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Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. Join your host, Josh and Chuck on the Super Popular podcast packed with fascinating discussions on science, history, pop culture and more episodes that ask, was the lost city of Atlantis Real? I don't know. Is birth order important? I don't know. How does pizza work? Well, I do know. Bit about that see? You can know even more, because stuff you should know has over 1500 immensely interesting episodes for your brain to feast on. So what do you say? I don't want to miss the stuff you should know. Podcast you're learning already. Listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Alex Fumero and I host the new podcast more than a movie American Me, a film directed by and starring Edward James. Almost. I'll be diving into the behind the scenes controversy, including an alleged backlash from the Mexican mafia. Several people who worked on the movie have been murdered. I I don't want to speak about it. Why would people be murdered for being in a movie? Listen to more than a movie American me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's desperately ***** my Saddam Hussein's best friend. I'm Robert Evans, host of behind the ******** the only podcast whose host owns two kittens named Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein's best friend, and, due to a severe veterinarian shortage in northern Oregon, still can't get them spayed and neutered for another nine days. And Saddam Hussein's best friend is in heat and desperately trying to **** her brother. This has been an update for all of you. You have to like maybe she's Adam head disclose that information now you're just she has been disclosing that she wants to **** to literally every living creature that gets near her. If she had a microphone, she'd be saying the same thing. She will not stop presenting it and she did not give consent. It it is it is been a problem. We are keeping them away because I do not want incest kittens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although they may have been incest kit. There's no way to know in incidence. Yeah, I like. This kit, kits and tin, says Robert. Who is that other voice on this podcast that people are here. Ohh. Well, the only person I would ever have on to talk about kitten incest. My friend Tom Wyman. Hello. Hey. Hi. What's up? No, I'm, I'm glad you, you you got me on to talk about these cats. This is going to be a 3 hour episode about my my cat sex life. Yeah. Tom, you are the cofounder of gainfully unemployed. One of my favorite podcast networks hosts one of my most listened two shows. Fox Mulder is a maniac. Which is a beautiful breakdown of Fox Mulder and what a what a *** **** lunatic he is. Uh, yeah, yeah, Tom, it's it's it's really fascinating when you watch the show with that context. It it changes the show. It it surely does. You guys do a lot of great stuff. Great movie reviews and role-playing games. People can find you gainfully unemployed on Patreon. Tom, you also are a what? An editor at Collider. I forget what your job title is. Senior editor of. Teachers at Collider, features at Collider, and you and I worked together for all of my 20s, more or less at a little website called Cracked that pivoted to video and and went the way of the dodo. We got, we got, we got dragged to hell by Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, I did come across a beautiful tweet earlier today that you'll appreciate. Tom. Good. Yeah, I can't wait to hear it. Great radio. Great radio. Yeah, while I look for something. Anil dash. Horse broke its leg, so we had to take it out back and help it pivot to video. Yep. Yep. Ohh, Tom. How are you doing today? I'm doing OK. I'm, I'm doing pretty good. Thanks. You know, how about, how about you? How about yourself? Well, Tom, I'm thinking about the fact that there is a vast, incredibly well financed right wing media operation that is seemingly dedicated to pushing a violent civil conflict that leads to a death toll that's truly astronomical in this nation. Do you think about that a lot? So good, right? So you're doing good, doing great. Uh, yeah. No. I've tried to think about it less, but in in the past few months, just yeah. I just was trying to take a break, but I'm I'm getting plugged back into it. You sure are. And it's a yeah. *** **** it. It's just it's just it doesn't seem like anything's gotten any better. It sure hasn't. It's ******* relentless. And there's this is the election. We're like, oh, thank God. And then Nope, that that didn't go away. Yeah. No, it turns out that you you can't you can't vote these kind of problems away and. Today we're going to talk about where some of these problems started. Specifically, we're going to talk about the men who made right wing media and particularly, like right wing Talk Media. So today you've got guys like Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, obviously, Tucker Carlson being the big the big Mamma jamma. You had people like Rush Limbaugh like and like all of all three of those people, all four of those people you just named got picked dead last for kickball for very different reasons. Yeah, they sure did. Yeah. And they made it the entire world's problem. Yeah, they sure did. So all of these folks, you know, somebody, they all, they all do slightly different variations of the same thing. And they're not all, you know, Russia is the only one who's like, really a talk radio host, but they all have, you know, podcasts and YouTube. They all do the, the modern equivalent of talk radio and and of like, yeah, we're going to talk about basically the the the people who invented the media space that these guys all live in now. These are the very first, uh, right wing media personalities in a big way. So these are, these are the people who prepared the the soil for all of the different, you know, kind of quasi fascist grifters we have today. And they are, they're not all ******** in the traditional sense. They're not all people who on their own, if you didn't consider where everything went, would have qualified as best as they're all, I think, unpleasant people. But I think what's interesting is how they. How they start off and kind of where they end, like the kind of people who inhabit this space at the beginning and the kind of people who inhabit it now. So this is going to be a fun episode time. You're gonna listen to a lot of clips that you're just really gonna dislike. Oh, good. Yeah. So excited. So pumped. Yeah. I'm going to be so mad soon. I can't wait with you. You really are. So one of the things that inspired this was coming across the fact that Tucker Carlson very recently alleged that the purpose of vaccine requirements in the military. Just to quote identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anybody else who doesn't love Joe Biden, and make them leave immediately. Talking he's getting into high T testosterone is low. If you're getting Vaxxed, that soy boy **** not choking on your own rotting lungs is soy, it's it's become. I mean it was all. It's always been the case, but like in the past year or two, yeah it's really become obvious that they just let him go on and say whatever he just says he didn't think it says things. Yeah. And I I, I'm. I'm starting with Tucker because he's he's out just off the ******* rails completely. And this is. The end root of of the journey that we're gonna trace the start of today. And the thing that Tucker has been saying that most concerns me is he started sharing great replacement style conspiracy theories which are alleging that Democrats plan to quote change the population of this country in order to maintain power. This is functionally the same argument Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter made in the manifesto he wrote before shooting 50 Muslim worshippers to death. His his manifesto was titled The Great Replacements. The same argument that the yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember my behind the ********. Extended universe, that all comes from the Turner Diaries, right? I mean, doesn't come from the Turner Diaries. Was like a big, definitely was pushing that. But it this goes back a while for for, I mean, you could even draw lines like the original Nazis and kind of some of the **** Hitler was saying about the Arian blood getting watered down from interbreeding and one for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's a big, big white nationalist talking point. And the fact that this good went from great replacement went from like fringe Nazi murderer manifesto in night 2019 to Tucker Carlson. Talking to 3 million people on a major news network in 2021, shows like how fast things go now and how how dangerous this all is. And I think it's important to start the stakes because it it doesn't begin that way. The guys who start this kind of right wing media space. Are in the first thing we're gonna talk to is in a lot of ways kind of pleasant. At least compared to what came after. I don't think he saw it would have gotten along with, but it's don't believe you. It's it's it's weird. We'll see how you think. OK yeah. And we we discussed this is probably gonna be these episodes being nice companion to our two parter on Rush Limbaugh with Mr Paul F Tompkins. So you know if you're if you're looking for a good four episodes spree to go together listen to these two and then listen to those well, yeah. Sweet having a very long ****. We're on a road trip, so first Guy we're talking about Tom is Joe Pyne. PYNE. Joe Pyne was born in Chester, PA on December 22nd, 1924. His dancing problem? December 22nd or 1924, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, all of the above. Yeah, get it, get it out of there. We don't need that state. Like, you look at that, you look at those those three pieces of information. Like, this is like a 5050 shot. This guy is gonna be a real ***** ** ****. Yeah, Pennsylvania in the 20s. Yeah. And in a December, baby, **** that. His dad was a brick maker and his mom was a mom, which was pretty much the only job most women could expect to work at that point in time and place. When Joe was little, his family moved to Atlantic City, which is like Las Vegas but less fun and much sadder because it's on the East Coast. He's a good Bruce Springsteen song about that. He had a difficult childhood. Joe had a pronounced stutter and kids back then were even ******** about such things than they are today. He was bullied relentlessly. When Joe was eleven, he lost his younger brother to an auto accident, which was not uncommon in those days because cars didn't crumple and seat belts were but a fever dream in Ralph Nader's eye. By the time Joe was a teenager, his family left Atlantic City, which is always a good decision, and moved back to Chester, which is a more questionable decision. Right, yeah, it's all. It's all they knew. It's all they knew. We're going to pile the family into our giant unstoppable seat, beltless car and drive back to West to Chester. He went to high school and he joined the Marines in 1942, which was a popular decision at the time. He joined as early as he possibly. Yeah, yeah, but whatever reason, a lot of guys joined the military in 1942. Must have been good, adds something's about to happen. He joined as the early, like the first day he possibly could, and obviously the US had decided to enter World War Two at this point. He was deployed against the Empire of Japan, and he fought in some of the war's worst battles across the South Pacific. Joe survived the Battle of Okinawa, which is one of the like, like one of the worst fights you could possibly have been in in that war. Real, real bad battle, Okinawa. During that battle, a Japanese plane bombed the forward base he was stationed on, seriously injuring his knee. He returned home scarred and seasoned by heavy combat. Joe had won three bronze stars for valor in battle and a Purple Heart, so he he he definitely saw some ****. This is not one of, like, the draft dodgy right wing guys, right? This is not Ben Shapiro writing war fan fiction like he wins the war and got bombs dropped on his leg. Yeah, he saw some of the worst **** you could have seen in that particular conflict. So he returns home, real ****** ** probably with a head full of PTSD, but they didn't know PTSD was at this, so I'm assuming he just drank. Washed it down with cigarettes, real head full of ***** cats. Yeah. When he got home, he didn't know precisely what he wanted to do with his life, but he was certain that it involved putting himself in front of people and entertaining them. In order to do that, he felt he would need to deal with his speech impediment first using his GI. What led him to that decision? I don't know. Relentlessly bullied. Went to war, got bombed. His dead brother comes back. He's like, I'm gonna be an entertainer. I'm gonna be an entertainer. I'm gonna be. Where does that impulse come from? Yeah, we just don't know enough about his early life to know, like, what the **** was going on. Maybe he just wanted to show people. My speech impediment doesn't define me. I don't know. I beat the Japanese. I can beat stuttering. So, using his GI Bill, Joe enrolled in a drama school. He forced himself through agonizing hours of live performances in front of his classmates. To overcome his stutter, he locked himself away in his room and would perform hours and hours of speech drills every day. And eventually he did overcome his speech impediment. Once he graduated, Joe became a taxi driver in Chester. He continued to work on his speech while he was driving people around. Eventually he decided he'd come far enough and he started a career as a broadcaster. By this point, the way the way you phrased that made it sound like he was doing like his speeches to his passengers. Yeah, I think. Hold on. Listen to this. Now give me some notes. Alright? I gotta type 5. I'm gonna run it by you. There's no seat belt, so you better laugh. We have an embedded seat belt. You are really dependent upon me. Oh, he he did he does this and yeah, he he decides he's he's finished by like late 1946. Now again, 1940s radio is king. TV's coming around, but that's still not the number one way people get entertained. You're you're really radio is is the top of the top of the world and they assume it will be forever. He was able to convince a station manager in Lumberton, NC, to give him a job on WT TSB. The pay was $25 a week. Which is not good money even back then, and he failed to stand out enough that he felt he had any hope of advancement. So after a year he returned home dejected. But Joe kept pushing until he got another job at WPW in Brookhaven, PA. He got into a vicious argument with his boss while still new on the job, and was quickly fired. Next he moved to WLM of Wilmington, DE, where he was also quickly fired. Yeah, you get the feeling he was not easy to work with at this point, thankfully. E-mail didn't exist, so these people couldn't tell each other about Joe. He moved back to Chester after this and then to Kenosha next where he got a job with the new network called WWLP. His job in all of these places was very straightforward. Introduce and play records with a minimum of fanfare. He was not being hired to be a personality, he was just he put the music on, fired from the other place, was just * ****. She's yelling at his rising. Yeah, that was a big part of it. He would riff a lot. He got in trouble in Kenosha and I think he'd gotten in trouble. Where he would riff on politics and current events, which was not what we were supposed to do at the time. So his bosses are like, nobody, nobody. People are tuning in to hear, I don't know what, the big music that the big bopper nobody wants you, nobody gives a **** about what you have to say to you. Chantilly lace. Yeah, put on Chantilly lace and shut your ******* mouth. Smoke a cigarette. Yeah, the kind of riffing that he thought was the future of radio was simply not done. At the time. Commenters were part of the news department, and jockeys were not this. Jockeys were there to entertain, and he'd been hired as a disc jockey. So if you were going to be a commentator, if you were talking about the news you didn't, like, Give your opinion. You tried to just kind of like read, you know, like the AP wire. Basically, WLIP, though, took Collins. Listeners could dial in and request songs, but Joe started insisting on asking his listeners. What they thought about the political issues of the day, which was the first time anyone had ever really done that on radio, like take Collins. And he kind of forced the issue of making them political, one WIP employee at the time recalled. He wanted to chat with them. But in those days, there was no way to put a phone line on the air. Joe would say, uh-huh. And and then tell the listeners what the caller said. So this is like, this is the very first talk radio. He's just on the phone with them being like, all right, so here's what he said. Let me tell you what Dennis from Poughkeepsie just said. And you're like listening to almost dead air while he's listening to the person on the phone. But this is this is literally the birth of talk radio. This is the first time anybody does this. Joe Pyne, and he moves along eventually, and I'm going to explain that process. I'm gonna read a quote from a write up in Smithsonian magazine. One caller objected to the young DJ's Pro union opinions. Do you know anything, Sir, about the history of Labor management relations? Pine asked the man after a moment of dead air, he continued. No, you keep your voice down. Kind was an an expert interrupter, but this caller barely paused for breath listening. Pine had an idea. According to Regani, who worked there, he held the phone receiver to his microphone. Now the caller was live on the air and call in radio was born. So that's 1949 in Kenosha. Joe Pine and Vince call in radio by literally holding a phone up to the MIC. In fairness, some random dude calling in to request Frankie Valli, who had very strong opinions about labor unions, who actually created. This guy is such an *******. I gotta put him on. He's so ****** about it. That's a fair point. You got to hear what a ***** ** **** this guy is. Let me invent a new discipline that will later ratchet the country towards violence. Was born in stupid anger. And it it will kill us all with stupid anger to stupid anger. It will return. Yeah. Perfect. What a beautiful way for that to get started. Honestly. Yeah. And I love because this guy gives birth to right wing radio, but he he the start of talk radio is him trying to defend like the right to unionize, which is right. That was. I was not expecting that to be the issue. When you said it I was like really that you could be pretty conservative and pro union in those because it wasn't. It was more racist back then. Obviously everything was, but politics in some ways was less dumb. It wasn't. It hadn't gotten to the point where it is with like the right wing left wing like conservatism is such a part of my like identity that. Like, I I have this vested interest in, like, demonizing anything like you. You did have a lot of, uh, I mean like, like one of the Union strongholds in the US for a long time was W ******* Virginia. You know, like people, like fought to the death for Union, said West Virginia with rifles. And now it's Joe Manchin country. So, well, sorry, West Virginia, but like, yeah, the things were different than politically is what I'm saying. And and yeah, so Joe was fired. I think this kind of is part of what got him fired because his his boss at the station was like he's supposed to be playing songs. Joe, what the **** are you doing? Holding the phone up to the *** **** microphone? Put on the *** **** rec. Put on the ******* twist. Yeah. Do you wanna get a Rush Limbaugh? Because that's how you get a Limbaugh. This is how we get a Limbaugh. Put the phone down. Put on the *** **** music. I don't want to listen to Steven Crowder's heart surgery problems since 25 years. 45 years. However. Many years, 100 years, 60 years. Whatever. Too many years, Tom. 500 years. Yeah, it's 500 years ago. Nobody, nobody from is even alive anymore. No, no. God. Thank God. So despite, yeah, inventing call in Radio, Joe's boss did not appreciate him. He wanted someone to read ads and introduce songs. The two fought constantly. At one point, Joe demanded a raise, which led to a fight, another WIP host later recalled, stumbling in on the melee. Joe was yelling, she recalled. He had one hand on our boss's lapel. He picked up a typewriter and threw it against the wall. Oh **** yeah. So that gives you a little bit of an idea of, like, why this guy keeps having problems with his coworkers. He almost. That was. He almost scored some points to me. There, there, you were like, he picked up a typer. I'm like, here we go, here we go. Against the wall. Hit him in the face. Alright, well, fair compromise. Alright. Yeah. Throw it again. Yeah. So he gets fired again, and he continues to move around frequently. You know, while he's going from radio station to radio station. He marries a beauty queen. He divorces her a year later because she gets sick of him. While he's working at WLM, he starts a show called it's your nickel, so named because the nickel was the standard. Cost for a call on a payphone. And this was the first. Yeah. Proper radio talk show. It's your nickel. So he does get a job doing the thing that he invented. And that's that became a phrase like it's your dime or it's your nickel or it's your dollar. It's like a fractal. Yeah. And I don't know if that's the. He may have just been using that phrase because it was already like, what people said. But yeah, I mean, he may have invented it. I have not done that research. Tom. Someone at home? Well, yeah, something, something that sticks out to me about old Joe Pine is that he has trouble forming. Lasting relationships, yeah. So he goes from job to job, marries a woman, divorces her late like he seems like he might be impossible to be around. It does. And it also, again, this is one of those black box of history things. I do kind of wonder how much of this is a PTSD, because that can make it real hard to get along with people in a hard to regulate your emotions. It might make you more likely to throw a typewriter. He did get bombed in one of the most notorious battles of World War Two, so yeah. Yeah, who knows? It's it's one of those things. It's like lead exposure, which I'm sure Joe Pyne was also exposed to a tremendous amount of lead. Like, you wonder how much of an impact did this have on like the way people were back then? You wonder how many people were just walking around poisoned and crazy like 70 years ago just because that's the way it was. Yeah, I mean, there's there's there's a lot of like pretty strong evidence that at least the lead exposure may have been part of why there was so much more violence back, you know, even just like 20 something years ago. Because everybody was inhaling lead and eating lead off the walls and. I do want some delicious lead, Tom. Yeah. There's nothing that goes with like a nice Bree. Like you get a a lead chip and you just dip it in a breeze. That's a good. Yeah. Nice mix. Mix of sweet and savory. Yeah. Like a lead flight. Yeah, like a lead flight. Like a flight of lead. I'm going to start a leads, Durant. Tom, I think you should. Yeah. A lead in every food. Yeah. Yeah. Little lead bar. Get the LED out. We'll call it a lead chicken in every pot. Now, Tom, you know who else will expose you to tremendous amounts of lead? Hmm. The X man colossus. That that is probably accurate. I don't know as much about X-Men as you, but but the products and services that support this podcast certainly will expose you to lead. That is the only guarantee we make about our sponsors. Every one of them filled with lead. Yep. It's powerful guarantee. Hmm. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family and. That meant family start at 2 lines. 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If we don't help them find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can't save chimps, forests or anything else. And that becomes very clear when you look at poverty around the world. If you're living in poverty, you can't afford to ask as we can. Did this product harm the environment? Was it cruel to animals like, was it factory farmed? Is it cheap because of unfair wages paid to people and so alleviating poverty? Is tremendously important. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back and I wanted to start this by letting my letting my audience know that that our guest today, Tom Ryman, has a bit of a superpower, which is. And everyone who knows, you know, there's this Tom, which is that when you, when you whenever you mention a movie and you will talk about like, you know, that guy who was in the background and that in that scene in American beauty and you'll be like, Oh yeah, it's such and such. And this is the other films they were in. I've never known anybody who can do that the way that you can. It's. You're a human. IMDb. I thought you were gonna tell everybody about my optic blasts, so I'm glad. No, I'm glad I didn't spell that secret. Keeping that a secret for when? No. Yeah, I'm probably rob a bank. No, I've been. I've been. I don't know. I just. I do that. Like, I I keep it encyclopedic record of of dates and like people in movies and stuff. I don't know. It's it's I'm probably somewhere on the spectrum, but it's just a thing I do. I don't know. It's almost a soup like it is. Kind of a superpower. Like. It's it's really, it's really fun. And it made like when we when we were all, I mean, I lived together with like half of the people we worked with at Cracked. And you were always over. And just the, the, the movie conversations with you and Dave were always a tremendous amount of fun. There's no way I listen to your podcast. Thanks. Yeah. We lived in your room, remember? Oh yeah. You did. Yeah. I was up in the mountains. I was. I was doing redacted things in the mountains and and mostly not home at that point in time. I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, yeah, ohh. The days of our lives, like sand through the hourglass, Tom. So, like, lead through the hourglass. Like, lead through the hourglass. So Joe Pyne gets his first proper radio talk show. It's your nickel on WLM. And again, he's he's out of there. He's in there. I think this is like his second time working for them. And this article from the broadcasters desktop resource makes it clear what kind of show Joe ran. The very first radio talk show quote in his nightly introduction. He said the mic is open. My name's Joe Pyne. I guess you know yours. The program. This program is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas and to differences of opinion. I don't, I don't propose to have all the answers, but I do promise to talk about the things that interest you. So that's a nice little there's that free exchange of ideas phrase he did I think kind of mean it as opposed to. The people who say it today, I think they're keeping it, but I'll I'll I'll I'll play you some clips from his. I he did. He was. Yeah. It's interesting. Now, the show did often become a shout, a shout fest with pine definitely in control. No topic was sacred, from sex to religion to politics. But when he felt a listener had gone on for too long or was making no sense, he would make a rude remark like you're sick and hang up on the post person. Enduring Pines abuse of rhetoric is the challenge for the audience, many of whom tried to debate him before he hung up on them. His views tended to be quite conservative most of the time, and Pines seemed to dare his listeners to disagree with him. His style of arguing included using very derogatory terms. Known for being adept with words, his arsenal of insults and put downs became the stuff of legends. Among his best known were if your brains were dynamite, you couldn't blow your nose. There was also go gargle with razor blades and take your teeth out, put them in backwards, and bite your throat. Jesus Christ. Man's creative. That third one's pretty nice. Yeah, that's good. I heard. I heard the other two. I'm like, yeah, those are old standards. And this turned your teeth around. I'm like, ooh, yeah, he's jazz. And now. So when he this is in 1951 too. While he's in the middle of changing radio forever, his old war injury flares up badly enough that surgeons have to amputate his left leg from the knee down yet. So he's back in the studio with a prosthetic limb soon after, and while the fake leg was obvious to everyone who saw him, he never meant he. It did get mentioned on air. We'll talk about that a bit, but he refused to mention it on air. Judging by his pro union views, Joe is at least one at one point at least more of a moderate than he became, but the longer he's on doing talk radio. He pulls further and further to the right. In 1953, he celebrated on air when the US Electricuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, saying we finally incinerated those commies. I hope it was slow and painful. Good. That's that's interesting that the longer, I mean, I'm sure you're gonna make this connection, but the longer he's on the air, the more conservative he pulls that. I wonder, could that be because having bad faith arguments to generate, we call them rage clicks now, but it's to stoke controversy by needling people and by playing the Devil's advocate just to get people heated and arguing to fuel the ratings for his own show. Yeah, I I really don't know. I I I'm sure that was an element of it. I I because I cause clearly he's going after controversy. He's going after rage clicks but also we'll talk about it. He was not always the guy you would expect that's that's yeah so we're building that. So Joe had a keen understanding of how to communicate with the lowest common denominator in US politics. He told reporters, quite without shame, that radio was geared towards the mentality of 13 year old kids and that most Americans were politically apathetic and easy to persuade of just about anything he claimed that he used. Shocking language and would make extreme allegations in order to get people to think. He told the LA Times that while his critics called him a hate monger, all he really did was encourage stimulating dialogue. You see, he knows what he's doing, and I think that's a big part of like, why he gets more right wing in his because it's easier to kind of like, again, speak to the mentality of 13 year old kids. If you're just like making these kind of reactionary arguments, he wants to **** people off so that they react and he gets a show out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's a part of it. That's not all of it, because he is. When there were times when he would be challenged it. It kind of depends on how it was. If he found someone interesting, even if they were coming in from a very different perspective, he would let them talk and sometimes very respectfully. So he was not well. He's he's the star and he's doing a lot of unpleasant stuff. He's also not he's a unequivocally a better person than Ben Shapiro, is what I'm saying. Like, right, like his goal in any given conversation wasn't just to own them. He would actually listen to people sometimes who were bringing up some pretty radical stuff where we'll get to that in 1957, a little over, after a little over six years on Air, Joe left. WILM this time, it was his own choice. He was famous, at least locally, and his salary was $42,000 a year, which is almost 10 times the average salary of for a minute. It's about 400 grand a year in like, modern dollars, like he was making real good money. This time. Joe left because his dreams had overgrown, a very comfortable working condition. He traveled to Riverside, CA, and he got a job at a local radio station that quickly led to a TV job at KTLA in Los Angeles. He would later claim that his first TV show. Which was essentially a filmed version of it's your nickel had been a huge success, but the show lasted less than a year, and I found no clips of it anywhere. Joe moved back. Yeah, yeah. I'd be surprised if there's any footage that's still exists. There is a we have some clips of his. The show that come next came next. But it's because there's like a grassroots archival effort to, like, digitize all of the old tape master tapes. So after his first year in LA, Joe moves back across the country to Chester, where he works for a Philadelphia TV station for a first time. For that for a short time, and then he goes back to WLM for a little while. He licks his wombs, he's wounds. He seemed to know that a show like his, a political talk show where people could scream about politics to amass audience, was the wave of the future and was going to be huge on television. But the world wasn't ready quite yet. For a few years, Joe continued to broadcast, but in the early 1960s he decided the time was finally right and he moved back to LA where he got a job at K ABC and I'm going to quote from the broadcasters desktop resource again. Once again, he polarized the audience, with some listeners and guests complaining he was too caustic and others saying his candor was refreshing. But as in Wilmington, he had people talking about him and his show from KBC. He went over to KL, AC and sit in 1965 doing the 9:00 PM to midnight shift. Never one to avoid controversial guests, he put Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan on the air, burning displeasure. Yeah. Oh yeah, dope, earning the displeasure of the American Jewish Committee and a warning from the FCC. He also had guests. Yes, to believe it. In eugenics, guests who are racists guessed with strange theories about past lives or UFOs. And the arguments continued. Controversy sold. Joe salary ballooned to $200,000 a year, which is nearly 2,000,000 a year by modern standards. Jesus, BC rate. Yeah, he's making it back. I mean this is soon that he's giving people like what? Tucker Carlson and stuff. Now I will be fair when he has Nazis and KKK members on it so that he can scream at them like, yeah, well that's still like it's still it's still problematic, but it's not as problematic. As it is today, where you have people affiliated with similar organizations where you talk about how what a good point of Nazi *********. Yeah, get the hell out of here. He was getting outraged clicks, but at least the the understanding was people are going to hate these not this is bad. At least that was like the understanding. Yeah, it was like, that was the ******* understanding. Yeah, again, you can still argue and I think it is pretty irresponsible to do that, but at least the understanding was like, **** these guys, let's let's yell at them here. Let's not. Let's hear him out. Yeah, NBC Radio network started syndicating his show nationally in March of 1966, and it was soon on more than 200 stations around the country. He called what he did fist in the mouth radio, and now that he was on a new time slot the midmorning rather than the night as he'd usually been before, his ratings exploded. This is generally thought to be due to the fact that being on earlier in the day opened him up to a vast new audience of bored housewives. People were titillated. One of his networks advertised the show in a full page. Newspaper spread listing all the Nazis and Klansmen and other pieces of **** he'd had on his show and then concluding with you may agree or disagree with Joe Pyne, you may scream and rage at some of his remarks, but you won't turn him off. Yeah, I mean, what's what's the intent of that state? Is that is that shaming me? Is that like, yeah, is that like, yeah, you have to feel bad, don't I? Do yeah. But you won't turn him off. Yeah, you ************ we kisses on you unless you turn them off. We want this ************ off the air, but we can't. You like him too much, you *** ** * *****. We tried to look in the doors. He just shows up inside somehow. Secret doors. So Joe was on both the radio and the TV, and his television show All Learn alone earned him more money per year than Mickey Mantle played playing made playing for the Yankees. So he's making like more than Mickey Mantle money now. Professional sports players made less money in those days, but still he's he's raking it in. He was the top rated talk show host and the second largest market in the US. Yeah. It feels wrong that that. I don't know. Yeah. Like you said, it was professional athletes made less money back then. But, like, it feels wrong that like, she's making me mad. Yeah, I know. Mickey Mantle is, if anyone. Shouldn't he make all the money away? Think so from Smithsonian Magazine quote at a time when TV's leading men included Walter Cronkite, Edward R Murrow, Andy Griffith, and Captain Kangaroo, Pine was the medium's first shock jock, a firebrand who invited hippies, civil rights activists, and Ku Klux Klansmen alike to take a hike or go gargle with razor blades. By the mid 60s, he was the most popular TV radio voice in America. Johnny Carson had more television viewers, but pine with a syndicated TV show. 200 plus radio outlets had an audience to rival Johnnies. Life magazine called him sadistic. A bar room tough, but millions tuned in to watch the fireworks. When a guest advocating free love set off a melee, Pines audience charged the set and knocked it flat. Oh ****. One guest, the suave TV personality David Susskind, earned a chorus of boos for calling Pines program, an **** for morons. Host and guest both got a kick out of that. So it is like the first on air fight. Springer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's also like Jerry Springer. The first spring, he's the 1st. Baldo and Morton. Gallero. Yeah, Morton. We'll be talking about Morton later. Oht. Yeah, like all of it's not just like Tucker Carlson. The time. It's like ******* like they cracked every aspect of this. Like, really did. He is an important man to know about. Like, he really. He figured out he was. Yeah. He figured some **** out. Most of it. **** I wish no one had figured out. But he did figure it out. I can make millions if I put Nazis. On the air hmm, yeah. Now I think it's probably a better time to give you a better idea of how Joe sounded, because when you read it out, the way I've put it together, it probably sounds like he's like a stereotypical modern shock jock. And while he was the prototype for that, his actual broadcasting style was much more subdued and witty. In this clip, Joe interviews an early vegan activist and what he called his beef box. Check it out that as you cannot hear the screams of a lamb in the slaughterhouse, you cannot hear. The screams of your son on the battlefield. I would like to ask you a meaningful question at this point. Are you a vegetarian? I am indeed. Do you ever eat tomatoes? I would say to you, yes. For the last 3000 years, man, I'm asking you a question. Do you ever eat tomatoes? Do you eat tomatoes? Of course I do. You do, do you know? That there is now scientific proof that when you cut a tomato it screams there is electrical. There is a little are a killer of tomatoes and my friends before tomato doesn't pray, you are. The tomato feels no pain. The tomatoes blood doesn't agony tomato, tomato does not. Take a walk. Why? Are you going to sing something? I would, all right? This is the tomato stop. I love you as the animal dies. So she used to make the slaughter of that animal. Alright, that's probably enough of that. Yeah. So yeah, that's. What do you think of that? Tom was not what I was expecting. Like, I know he sounds like Walter Cronkite and then he flips the **** out and then he flips the **** out. But he he he starts from this real low ebb and he also does, like he says get off. But then the guys like, well, I want to sing and he's like, absolutely. Yeah, please do now. This is great for me. Yeah, that's going to be incredible content. And that clip was from 66. Wow. Yeah. 1960 feels extremely modern, especially like almost the on TV today. His bad, his extremely bad faith argument. So he's a, he's a he's a trailblazer top. Yeah, this guy. You could put this dude on TV right now and he would be the hottest thing. Yeah. It's it's amazing. And he there's a level of almost, yeah, it it it it's just different than the way they they mock people today. It's almost more, it's almost gentler. In a weird way, he he's he's not that he's not the same as what came after again. He's this weird mix of what we have today and like Walter. Bronchitis. It's it's a fascinating. It's fascinating to just listen to his stuff. When the civil rights movement kicked off, Joe devoted a tremendous amount of time to discussing the angry ***** which is more or less what you'd expect. Yeah. Oh boy. Alright, clips. In one episode, he brought on several militant black activists. I believe there were Black Panthers, and in a heated moment during the show. I've not been able to find this clip, but it's very famous. During the show, he opens his desk drawer to show them his revolver, and he threatens them with it on air. So he's we could he could go off. He advocated bombing N Vietnam back to the Stone Age, obviously, but he could also be a surprising man, in part because he came from an era in which pig. Political figures could admit to learning something and changing their opinion. And in part because some of the issues that are now very aggressive are a lot less. We're a lot less settled in those days in terms of like, how it was going to break down right or left. So he conducted an interview with Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, and he started the interview by calling her a dingbat and then asked her to explain why girls should be considered equal to men in the workplace. But then he sat quietly while she gave her speech, like explaining her piece on women's liberation. And he applauded her at the end of it. Umm. He was certainly more polite to women than towards men, and more polite to white people, towards black people. But even when interviewing people he clearly despised, Joe maintained an air that's just so much more convenient, congenial than what you see on TV today. Here he is talking to Paul Krassner, a left wing magazine publisher who later went on to head High Times. So this is him talking with someone he ******* hates. Which deodorant does Lyndon Johnson use now? What? Does that mean? What is that like Paul Krassner? What is that? Which deodorant does Lyndon Johnson use? That's your front page head, yes. Do you want to know which one by brand name? No, I want to know what is that? What is the? What is the reason for that? Well, I think that the President of the United States is at such a height that people have to have a height. Height. He's put on such a pedestal that people have to realize that he is only a human being and does use a deodorant. Like you and me. No. And I'm a little worried about you. I'm. He's lighting a cigarette now. So, yeah, that's like, it's clearly, again, this is not somebody he particularly respects, but it's also like, it's not a shouting debate, I guess is what impresses, not impresses, is is the thing that that is interesting to me because, like, you, don't you, you don't have that kind of like, congenial distaste is how it it feels watching them. Yeah. He feels more like Carson than like a Tucker Carlson at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind I wish I could. Find the thing the interview he does with those those Black Panthers where he he shows them his revolver. Because I've heard different descriptions of it. Some that make it sound like he's threatening them with a gun and some that make it sound like he's just like, well, I have a gun too. And like, I really don't know I and I don't I don't know what the actual tone was in that either one is entirely possible based on what you've shown me exactly. Either one makes complete sense. Like he's yeah, he's more polite, but he's still he's oh for sure as **** making bad faith arguments and. Yeah, absolutely. That's like, yeah. And the interview with Krassner got markedly less friendly after the ad break from Smithsonian Magazine. Quote, why do you print the most obscene words? Pine demanded. Do you edit your magazine? Because you were an unwanted child? To which Crasna responds, no, daddy. Their talk went downhill from there. He asked me about my acne scars, says Krasner, now 85. That was a low blow. I said, let me ask you something. Do you take off your wooden leg before you Make Love to your wife? And his jaw dropped, according to Krassner. The audience gasped while Pines producers averted their eyes in the atmosphere. Surrealistic. That's good TV, though, right there. That's good TV. So the listeners know this whole business clip 67? Something like 67? Yeah. Do you **** your wife with your fake leg? 1967 in the 60s, yeah. Andy Griffith is the biggest name in entertainment, and this ***** on TV. Holy ****. Like, you could see, like, and that's part of the other thing that's interesting. Like, I'm going to guess. Out of his audience, if not most of it weren't right wing. Like, a lot of them were probably people who like guys like Paul Krassner but like wanna see **** like this on TV? Hmm. People have these kind of, like, conversations. He'll talk to ******* anyone and he could surprise you. But before we get into that, Tom, you know what else is going to surprise you? No. The quality of the products and services that support this podcast. That would be a surprise. Yeah, it it will be a surprise. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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Hey, it's Rick Schwartz, one of your hosts for San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we sit down with Doctor Jane Goodall to hear her inspiring thoughts on how we can create a better future for humans, animals and the environment. Anything, particularly young children out into nature so that they can experience it and take time off from this virtual world of being always on your cell phones and so on. And get the feel of nature so that you come to be fascinated, then you come to want to understand it, and then you come to love it, and at that point you want to protect it. And then we'll come to the sort of healthy world that I envision as a good future for us. And the rest of life on this planet. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. Uh. And we're we're talking about what I think is one of the most surprising things I've found. So Jill Pine was one of the very first major media figures in the United States to platform a transgender woman discussing trans issues. And he did show in a way that is incredibly surprising for the time. This is from 1966, and I, I want to just play this. And the the woman he's talking to, Christine Jorgensen, was like one of the very first super public transgender media figures. Very famous, yeah, very famous. So he's he's certainly not the first person to talk to her, but he's one of the first people, the massive platform to sit down and have a long conversation with a transgender person in a a major outlet. And I think the tone of the conversation given where we are now with the right wing on this issue is going to be surprising to people. It was our guest who first flushed the problems of transsexuals into the open. Christine Jorgensen was born a male. She was described in her high school annual as a clever lad. Later she became a private first class in the army. Though outwardly a boy, Christine was sexually disturbed, the story of her later discovery and transformation electrified the world. It was the first chapter in a new outlook toward the transsexual phenomenon. And yet I can't believe that yours was the 1st. Operation of this type, it wasn't the first one was, I think, done somewhere in the area of 1926 or 27. There was a marvelous Dr in Germany called Magnus Hirschfeld who started the whole investigation to our in our modern age, let's put it that way. Before that, there may have been others, but I know not of them. Is this a legal operation in the United States yet? Oh yes. Oh, certainly. You know, they're doing it at Johns Hopkins now in Baltimore Ravens the best. Yes. And they're doing at the University of Minnesota. Medical school. They've done 5 cases to the best of my knowledge, at University of California Medical School. How many people in your particular predicament do you think there are today? I mean, not those who have successfully, assuming you have successfully bridged the gap, but how many are in that spot where they need this? And by what I heard when from Johns Hopkins, when I was in Baltimore several weeks ago, doctor money and I did a television show together and he's one of the doctors involved in John Hopkins and he asked me if he if I thought I knew how many and I said I don't have the vaguest idea. And he said he according to his statistics, they should be 30,000 transsexuals of both sides in the United States to get it straight. A transsexual and transvestite differ in that the transvestite is addressing up type of homosexual. And you don't claim to be a homosexual. Now you should say you claim you are not a homosexual. Well, an interesting point if you say that if I was established and accepted by society for the 1st 26 years of my life as a male, then my emotional feelings during that. Toward another male had to be considered a homosexual emotion in the eyes of society. Although I never saw it that way in my own eyes. But again, Joe, may I correct something which has been very is very startling. I think that a transvestite, they have proven statistically that 99% of them are heterosexual. Now, this is even more interesting than ever. I mean people who men who dress up in women's clothing are really, by the world standards, normal sexually. So, yeah, that's that's what I expected. Surprising. Yeah. I mean, you know, he does, he does say heavens to Betsy when she's she's talking about the different, but he's like the terminology. Again, this is 1967. Right. But yeah. So it looks like it is like, sure. OK, Joe, like, he's actually like, OK, what's the proper term? What's the difference? Like, explain what your experience careful about gingering her properly. He's being very surprising. Yeah, it's not what I would have said this. Well yeah, I I didn't. And I, I talked to a transgender friend of mine about this and she did point out that Christine Jorgensen had some like kind of pretty anti-gay attitudes. And one of the things that was going on here and one of the things that made her acceptable is that like she was like, well, I'm not going to be like, people like me won't be homosexual if we get to transition, right? Because then it's yeah, and I didn't really catch that when I listened to the interview, but I can see how that could have been an element here. Although when he brings up homosexuality, I didn't note anything. Aggressive in it. Like, he was just kind of asking clarification about. Yeah. Not in this. I'm sure he. I'm sure he was right. Yeah. There's no way. Yeah. Yeah. But but so not the interview I would have expected. And it it it, I think it says less about him than it just does about how the issue had not been politicized at this point. Like for existence of transgender people had not been politicized to the extent that it is now, even though it was much more dangerous to consider transitioning back then. It also there was not the kind of political. Rancor behind. It's just a fascinating piece of history and evidence that like Joe Pine again, that you could be a right wing firebrand on TV and encounter something you didn't understand and like learn about it on air without it being a like a thing. Yeah. Do you think that's a product of him being like a genuinely curious person, like if I I want to learn new things, etcetera? Or is that more of a product of what you were saying about the issue where it wasn't? Clear which side of the political spectrum the issue was gonna fall on. So he didn't wanna go as hard as he normally would had the issue been more firmly settled on one side? I don't know. I've heard people theorize that part of why he was very polite and liked Christine Jorgensen is that she was a veteran like him. And he had just that kind of respect for like, well, whatever else about this person, we fought in the same war together. I think some of it's also, I think the attitude and like the way people presented themselves like he was. He was a guy who was raised in a specific time where if people present themselves a specific way, you treat them as specific way. Right. And I think people who kind of like Joe Kraft or Krassner, you know, it's kind of like a left wing hippie type. Yeah. And so he did not feel the need to be respectful. Christine, like, was presented as like a very kind of like Bougie, upper middle class white woman, and he treated her with respect as a result. The same was true of some other women he interviewed who he had a disagreement with. So I think some of it may just be that just like. There was more of like a, well, regardless of your feelings, if somebody presents in this way, if they, if they match kind of our expectations of upper class white people behavior and you treat them with a certain level of respect and regard because that's just how we are. Yeah, it's it's it's a fascinating time, fascinating time capsule. And that was a, I think maybe the longest clip we've ever played on this show. But I just, I was really surprised when I came across that learning this like, this is the guy who gave mental birth to Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson. Yeah, not the interview you would expect. Surprising. As a last treat. I have one more thing I want to play for you. This is a segment from Joe's show where he talks with Anton Lavey, head of the Church of Satan Boy. Little boy. Tom, you're gonna have a good time with this one. Yeah, man. Popcorn, yeah. Yeah, you get Anton Lavey on the TV and you know you're gonna have a good one. And how do you make your living as? A counselor, sorcerer, practicing wizard, Shaman, warlock, whatever you wish to call it. You're also a male witch or warlock. Well, a male witch is considered a warlock, but I don't consider to be a witch then a male witch. Certainly, but not a white witch. Not like some of these people that have been on various shows that bend over backwards trying to convince everyone how good they are. They never perform black magic, only white magic. I think this is really make that man disappear. Out of the dock. Out of the dock. Why should I want to? I well, because we have somebody else coming up. Of course I can't make them disappear because I am naturally cast in the mold of a human being. And I think this is. It might be less human and more mephistophelean to me. Thank you, Sir. I call him a devil's complemented. It's just remarkable to me. But degree the degree to which Anton Lavey looks like Joe Kucan from command and conquer. Yeah, the guy who played Kane, they're the same. Maybe Kane was Anton Levay. That's my command and conquer theory. That's going to be very funny. He looks, he looks like the villain in every FMV computer game. It's amazing. He's wearing Anton Lavey. He's wearing an amulet. He's such a dummy. Every time he goes on TV. It's so funny. He's like. I can't make that guy disappear. White magic? What white magic are they doing? White magic are you doing? Anti? Yeah, I have to side with Joe on this one. What do you get? A magic? Are you up to magic? Are you gonna do? Can you make that kind of disappear? Yeah. By the late 1960s, Joe was a very wealthy man. He drove drove a Rolls Royce, and when he parked at the studio, he was so frightened it would be vandalized that he had his network hire A security guard to watch the car while he was on the air parking in the garage. Man, what are you doing? Yeah, exactly what are you doing? On paper, in many ways he sounded like the same kind of guy that many right wing media grifters are today. But the things he the thing he had that they all lacked is, is a sense of charm. There's a level of class that you get with Joe that just like is, has, is completely absent from everyone who follows. Yeah, it's it's it's more the more we hear of him. I had said he sounds like Cronkite earlier, but he really sounds more like like Carson or like a talk show host where it's like he can be warm and supportive until he's not and then he'll turn on you and kind of. Ridicule you, but in a in a polite way. I can see how a lot of people who disagreed profoundly with Joe Pyne could enjoy listening to his show in a way that like I cannot with Tucker Carlson or nobody's. Like, nobody like hate watches for enjoyment. Tucker Carlson. It's just too, like, horrifying. Like nobody does that with Ben Shapiro or whatever. No, no, that's an assignment. That's not something. That is an assignment. That is like, that is a that is conflict journalism. Like you are taking on pain. I'm looking at something nodding people could like, enjoy, like. You enjoy? Like why you I I recommend watching him talk to Anton Lavey. It's a hoot. Yeah. It's it's it's legitimately fun. It's just too *********. Two real ********* just talking it up in the 60s. At one point he had. At one point, he had Harlan Ellison on as a guest. Now Harlan Ellison Ohboy quite a fellow. At the time, he was a Los Angeles Free Press columnist, and he's now a legendary dead sci-fi author. The author of I have no mouth, but I must scream and some other real the way you phrase that made it sound like he's legendarily dead. He is. He is a lot of people. I mean, Harlan Ellison was a famous misanthrope. He made a lot of enemies. He made a lot of enemies, and politically he was pretty much the opposite of Joe Pyne, although in terms of being unpleasant, they were both very unpleasant people. Famously, Harlan Ellison called Joe a hustler and a bully, but noted that he was very sharp. Quote. I thought I'd go on his show and beat him at his own game, but I blew it. I spent my time talking about the issues, civil liberties and all that, and he talked about America. The trouble with pine was that he was really, really good at what he did now, and that that does get to like, yeah, you're ever going to win talking about the issues with these guys. That's not. And you could only get Joe to listen when it wasn't something he saw as an issue. I think that's why his why that interview with Jorgensen went the way it did is because it wasn't a political issue to his securing of interest. Yeah. Just curious. Yeah. This isn't this isn't real. This is just. Yeah, some flighty nonsense, you know? Yeah, it it's. I mean, I don't think he was treating it like nonsense. He was treating it like he was just learning a new science fact. It wasn't political. It was not a political. Yeah, he definitely didn't treat it the same way he was treating the High Times, dude. Essner or or Anton Levay but I feel like he probably considered them in the same bucket of like well this isn't this is like a personal interest story. This isn't real news, real issue. He clearly respected her more than he did any either of them. But yes, I think it was the same kind of like well this is not a political thing. This is this is personal interest. This is just something that people are going to be fascinated by that I can also like you can, you can, you can create a kind of like you fantastic title for it. You know, it's something that'll that'll get people get eyeballs on the screen. In 1969, Joe started having trouble breathing. He was diagnosed with with lung cancer. For years, he had jokingly called his cigarettes coffin nails. And you saw him light up at least once. On the flip side, I think he smoked. In all the clips we watched, he was always smoking. Yeah, they just repeatedly promised yes, your government issue cigarettes. He had repeatedly promised that he would never give up smoking, but he quit after getting his diagnosis. It didn't help. When he got too sick to drive to the studio, he hosted his show from his home, making him a trailblazer and yet another way. Wow. At the fair. Yeah. He was the first first one to show we're doing Tom. Yeah. Yeah. And what we're doing. Yeah. At the very end of his life, he lay in his bed ranting about the Peace Corps because they wanted to end the war in Vietnam. He died in 1970 at age 45. Thank you, comrade. Wow. Yeah, 45. That dude was 45. That dude was mainlining cigarettes his entire adult life. From the time he was 14, he was probably spoken 6 packs a day. I want the listeners to understand that this ************ looks like in these clips we watched, he looks like he's at least 68. Yeah, he looks so old. I mean, in fairness, some of that's World War Two. I know. Yeah. I mean, it's it's like a joke on the Internet where it's like we have people who were like 38 in in 1975. They were on the door. But like, I wanna read. Ohh yeah, yeah, yeah. No 45. Yeah, dude, he's a young person now. Yeah, younger than ohh. What's the guy? The funny man? All the ladies like him. He's the Ant man. What's his ******* name? Ant-Man? Paul Rudd. Paul Rudd. Paul Rudd's older than Joe Pine died at now, right? Paul Rudd is older than Joe Pine ever was and looks half his. And when Paul Rudd is 70, he won't look his oldest. Joe Pine looked at this dude looks older than Shatner. Yeah. The Smithsonian magazine lays out how directly his influence led to the creation of some of the most influential careers in modern right wing media quote one of Pines proteges. The controversial radio Shouter Bob Grant followed his mentor Pine as a talk show shutter in Los Angeles before moving to New York where grant paved the way for his successor at W ABC, Sean Hannity. Hannity had first gained national attention, subbing for Rush Limbaugh, another Bob Grant fan. When Grant died in 2013, Hannity hailed. Says one of the greatest pioneers of controversial, opinionated talk radio. Grant, in turn, had acknowledged his debt to the founder of in Your Face Talk. Even Vice President Mike Pence, who hosted a right wing talk show in Indiana in the 1990s, was a successor of Pines, according to Harlan Ellison, who admired Pine shrewdness while loathing his politics. I've appeared on that sort of show all over the country. They call it controversy, but they're all about vilification and hostility, and their motto is pot. Model is pine, and pine is again an odd figure for me because when I first started. Eating this kind of stuff about him calling him a bully, I expected a different kind of bully than the videos revealed. He's absolutely a bully, but he's subtler than the ones we see today. I found a column in the Saturday Evening Post from the 1960s where a left wing reviewer tries to explain his appreciation for the Joe Pyne Show quote. After watching one of these shows, and it does not matter whether I loaded the guest to the host or both, I feel somehow drained and less misanthropic. Not long ago, for example, I had a terrible day. I had a migraine and my daughter sliced her finger with a razor blade. And I got a rejection slip, and a cop gave me a speeding ticket. My third this year, which means that I will probably lose my license. And in Los Angeles, that is like being a functional paraplegic. That night I watched Joe Pyne. His guests included a lady who complained that television sportscasters never carry drag racing results, a man who blamed the current racial unrest on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a veteran who said we ought to drop the big bomb on Vietnam. The vet said he did not fight World War Two to throw this one away. It turned out that he had been a Navy mailman. I was outside the zoo looking in again. Life did not seem so bad. After all, I went to bed and slept. Well, I that what's going on in that guy's life, though? Yeah, that is that is honest. We had lost his license. His daughter cut. What is what is razor blade? What? Yeah. Wait, what do we access to razor blades? Look, I'm not gonna blades for. It was a different time, Tom. I'm sure he was giving her cigarettes, too. This guy Tom her down. This guy's life was already shaky before the show. Pine show came into the picture. But yeah, you could like the the appreciation you could have for Joe Pine. If you weren't in the cult is part of what makes him different from what came later and in Part 2. Tom, we're going to talk about what came later, but for right now we need to talk about the **** you've got to plug. Oh geez. Alright, well yeah, if you we have. I've got a Patreon. If you had over to patreon.com/game for unemployed, you can find our podcast networks. Me and David Bell. But also from cracked. We do a bunch of shows every week. We do. We just watch. Typecast we do. Fox Motor is a maniac, Tom and Jeff. Which Batman? Star Trek? The next Futurama? Bunch of great shows you can check out there. Also do writing over at Collider and for some more news and for one 900 hot dog so you can look at all of those things. Check it out. Yeah, alright. And you can, you know you can go to hell. That's right, go to hell. 24 when you get there. When you get to hell, tell Joe Pyne that Robert sent it. Yeah, tell Joe Pyne Robertson. And then kick him in the nuts and scream the name Rush Limbaugh. He won't know what you did say, and he died decades before that man was relevant. I feel like going to hell. They just make you listen to clips of everything that's on this episode. I repeat, we haven't even gotten to the bad **** yet. Wait for Part 2, yo. 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