Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is the brief
Speaker 2: overview of Cliff Notes.
Speaker 1: We're not going to do the Exhausted Encyclopedia documentary length
Speaker 1: Cliff's Notes episode.
Speaker 2: Nope, we are doing the brief overview of Cliff's Notes.
Speaker 2: I said it wrong the first time. It's never been
Speaker 2: cliff notes. It's Cliff's notes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the first thing we should probably say,
Speaker 1: because Jerry and the pre show banter even got it wrong.
Speaker 1: Even though I said, Jerry, we're doing an episode on
Speaker 1: Cliff's notes. She said, I used to get cliff notes.
Speaker 1: It's not cliff notes. I used to say cliff notes
Speaker 1: too in high school. But it is Cliff's notes, as
Speaker 1: in the person's nameless Cliff. As we'll soon found find out.
Speaker 1: It used to an apostrophe, then it just became cliffs
Speaker 1: two words notes without an apostrophe. Then it became cliffs
Speaker 1: notes all one word, but with that end capitalized.
Speaker 2: So stylish.
Speaker 1: But it has never been cliff notes.
Speaker 2: No, but everyone basically in the world calls it cliff.
Speaker 1: Notes, right, and we should tell everyone what this is.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, I do know that they went
Speaker 1: around the world a little bit, but it feels like
Speaker 1: a very American thing. It is a study aid. It's
Speaker 1: basically sort of I was about to say a cliffs
Speaker 1: Notes version of the book, because it's so in the
Speaker 1: lexicon now. But it's like if you went to read
Speaker 1: a book in high school in the eighties, like The
Speaker 1: Scarlet Letter, and you're like, oh God, do I really
Speaker 1: have to read the Scarlet Letter? You would go to
Speaker 1: a store and you would buy this yellow and black,
Speaker 1: very thin pamphlet. I don't remember how much they were then,
Speaker 1: they're only about eight ninety nine now. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: would contextualize the work. It would summarize the work, give
Speaker 1: the character descriptions, basically everything you needed to know the
Speaker 1: night before to pass the test or write the paper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you said, it's entered the lexicon. Most
Speaker 2: people can recognize it just that from that yellow and
Speaker 2: black cover it looks like a minute Work album cover. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or Striper Striper, Yes, very nice. Maybe that's where Striper
Speaker 2: got it maybe. And then yeah, most people in America
Speaker 2: know what we're talking about. I do wonder how well
Speaker 2: known it is around the world, though.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it ended up going to thirty
Speaker 1: nine countries. But it just feels like a very lazy
Speaker 1: American thing, especially for gen xers, to be like, I'll
Speaker 1: just get that and that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's been long, basically from the outset, criticized
Speaker 2: for being this thing that students read and use instead
Speaker 2: of actually reading the material, the book that they're supposed
Speaker 2: to read. That actually ran a foul. I guess of
Speaker 2: what the guy who invented these things intent was. He
Speaker 2: always said, no, this is not what that's for. You're
Speaker 2: supposed to read the regular book. You're supposed to read
Speaker 2: the Scarlet Letter, Chuck, and whether you like it or
Speaker 2: not doesn't matter. And then you get the cliffs notes
Speaker 2: and you understand it that much more fully. That was
Speaker 2: the point.
Speaker 1: That's right. And of course we're talking about Keith Hilla Gas.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm kidding. Clifton Heath kill A Gas. His name
Speaker 1: was cliff a gentleman was a true corn Huskers. We'll see.
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen eighteen out in the rural
Speaker 1: sticks of Nebraska. His father was a mail carrier and
Speaker 1: he was a very smart kid, and I would assume
Speaker 1: a smart adult because he studied physics and math at
Speaker 1: Midland Lutheran College and then was going to grad school
Speaker 1: for physics and geology at the University of Nebraska, Go
Speaker 1: corn Huskers, Okay, but dropped out in nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: to marry a classmate named Katherine Gallbraith, at which time
Speaker 1: he got a job at Long's College Books as a clerk,
Speaker 1: and that company would later become the Nebraska Book Company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, long story short, Cliff Hill of Gas was
Speaker 2: a very smart guy. I saw that he was said
Speaker 2: to read five books a week basically his whole life.
Speaker 1: Or did he just read five quick summaries?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just don't know because he's dead
Speaker 2: now and we can't ask him.
Speaker 1: That's right. But he worked at the NBC Nebraska Book
Speaker 1: Company up until World War Two when he went to
Speaker 1: the Army. He was a meteorologist for the Army Air Corps.
Speaker 1: So again, pretty smart dude ended up a captain and
Speaker 1: his wife, Catherine, worked as a clerk for the Manhattan Project,
Speaker 1: so she was sharp as attack as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, I want to give big ups. Are we
Speaker 2: still saying big ups? Heck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, we're old people. We can say whatever we want.
Speaker 2: I want to give big ups to Olivia who helped
Speaker 2: us out with this, because there is not a lot
Speaker 2: of information on cliff Notes out there. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: it's just not out there. You can get like the
Speaker 2: like appropriately enough to brief overview of cliff Notes in
Speaker 2: its history, but to really dig in and get the details,
Speaker 2: you got to get out there. So thanks to her
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: She did it. I think she broke into the estate
Speaker 1: of the Hillo Gas estate and stole a diary. She did,
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then also I want to give big ups
Speaker 2: to Mental Flows too because they did some really good
Speaker 2: reporting on it, to some good digging.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. All right. So back to Cliff Hillogas
Speaker 1: he was in the army. Then after the war he
Speaker 1: went back to his old job at the Nebraska Book Company.
Speaker 2: And we knew you'd be crawling back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he helped transform them into a wholesale textbook distributor,
Speaker 1: and he ended up sort of traveling all over the
Speaker 1: country buying and selling used textbooks. When a little trip
Speaker 1: to Toronto, Canada ended up being quite a good thing
Speaker 1: for the course of his life, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on who you're talking about. It wasn't that
Speaker 2: good of a thing for named Jack Cole, the guy
Speaker 2: who we had dinner with in Toronto, who was a
Speaker 2: bookstore owner. And Jack Cole was like, hey, man, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna let you in on this business opportunity. I have
Speaker 2: these condensed pamphlets that basically are analysis of Shakespeare's place.
Speaker 2: I publish sixteen of them, and I think the quote
Speaker 2: from Cliff Hillogas was Jack Cole said yes, I know, yeah,
Speaker 2: he said, I want you to be the American distributor
Speaker 2: of these pamphlets, which I call Cole's Notes. And Clifton
Speaker 2: Hilligas said, all right, I'll give it a shot, and
Speaker 2: started selling these things, publishing them and selling them in America.
Speaker 2: And what happened from Cole's Notes.
Speaker 1: Chuck, Well, the first thing we should say is he
Speaker 1: took a great risk. And I'm not like, you know,
Speaker 1: weighing in one way or the other of the ethics
Speaker 1: of any of this. But Hillogas did take upon great
Speaker 1: financial risks. Huh. He got a loan for four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to make this happen close to fifty grand today,
Speaker 1: and printed up thirty three thousand copies of these Cole's
Speaker 1: Notes himself, and he and his wife Catherine and their
Speaker 1: three young kids, like packed and shipped these things in
Speaker 1: their house, out of their home for a little while,
Speaker 1: and we're selling pretty good. And then what happened.
Speaker 2: Josh, Well, yeah, so they were paying royalties to Jet Cole.
Speaker 2: That was the setup, and within the first year, I
Speaker 2: guess Hilla Gas was like nuts to that, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to rename these things cliff Notes Cliffs Notes. So
Speaker 2: they went from Cole's Notes to cliffs Notes. I think
Speaker 2: the Cole was heard to say and Cliff was like,
Speaker 2: I can't hear you. I'm done in Nebraska. So I
Speaker 2: just see people gloss over this all the time like
Speaker 2: it's I just don't understand why it's not at all
Speaker 2: controversial because he clearly just took he just lifted the
Speaker 2: intellectual property of Jet Cole and took it as his own.
Speaker 2: To be fair, he re wrote and phased out the
Speaker 2: Cole's Note stuff, but the whole concept and even basically
Speaker 2: the name was the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would argue that maybe the name is intellectual property,
Speaker 1: but I think in a court of law a judge
Speaker 1: would say, like you can't claim like doing a condensed
Speaker 1: version of a book as like an original idea that
Speaker 1: no one else can do, because there were summaries before this.
Speaker 1: They didn't invent the idea of a literary summary, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if law and Order has taught me anything,
Speaker 2: it's that you can't predict what a judge is going
Speaker 2: to rule.
Speaker 1: No, that's true, but and I do. I'm not like
Speaker 1: going to bat for Cliff. I'm just saying that I
Speaker 1: don't think that's one of those ideas you can say,
Speaker 1: like I hold the idea for condensing a long novel
Speaker 1: into a shorter version.
Speaker 2: No, I understand, And I'm not trying to like gun
Speaker 2: him down. I just hadn't gotten my gotcha today, so
Speaker 2: that was right.
Speaker 1: I do feel bad for Cole though, if it helps.
Speaker 2: I do too, and nowhere what his his his reaction
Speaker 2: was or what he did. I made up his quote
Speaker 2: of that was right. But yeah, everybody just walks right
Speaker 2: past that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: And I refuse to well people.
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone is called out online for doing
Speaker 1: something like this, but old old Cliff gets a pass,
Speaker 1: I guess because everyone got through school because of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. So, yeah, this is not to
Speaker 2: paint him as a bad guy. If you want to
Speaker 2: know about him. He treasured letters that he got from
Speaker 2: students thanking him for helping them get through school, which
Speaker 2: you and I can attest. Getting a letter and email
Speaker 2: like that is really great. So I guess that makes
Speaker 2: us really great too. If I'm saying that that makes
Speaker 2: him a good guy, that's wonderful. That really worked out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sold a lot of these pretty quickly, though.
Speaker 1: I do like how Olivia, but he gradually phased out
Speaker 1: the original material, right, It seemed like that happened within
Speaker 1: that first year. Yeah, but he was I also couldn't
Speaker 1: find when he stopped paying the royalties. It was that
Speaker 1: during the first year or two.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing when it became cliff notes. He yeah, stopped
Speaker 2: paying royalty probably right.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, between the start of when he started doing
Speaker 1: that in August of nineteen fifty eight and just yet
Speaker 1: six months six months later, at the end of that year,
Speaker 1: he had sold fifty eight thousand copies of these book
Speaker 1: summaries and pamphlets, and by nineteen sixty four, but six
Speaker 1: years later, he was doing it. He was doing all
Speaker 1: this on the side from the Nebraska Book Company. He
Speaker 1: was able to quit that job by sixty four, and
Speaker 1: just the sixties were a big decade period. He quit
Speaker 1: that job in sixty four. He changed the name in
Speaker 1: the sixties from Cliff's Notes without the apostrophe to cliffs Notes, Big,
Speaker 1: big deal. And then he got divorced in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six and got remarried.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Later on he got remarried to a woman named Mary. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I guess he adopted her two kids. Another thing
Speaker 2: that shows he's a stand up guy. Really, the only
Speaker 2: blemish on his entire lifetime is how he treated Jack Cole.
Speaker 1: That's true. But did those kids biological father get royalties
Speaker 1: on those children?
Speaker 2: Named them Cliff's kids. They were originally Jack Cole's because
Speaker 2: he stole his wife Mary.
Speaker 1: Oh man uh, And everyone just glosses right over there.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Sure, all right, we'll take
Speaker 1: an early break here because this one's probably a little
Speaker 1: bit shorter, and we'll talk about the early days of
Speaker 1: that company right after this.
Speaker 2: We los so much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff futi.
Speaker 2: So we should say, despite legendarily reading five books a week,
Speaker 2: Hilly guests didn't write any of the cliffs notes. He
Speaker 2: was more like the business guy. He Yeah, he had
Speaker 2: the ide you would put in scare quotes, and he
Speaker 2: was running the whole operation. He had the vision for it, right,
Speaker 2: So he hired other people and initially hired literature teachers
Speaker 2: like hardcore, like hardcore, like they have crew cuts and
Speaker 2: wear like army boots and stuff like that kind of
Speaker 2: lit teacher. But he realized something very quickly that I'm
Speaker 2: sure developed. A hardcore lit teacher who's been teaching the
Speaker 2: same books, been teaching a Scarlet Letter for I think
Speaker 2: we should not mention a single other book besides a
Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter in this episode. What do you think?
Speaker 1: Agreed?
Speaker 2: All right, let's give it a shot. These hardcore lit
Speaker 2: teachers who have been teaching a Scarlet Letter or the
Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter, sorry for twenty years. Technically I just named
Speaker 2: another book, Chuck for twenty years. These people know too much,
Speaker 2: They understand the book too well, they know all the
Speaker 2: details that they just get mired down when they're writing
Speaker 2: a synopsis or something. It's just too intense for the audience,
Speaker 2: which is high school and call it reads usually undergrad readers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, well, pump your brakes. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to sell these to lazy kids, exactly like broad Overview. Please.
Speaker 1: He ended up with grad students, mainly saying that they
Speaker 1: did the best work, which makes sense too, that's right.
Speaker 1: But we mentioned the iconic yellow and black design. That
Speaker 1: was something Cliff thought of himself. I remember the Mountain
Speaker 1: Cliffs even being on the editions I had when I was,
Speaker 1: you know, a student in the eighties. I don't think
Speaker 1: they have that anymore, but they have these yellow and
Speaker 1: black stripes. They just it looks. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: genius branding move, just to do that simple little thing.
Speaker 1: Because Cliff's Notes were so identifiable from from across a
Speaker 1: bookstore the night before a test or something, you could
Speaker 1: zoom over to that, that spinning rack of yellow and
Speaker 1: black pamphlets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would. You'd walk in the bookstore and they'd
Speaker 2: call to you, don't bother come by, Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 2: one of the big things. I didn't know this, but
Speaker 2: one of the big reasons Cliff Notes became the brand
Speaker 2: that it is today, which is to say iconic, is
Speaker 2: because they advertised a lot in the sixties and they
Speaker 2: very wisely went to where their readership was. They advertised
Speaker 2: in seventeen, they advertised in Playboy, they advertised in well,
Speaker 2: the Scholastic Journal. I don't know how much of a
Speaker 2: return on investment they got on that. But they also
Speaker 2: advertise in college newspapers bingo. Yeah, and so like if
Speaker 2: you're if you're going to high schoolers and college kids
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, we have something that you it's going
Speaker 2: to keep you from having to read a scarlet letter,
Speaker 2: the scarlet letter, like don't you want that? And they say, yes,
Speaker 2: I want that so bad. Like it just it just
Speaker 2: rooted that business and simultaneously made it take off like
Speaker 2: a rocket.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you would open up the scarlet letter
Speaker 1: Cliff notes and it would say the letter is a
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: That's why I keep a scarlet letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably could is it is literally a A for awesome, No,
Speaker 1: not quite. One thing Cliff had in his corner was
Speaker 1: all his work for the Nebraska Book Company and being
Speaker 1: a traveling salesperson and all these relationships he had with
Speaker 1: bookstores because he owned the market for this eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the market for guides to literature belonged to Cliff.
Speaker 1: Because that was just it. I mean I think I
Speaker 1: think for a long time, I mean, competitors would come along,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that, but I think he had
Speaker 1: a number of years, maybe even decades, where everyone was
Speaker 1: just like, well, no, there's already cliff Notes, Like why
Speaker 1: even bother m.
Speaker 2: He owns it, right, That wasn't enough to keep people
Speaker 2: from coming along as competitors. But it does seem like
Speaker 2: they really didn't start to emerge until much much later
Speaker 2: in history. Yeah, like decades and decades on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: One of the things that cliss Notes have long been
Speaker 2: criticized for, though, is like they write they write the
Speaker 2: book on the scarlet letter, and that's that. Like what
Speaker 2: you are reading could have been written by a grad
Speaker 2: student in nineteen sixty eight, even though you just bought
Speaker 2: this thing like last week. That's not the case any longer.
Speaker 2: It's changed hands, and as it's changed hands several times,
Speaker 2: they've definitely been dusted off and brushed up in all
Speaker 2: those idioms. But for a very long time it was
Speaker 2: like this is really old fashioned stuff, especially like the
Speaker 2: language they use, the points they're making a lot of.
Speaker 2: One of the things that cliss Notes was known for
Speaker 2: is putting works of literature specifically the Scarlet Letter into
Speaker 2: a historical context, and that can change as people understand
Speaker 2: history more. But if you don't go update it, it's
Speaker 2: the understanding of it.
Speaker 1: Eighteen sixty eight, Yeah, for sure. You know we mentioned
Speaker 1: the sixties. You just mentioned sixty eight for crying out loud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: being a kind of a big decade for the business.
Speaker 1: It was toward the end of that decade that things
Speaker 1: got a little rocky. It was around nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: that a couple of things happened to sort of dampen
Speaker 1: the business, I guess a little bit. And this is
Speaker 1: something I didn't know, but apparently starting in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine and through the first, you know, bit of the seventies,
Speaker 1: the classics people are like, Hey, all these new teachers
Speaker 1: came along and're like, hey, we don't need to read
Speaker 1: the Scarlett Letter anymore. We're going to read another unnamed
Speaker 1: book that's a little more current. And so the classics
Speaker 1: kind of fell off a little bit. And apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of high schools and colleges started the past fail thing.
Speaker 1: So a kid wasn't as incentivized to ace a test,
Speaker 1: they were just incentivized to pass a test. So They're like,
Speaker 1: I don't even need the cliff notes. I can just
Speaker 1: kind of fake my way through and pass this thing.
Speaker 1: As a result, they dropped about a million bucks a
Speaker 1: year in sales up until like the mid seventies, when
Speaker 1: they were like, oh my god, what were we thinking.
Speaker 1: We got to put the scarlet letterback on the reading list,
Speaker 1: and we have to grade these kids according to their grade.
Speaker 1: This past failed thing is not doing anyone any favors.
Speaker 2: It's chaos.
Speaker 1: It's chaos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Not only did they drop a million in sales,
Speaker 2: they dropped a million units in the middle.
Speaker 1: I thought that was sales.
Speaker 2: No, Like, the number of sales that they made dropped
Speaker 2: from two point eight million to one point eight million.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was pretty sure that was dollars. But and
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you're positive that it's units, I will
Speaker 1: move on.
Speaker 2: Seventy eight percent positive.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Well that tracks because I was twenty two
Speaker 1: percent pots okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Cliff Hill of Gas was like, you hippies
Speaker 2: right for that huge loss in sales for the mid seventies. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there was another stumble that they made Cliff's cassettes,
Speaker 2: which was a good idea if you ask me, totally.
Speaker 2: It was cliff Notes, but in a cassette version that
Speaker 2: your kids could pop into their Walkman and walk around
Speaker 2: listening to you.
Speaker 1: Want to be lazier in?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You don't even have to walk around. You
Speaker 2: can lay there and listen to this stuff with your
Speaker 2: eyes closed, in your hands soaking in Paul Mallin.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to read the Scarlet Letter, and
Speaker 1: you don't want to read the forty seven page summary,
Speaker 1: how about you just pop in that cassette and lay
Speaker 1: on your bed and smoke some.
Speaker 2: Grass, yeah, and listen to Ed Asner tell you what
Speaker 2: the Scarlet Letter means.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, was that planned or did you just come
Speaker 1: up with that ad?
Speaker 2: I just came up with that.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so great. This was only about a six
Speaker 1: month thing. It did not go over well despite being
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea that got me thinking about just
Speaker 1: audio books or books on tape and when that was
Speaker 1: a thing. Apparently that started in nineteen thirty two. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the American Foundation for the Blind opened up a recording studio,
Speaker 1: So it was a thing, but I feel like it
Speaker 1: didn't really take off until much, much, much later.
Speaker 2: Until the Walkman. Did you have a Walkman by the way.
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, of course I did.
Speaker 2: Nice. I did too. I associated specifically with my cassette
Speaker 2: of Huey Lewis and the News.
Speaker 1: Sports one of the great records of all time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really good.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever had a disc man.
Speaker 2: I didn't either.
Speaker 1: I think I went straight from Walkman to cheese. I
Speaker 1: guess iPod as far as walking around.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I never had an iPod. I went from
Speaker 2: Walkman to iPhone.
Speaker 1: I guess I had the first iPod.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I had the first, not the you know,
Speaker 1: not Steve Jobs's iPod, but you know, the first, the
Speaker 1: first edition. I still have it. It still works.
Speaker 2: Oh do you really? Wow, that's really saying something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I put pictures of it on my Instagram not
Speaker 1: too long ago actually, because I found it, charged it,
Speaker 1: and I just put up the opening screen because you know,
Speaker 1: the first Walkman had everything in alphabetical order just on
Speaker 1: the screen when he opened it. Yeah, and boy it
Speaker 1: was eight, eight or nine bands locked in time from
Speaker 1: I guess like two thousand or something whatever that was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have one of those.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm gonna get you a maybe a Nano
Speaker 1: no need.
Speaker 2: Those things were tiny though. They were like the size
Speaker 2: of a thumb of steak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or a square of chocolate.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, there you ca Yeah, we'll keep going right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mentioned Hillograss was a true corn Husker. He
Speaker 1: kept that company in Nebraska. He felt very strongly about
Speaker 1: that and donated ten percent of its profits to Nebraska organizations.
Speaker 1: Was a big curator of the art, So the Museum
Speaker 1: of Nebraska Art was a big one that benefited from
Speaker 1: his stealing that idea from coal and they have. If
Speaker 1: you've ever looked up, like, hey, what does this guy
Speaker 1: look like? Anyway, you might see a bronze statue of him,
Speaker 1: and that is from that Museum of Nebraska Art.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's standing up in some bushes like a creep
Speaker 2: with a book open.
Speaker 1: What else? What happened in nineteen eighty three?
Speaker 2: He this is this? This? I think this also kind
Speaker 2: of puts a certain like that it paints a picture
Speaker 2: of this guy. That's what I'm trying to say. At
Speaker 2: age sixty five on the dot, he retires, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: like that's just the kind of guy he was. But
Speaker 2: he didn't actually retire. He just stepped down from company
Speaker 2: president to the head of the board of directors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he still went into the office every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he instead of calling him mister hilligas they said,
Speaker 1: you can come a cliff.
Speaker 2: Right, he would show up in like a smoking jacket
Speaker 2: and ascot after he retired.
Speaker 1: Exactly, but he'd still called the shots.
Speaker 2: Right. But that's just I mean, I can totally because
Speaker 2: don't forget he was trained in geology, math physics, like
Speaker 2: he had a certain way of looking at things for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That a couple of years later, in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: that was a Chicago Tribune article. So this is mid eighties.
Speaker 1: They had a staff of about twenty five people, and
Speaker 1: they had published two hundred and twenty five five guide
Speaker 1: books or book guides rather sixty million copies in circulation.
Speaker 1: And yes, I nailed it, thirty nine countries in circulation,
Speaker 1: and apparently there were some countries that used them to
Speaker 1: help teach American English in different.
Speaker 2: Countries, sure, especially the English used by Americans. In nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Eight, that's right. By the end of the eighties they
Speaker 1: were taking in about eleven million bucks a year, which
Speaker 1: is pretty good. Scratch it, just about twenty eight today
Speaker 1: twenty eight million. Yeah, that's even better scratch, And by
Speaker 1: the end of the millennium in nineteen ninety nine, at
Speaker 1: the age of eighty one, he sold it off. He
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I'm eighty one. I want to
Speaker 1: live out my remaining years as a super rich guy
Speaker 1: and not just a medium rich guy. So he sold
Speaker 1: to IDG Books, who was a publisher of the Four
Speaker 1: Dummies guides that everyone knows, and he sold for only
Speaker 1: fourteen million, which kind of surprises me. Fully retired and
Speaker 1: sadly died a couple of years later at eighty three
Speaker 1: from complications of stroke.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered what that is like guys in particular,
Speaker 2: retiring and then dying like very soon after that. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a thing. And even if you don't die,
Speaker 2: you can, like a lot of people just get like
Speaker 2: really sick for a while afterwards. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's like you've been running on adrenaline last five
Speaker 2: years or what the deal is, but it's like when
Speaker 2: you finally your body finally resets, like I don't have
Speaker 2: to go to work anymore. Something happens to you.
Speaker 1: Are you saying this personally to me? So I, yep,
Speaker 1: can consider this as I.
Speaker 2: Wait my future retiring choke.
Speaker 1: It was bought and sold a few more times, though.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, John Wiley and Son's bought
Speaker 1: the brand. They changed the name this time. This is
Speaker 1: when they squashed it together as Cliff's Notes with the
Speaker 1: Capitol NY. Then Houghton Mifflin Harcourt bought it in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: and then Course Hero bought it in twenty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to courts heroes a online tutor. Essentially,
Speaker 2: they have courses and their heroes for it.
Speaker 1: And one final thing before we take the break, is
Speaker 1: it is I think the New York Times and the
Speaker 1: Early aughts did a report and they found that it's
Speaker 1: not just lazy high school kids that are buying these books.
Speaker 1: They found out it's lazy adults in book clubs. They
Speaker 1: want to participate in the book club, but they maybe
Speaker 1: don't have the time to read the Scarlet Letter, so
Speaker 1: they'll get the cliff Notes so they can go and
Speaker 1: have some wine and talk about the abridged version.
Speaker 2: Right, you can tell the ones that read the cliff
Speaker 2: Notes of the Scarlet Letter because they're the ones who
Speaker 2: thought it was really good.
Speaker 1: That's right, And it's also the yellow and black is
Speaker 1: sticking out from their fanny.
Speaker 2: Fact, they have a little piece of it in their teeth.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, shall we take our second break? Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be back and pick up on where
Speaker 1: we are today with Cliff and his notes. We loss
Speaker 1: so much stuff from Josh and Shook.
Speaker 2: Still fui.
Speaker 1: All right, as promised, we're going to talk about Cliffs
Speaker 1: Notes today. You can still buy these pamphlets. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I looked up online if you want to buy the
Speaker 1: scarlet letter and hold it in your hand. I think
Speaker 1: it was eight ninety nine somewhere a little less. But
Speaker 1: they're kind of in that ballpark.
Speaker 2: Aren't they used? Though they're not newly printed.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean they saw them on Amazon
Speaker 1: that still could be used.
Speaker 2: I guess that was my take that they're used, But
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 1: Maybe I do know that their main source of income
Speaker 1: now is the website that offers most of this stuff
Speaker 1: for free, which is weird that they also have a
Speaker 1: fee model.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can subscribe to Cliffs Notes today for
Speaker 2: I think nine dollars a month or thirty six bucks
Speaker 2: a year, and you get all of the free stuff,
Speaker 2: but you can also download it as a PDF, so
Speaker 2: if you learned better by like reading on print or
Speaker 2: on paper, you would need to do that. But they
Speaker 2: also have other stuff too. There's like much more in
Speaker 2: depth guides and analysis and stuff like that behind their paywall.
Speaker 2: So it's not like you're just a total sucker for
Speaker 2: paying for free cliffs Notes, because they have a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff that's not just free.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I got, we're not going to go through
Speaker 1: this list, but Olivia was kind enough, I think because
Speaker 1: she needed to fulfill a word count to list out
Speaker 1: what you get in the actual free version of let's say,
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter. And my take is that you get
Speaker 1: a pretty good like summary and chapter by chapter thing
Speaker 1: and character analysis and all that stuff. But it's just
Speaker 1: even a lesser version than the more or robust paid monthly.
Speaker 2: Right, and I mean it's even more. It's like there's
Speaker 2: pretty good detail in it. Like for their their analysis
Speaker 2: of The Scarlet Letter, they talk about how the Scarlet
Speaker 2: Letter fits into dystopian fiction in general, yeah, or how
Speaker 2: Big Brother in the Scarlet Letter can be compared to
Speaker 2: Hitler stallin yeh, or when hester Prinne develops news speak,
Speaker 2: what all that means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, an a biography of George Orwell, the writer
Speaker 1: of the Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. I went
Speaker 2: in and poked around, and it is a lot of
Speaker 2: free stuff. Like you could write a numerous really good
Speaker 2: slam dunk papers on the Scarlet Letter just from the
Speaker 2: free stuff that they have available. So I'm a little
Speaker 2: curious too what their business model is, because it doesn't
Speaker 2: really make sense to me unless it's a portal two
Speaker 2: course Hero. Now that I think about it, I'll bet
Speaker 2: it is. I'll bet they get you with the free
Speaker 2: stuff and then they get you into course Hero, and
Speaker 2: they turn you upside down and shake you by your
Speaker 2: ankles until all the change falls out of your pockets?
Speaker 1: Do you want to be a better student for nine
Speaker 1: books a month? So we should talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the elephant in the room, which is that
Speaker 1: this is just a way for kids to cheat. I mean,
Speaker 1: the other elephant is we haven't discussed our own cliff notes.
Speaker 1: Cliff notes use I will volunteer my own. You don't
Speaker 1: have to answer, I've never used them. Okay, Well, go
Speaker 1: ahead and just make me look bad right before I
Speaker 1: say that I leaned on them.
Speaker 2: No worse than that. I never I didn't even bother
Speaker 2: to use the cliff notes. I didn't read the material either.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I was just a really, really lame high school student.
Speaker 2: In high school, I was not good at all. I
Speaker 2: didn't blossom until college.
Speaker 1: Okay, I do remember that now. But you were setting
Speaker 1: me up to look like a chump.
Speaker 2: I No, I didn't saved you, thank you like hester
Speaker 2: I did it in the Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 1: That's right. I did use cliff notes, not exclude. I
Speaker 1: was always a believer, and this is not right, kids
Speaker 1: of I love to read. I was an English major,
Speaker 1: for heaven's sake. No, so I love to read, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to read what I wanted to read. Emily
Speaker 1: still sort of challenges me, not on just reading, but
Speaker 1: like Chuck only does what he wants to do, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. That's not the best trade, everybody, you
Speaker 1: should not be like Chuck. But I wanted to read
Speaker 1: what I wanted to read. I didn't want to read
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter. So I got the cliffs notes and
Speaker 1: you know, probably peruse the Scarlet Letter. The books that
Speaker 1: I was like, I totally want to read that I
Speaker 1: can't think of another book.
Speaker 2: Title, the Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would read that Scarlet Letter. I wouldn't read
Speaker 1: the one they assigned to me. So I did use
Speaker 1: cliff notes. I did that was in high school. Did
Speaker 1: not use them in college as an English major because
Speaker 1: I felt like it was time to get a little
Speaker 1: more serious and I chose that major willingly, so I
Speaker 1: should probably do the work. And that was only work
Speaker 1: in college I really really enjoyed was reading and writing.
Speaker 1: So I didn't use him in college. But all that
Speaker 1: to say, the elephant in the room is like, is
Speaker 1: this just for lazy kids? And you mentioned that Hilligas
Speaker 1: was like no, but how would he enforce that or
Speaker 1: encourage that?
Speaker 2: Rather with a stern note? Yeah, at the beginning of
Speaker 2: every copy of cliff Notes, he had a little note.
Speaker 2: His signature was next to it too. He said that
Speaker 2: a thorough appreciation of literature allows no shortcuts, and students
Speaker 2: who use them to avoid reading the actual material or
Speaker 2: having to go into class for discussion groups about the
Speaker 2: material are denying themselves the very education that they are
Speaker 2: presumably giving their most vital years to achieve. And I
Speaker 2: feel like he took a bit of an utopian approach
Speaker 2: to how he viewed his customers. But surely there was
Speaker 2: some out there. I do wonder if there was a
Speaker 2: single cliff Notes buyer who read that note and was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to change my wage. I'm
Speaker 2: abusing these things.
Speaker 1: I doubt it, but I'm sure there were students like
Speaker 1: I did, at times where a book was a little
Speaker 1: over their head and they used the cliff Notes as
Speaker 1: intended to help with the book.
Speaker 2: I saw also that some teachers did that. They actually
Speaker 2: suggested cliffs Notes for some students, which meant that your
Speaker 2: teacher thought you were a dip stick.
Speaker 1: Well. Teachers also were on record as using it for
Speaker 1: lesson planning, sometimes because they didn't want to read the
Speaker 1: scarlet letter either.
Speaker 2: That's really hilarious. That's so missus Kravopple, it totally is.
Speaker 2: And then a lot of them actually used cliff Notes
Speaker 2: for the opposite reasons. They would know like like, if
Speaker 2: you're a high school English teacher, there's a handful of
Speaker 2: the scarlet letters that you've assigned during the year, and
Speaker 2: you assigned the same scarlet letters over and over again,
Speaker 2: year after year, so you probably know the cliffs Notes
Speaker 2: on those things. By heart, so you can very easily
Speaker 2: pick out when somebody is not only using the cliffs Notes,
Speaker 2: but way worse than that, it's actually plagiarizing the cliffs Notes.
Speaker 2: That was the low laziest thing you could possibly do.
Speaker 2: Prior to chat GPT writing your your paper for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is coming from two gen xers, and we
Speaker 1: wrote the book on how to get away with lazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't even read the material or the cliffs Notes.
Speaker 2: That's pretty lazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Certain universities took charge. In nineteen ninety seven, Villanova
Speaker 1: pulled cliff Notes from their college bookstore. Other bookstores maybe
Speaker 1: didn't sell them, but they're the only one that Livy
Speaker 1: could find at least that actually pulled them off the shelves.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were famously sent in a hit squad that
Speaker 2: ended up trashing the bookstore and tore up all of
Speaker 2: the cliffs Notes. And when they left, they threw flash
Speaker 2: bang grenades into the bookstore as they take.
Speaker 1: Off, and yellow h Hut Cliff did not like this,
Speaker 1: and they took out a full page ad. I guess
Speaker 1: he was passed away by this point, but the company
Speaker 1: didn't like this, and they took an ad in the
Speaker 1: Villanova student newspaper called it censorship, and the college just
Speaker 1: like they can still mind these things anywhere. This is
Speaker 1: sort of a symbolic gesture calm down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we kind of touched on and we didn't say
Speaker 2: it like overtly, But there were a lot of teachers
Speaker 2: out there who were okay with cliff Notes, and some
Speaker 2: who even encouraged their use. That seems to have come
Speaker 2: along like a generation after cliffs Notes came out, which
Speaker 2: is not coincidental because a lot of those people who
Speaker 2: grew up to be English teachers and English professors used
Speaker 2: cliff Notes when they went through school themselves, so at
Speaker 2: the very least they had a certain fondness of it,
Speaker 2: and at best they were like, this is actually super
Speaker 2: helpful as a reference material.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And if you have a set of
Speaker 1: cliffs Notes that you have read recently from later in
Speaker 1: the company's story, you're like, hey, man, I didn't see
Speaker 1: any note from cliff saying these aren't shortcuts. Ps enjoyed
Speaker 1: the shortcut. This didn't have anything in it. I think
Speaker 1: the minute he sold that company, they were like, let's
Speaker 1: get rid of that note. Yeah, it's a real dragon.
Speaker 1: Not only that, like our advertising should actively encourage the
Speaker 1: fact that this is a shortcut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much what they did.
Speaker 1: Let's own it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did own it. I think they kind
Speaker 2: of walked it back a little bit, so there's like
Speaker 2: a watered down version of his note essentially saying the
Speaker 2: same thing. But they definitely did. They said the the
Speaker 2: unspoken part out loud. I guess is how they put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Is this Here's the big question though,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad Livia posed this question, like is it
Speaker 1: bad to use cliffs notes and the very idea of
Speaker 1: like do kids need to read the Scarlet Letter or
Speaker 1: is the only reason they're reading the Scarlet Letter to
Speaker 1: just not look like a dipstick when someone brings up
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Letter, like do you just need to be
Speaker 1: acquainted with this stuff as a cultural touch point in
Speaker 1: life or to get a Jeopardy answer correct or I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Jeopardy clue correct.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: We almost got our membership provoked. And you know this
Speaker 1: is me speaking. I think, yeah, like you should read
Speaker 1: these books, and a lot of people are on record
Speaker 1: saying yeah, I mean, not necessarily just a scarlet letter,
Speaker 1: but it's called I believe there's a literature scholar from
Speaker 1: the University of Kentucky named Alan Nadell that calls it
Speaker 1: the labor of witnessing, Like to actually read the thing
Speaker 1: is the thing. It's not reading the Wikipedia, I think
Speaker 1: that was. She found a redditor East t X Josh
Speaker 1: that said, it's like reading the Wikipedia on Beethoven's ninth
Speaker 1: but not listening to it. There's something about experiencing the
Speaker 1: thing that is different and valuable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and reading all this chuck made me realize
Speaker 2: how much I missed out by not reading all those
Speaker 2: books in high school. You still can, buddy, right, So
Speaker 2: I went on a couple of like I searched books
Speaker 2: you should read before you die, and that brought up
Speaker 2: humorous lists, and there's some that appear on all the lists.
Speaker 2: And I'm still searching for which the Scarlet Letter I'm
Speaker 2: going to read?
Speaker 1: Right, but single book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have any recommendations for one to start with,
Speaker 2: let me know.
Speaker 1: Well, you know it would be fun. As our mutual
Speaker 1: friend Joey Siara of the Henry Clay People who are friends,
Speaker 1: who wrote that and performed the theme song to our
Speaker 1: television show and still a good friend. I'm going to
Speaker 1: see he's going to Glengarry with me this weekend.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 1: He is a Moby Dick aficionado and collects copies and
Speaker 1: versions of that, and he said that is the best
Speaker 1: book of all time. He said, it's not my favorite book.
Speaker 1: He said, it's the best book.
Speaker 2: You mean the Scarlet Letter, the one with the Great
Speaker 2: White Way.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, I got the name wrong. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, yeah, I saw that one and I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know, I read It'd be fun
Speaker 2: if we both read that, Okay. I have a feeling
Speaker 2: you're going to be like, you're still reading that two
Speaker 2: years from now.
Speaker 1: But well, let's put it this way. Joey gave me
Speaker 1: a copy probably two years ago, and it sits untouched.
Speaker 2: Okay, Shell, all right, do you give me a two
Speaker 2: year head start and then you start and we'll finish
Speaker 2: at the same time and talk about it.
Speaker 1: I gotta put down this Mike Campbell book of Tom
Speaker 1: Petty and the Heartbreakers, and the Rim one before that,
Speaker 1: and the mud Honey one before that I'll read is
Speaker 1: these rock books. I need to put them all away.
Speaker 1: And by the way, those are all called The Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 1: My story in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 2: Right, and also Chuck, I mean, if rock and Roll
Speaker 2: rot your brain reading about rock and roll really does?
Speaker 1: Should we mention one more point that teachers make or
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that a problem with study guides. Some people
Speaker 1: are like, hey, these study guys just give you one
Speaker 1: lens look through to view this thing. And what you
Speaker 1: need to do is read the book and go to
Speaker 1: a class and hear it from a teacher. But some
Speaker 1: people say, yeah, but that teacher is just looking at
Speaker 1: it through their lens. I disagree. As an English major,
Speaker 1: in my classes, the teacher would present perhaps their analysis,
Speaker 1: and then say this is what other people think, and
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 2: Right? And you have to have read the cliffs Notes
Speaker 2: to say you think. What else you want to talk
Speaker 2: about any of these parodies or spin offs or competitors?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we can just mention kind of quickly.
Speaker 1: Spark Notes became the biggest competitor in like nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: There's one called Schmoop found it in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight that became a pretty good competitor.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. I went and read some of their stuff.
Speaker 2: It's much more loosely written, like what's up with YadA
Speaker 2: YadA YadA. Oh really, what's up with that letter?
Speaker 1: A interesting? I do want to mention this one spoof
Speaker 1: at least Thug Notes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Did you watch any of these?
Speaker 2: That's the one on Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think give me the car letter Man.
Speaker 2: I got it too. We both went.
Speaker 1: Down Thug Notes.
Speaker 2: I was talking about the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh right, right, right. It's a YouTube series from comedian
Speaker 1: Greg Edwards. He plays a character, a PhD named Sparky Sweets,
Speaker 1: who summarizes a commentary on one hundred different books. They're
Speaker 1: generally about five minutes long, and it's a comedy thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's thug Notes. He does African American vernacular
Speaker 1: and breaks down these books in a fun way, in
Speaker 1: a very quick way. But he's got three point one
Speaker 1: four million subs, and if you watch one of these,
Speaker 1: like you did, you will soon learn like it's a joke,
Speaker 1: but he's laying down some real truth on some of
Speaker 1: these as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like when you finish watching one of these
Speaker 2: thug Notes, like you understand what that book was about,
Speaker 2: like fully, Like he does a great job with it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's just this whole stick to it. That's
Speaker 2: pretty awesome too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I watched a few of them, but the one
Speaker 1: on the Scarlet Letter by George Orwell. At the end
Speaker 1: in the analysis, he explains he talks about censorship and
Speaker 1: book burning and stalinism and double talk and all that
Speaker 1: stuff in a very fun way. And I can only
Speaker 1: think that, like, there might be young students that identify
Speaker 1: with with Greg Edwards and what he's doing, that it
Speaker 1: might provide a little real insight and inspiration, I hope. So,
Speaker 1: even though it's.
Speaker 2: Just a joke, did you say that? Did you say
Speaker 2: the name of his character on thug Notes?
Speaker 1: I did?
Speaker 2: I love it. I guess that's about it.
Speaker 1: Huh, that's all I got on cliff Notes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think man. Hats off to us, Hats off
Speaker 2: to Olivia, hats off to Mental Floss, Hats off to
Speaker 2: Sparky Sweet's PhD. We made it through cliffs Notes.
Speaker 1: Hats off to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hester Print too. Yeah, let's see, since we
Speaker 2: took our hat off to hester Print, of course, that
Speaker 2: means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is about Broadway. My name's Reagan. I've
Speaker 1: been a listener for ten years. My husband Paul, and
Speaker 1: I love to listen to you guys while we cooked dinner,
Speaker 1: and we listen to reruns on long car trips. I'm
Speaker 1: writing in Because Broadway the Broadway episode because I am
Speaker 1: a theatrical costume designer and I wanted to offer some
Speaker 1: more insight about previews that you guys were discussing. Previews
Speaker 1: have a cool function where they are actually used by
Speaker 1: the production team to keep changing, like Josh said, and
Speaker 1: fine tuning a show based on audience feedback, especially on
Speaker 1: a brand new show. New lines and music may even
Speaker 1: be written and added during the process. Changes can also
Speaker 1: include restaging and cutting or adding technical elements like costumes
Speaker 1: for props. However, Chuck was right and that toward the
Speaker 1: end of previews the show will be frozen by the director,
Speaker 1: which means no further changes are allowed to be made,
Speaker 1: and it's after that time that critics will be invited
Speaker 1: to attend during previews after they're frozen before opening night.
Speaker 1: Got it so that totally clears it up. Thanks for
Speaker 1: doing such a great job covering Broadway. Really touched me
Speaker 1: to hear about the theater world on my favorite podcast,
Speaker 1: because I listen to you guys almost daily in the
Speaker 1: costume shop. And that is from Reagan McKay, interim costume
Speaker 1: shop manager at the Roundhouse Theater.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's awesome. I think we talked about the Roundhouse Theater,
Speaker 2: didn't we.
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: I hope we did. Thank you very much, Reagan. We
Speaker 2: love it when we hear from experts in the field
Speaker 2: about an episode we talked about, especially when they say
Speaker 2: we got it right. And if you want to be
Speaker 2: like Reagan and send us an email where you're like, hey,
Speaker 2: I know what I'm talking about, and you guys did
Speaker 2: a good job. We love that kind of thing. You
Speaker 2: can send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.