath. So yeah, this is a lesbian bar road trip podcast. But itโs really about love, with some cool as hell bars in the background, run by some amazing women in history.
๐๏ธWhen I saw that One Yearโs new season was about 1955, I got excited because that is the year Disneyland opened, and I was crossing my fingers for a great episode about that. The episode of my dreams landed last week, and in true One Year fashion itโs not just about the opening, it ties everything to the Davy Crockett craze that took over America that same year. It was a huge part of why Disneyland was able to happen. Disney turned Davy Crockettโs story into a TV show for ABC, and the entire country tuned in (the price of raccoon tails went up 3000%, 10% of all kids clothing that year was Crockett-related, and other merch was bornโfrom oysters to underpants) which ended up being a big marketing opportunity for the theme park. By the time it was 1956, Crockett mania had died down, but it didnโt matter. Disney got what it needed. This is a story of Disneyโs genius and intuition that could be seen as luck. They squeeze in a bit of fun about Disneylandโs opening day. One kid lost teeth, womenโs high heels were getting stuck in wet concrete that had not yet dried, Mark Twainโs steamboat almost sunk, which all gave this day in 1955 the name โBlack Sunday.โ But once again, it didnโt matter. What did was that everything looked good for the cameras. That I knew. The Crockett stuff I didnโt. Listen here.
๐๏ธI love you!
omg love this