Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuke Bryant. There's Jerry. Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: You are too tall to be a Rockett, aren't you?
Speaker 1: Just barely? Jerry and I can be rockets and you can't. No,
Speaker 1: it's true, which is a shame, because you have the
Speaker 1: gams I do. Actually, I've got pretty decent legs. You know,
Speaker 1: at least my calves are all right. What no thighs
Speaker 1: they're a little tree trunky for for my taste. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a bit of like a fertility idle thing
Speaker 1: going on, like up tour the hips and all that.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, well it's because of all those squats. I
Speaker 1: was not expecting to talk about this about your gams. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'll talk about my legs all day long. Well, let's
Speaker 1: hear it. They're shapely, Okay, they're they're not. I gained
Speaker 1: all my weight between my waist and my chin. Uh huh,
Speaker 1: Like I don't. If you looked at my legs in
Speaker 1: my arms, you'd be like, think, I weighs a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty pounds and then the rest of me comes
Speaker 1: along to bust that myth step aside, I still have
Speaker 1: a nice little fanny. Sure everybody knows that. Sorry listeners
Speaker 1: in the UK, Oh yeah, that means something different over there, doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's just so dainty and nice that a little, a
Speaker 1: little five year old kids can say fanny. In the
Speaker 1: United States, it's just the Brits who are sick ghos.
Speaker 1: But this isn't about our gams. This is about a
Speaker 1: dance troup, A legendary dance troop. Yeah, about as legendary
Speaker 1: as a dance troup can possibly be. Are the rockheads?
Speaker 1: I think so? I just said that sentence like, Yota,
Speaker 1: can you do the voice? No? No, no, not even
Speaker 1: going to try. But this totally surprised me digging into
Speaker 1: the research on this to to learn that the legendary
Speaker 1: Rockets of New York City and Radio City Music Hall
Speaker 1: are not from New York City. No, they're not. Where
Speaker 1: are they from? Chuck? Did you know this? I had
Speaker 1: no idea. Now, yeah, so shout out to St. Louis. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were founded in the nineteen twenties five, to be exact,
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, Missouri as the Rockets, the St. Louis Rockets,
Speaker 1: which I think they were trying to be a basketball team.
Speaker 1: Maybe St. Louis Rockets. Sure. Yeah. There was a choreographer
Speaker 1: named Russell Markert, which is uh, I kept wanting the
Speaker 1: same market, but that is an r. And he founded them,
Speaker 1: like you said in and he was he was inspired
Speaker 1: by a British dance troupe named the Tiller Girls, which
Speaker 1: was founded in the by John Tiller, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a similar idea. He saw these Tiller Girls
Speaker 1: and he was like, I want a high kicking, glamorous
Speaker 1: theatrical dance troupe of my own. Yeah, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: rip it off. He did. Actually, so, John Tiller is
Speaker 1: is um widely acknowledged as the the creator of what's
Speaker 1: called precision dance, which is where you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of dancers who are really highly trained, really athletic, and
Speaker 1: really precise in their movements, UM that can move in
Speaker 1: such unison that that you take a number, like a
Speaker 1: number of different dancers and they basically become one thing
Speaker 1: that's that can do things that an individual dancer can't do.
Speaker 1: And that's precision dance technique. And John Tyler literally invented it.
Speaker 1: With I think four ten year old girls in the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, and um, he came up with some further
Speaker 1: refinements to it, like when you put your hand around
Speaker 1: the waists of the people on either side of you,
Speaker 1: it kind of lends to the unity of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Um And and uh, Russell Maker Marcert saw this and
Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. If I can get some
Speaker 1: American girls with longer legs to kick higher, it'll knock
Speaker 1: everybody's socks off. That's a quote, by the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a there's something to that, that synchronicity of
Speaker 1: for me for movement and sound that just knocks me
Speaker 1: out every time. Um, when I go and see a
Speaker 1: a choir, what's like a hundred people singing together and
Speaker 1: high kicking, or or a symphony, just the not only
Speaker 1: the sound, but the movement when you watch a symphony,
Speaker 1: that's a big part of it for me. Uh, forget
Speaker 1: a coral symphony, Like I'm on the floor weeping if
Speaker 1: you take me to a coral symphony. But there's something
Speaker 1: about that precision of of all these people together. It's
Speaker 1: just really like, I don't know what it is about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Uh, it's a collective voice or collective movement,
Speaker 1: but it's that precision that really just gets gets me
Speaker 1: every time for sure. Well that's what the Rockets are
Speaker 1: known for. It's their their trade is precision dance. They're
Speaker 1: as good as it gets with it. Although the tailor
Speaker 1: girls are definitely still around, they still have Christmas specials themselves, um,
Speaker 1: and they're doing their thing for sure. So it's it's
Speaker 1: not just an off hand thing to say the Rockets
Speaker 1: are as good as it comes, as good as they
Speaker 1: come in in precision dance, because the tailer girls would
Speaker 1: probably say, um, I would dispute that statement, but they
Speaker 1: would say it with a British accent, right, I just
Speaker 1: be that statement. Uh. So they were not as tall
Speaker 1: back then. The original height requirements were between five two
Speaker 1: and five six and a half, and now they went,
Speaker 1: will take your tallest dancer and make them our shortest ancer,
Speaker 1: because I guess it's just I don't know, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they did that, but now it's between five
Speaker 1: six and five ten and a half. And it is
Speaker 1: not because they want to exclude people or any or
Speaker 1: discriminate against people who are too tall or they feel
Speaker 1: too short. But it's so they can just all look.
Speaker 1: It's an optical illusion, so they can all look the
Speaker 1: same height because they take that five ft ten and
Speaker 1: a half inch dancer, although they don't have to be
Speaker 1: that tall, but they take whoever their tallest. Answer is
Speaker 1: put her right in the middle and then just stagger
Speaker 1: it out from there, and in the end everyone looks.
Speaker 1: It's weird. Everyone looks to be the same height even
Speaker 1: though they're not. I don't understand how this works. It's
Speaker 1: just I saw so many different places that I'm convinced
Speaker 1: that it does work. I just don't get the illusion
Speaker 1: of how how it works. Well, I think over four
Speaker 1: inches and thirty six women, it's just so nut of
Speaker 1: differences as you scale down that it would take I
Speaker 1: guess a an extraordinary human to be like that woman
Speaker 1: is an inch and a half taller than the one
Speaker 1: five people away from her. You know, I got you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's true. So you're just a normal person,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Yeah, you should feel good about that.
Speaker 1: I fall for that optical illusion every time. Yeah, everybody should. Um.
Speaker 1: So they started with the Missouri Rockets with just sixteen women,
Speaker 1: and like I said, now, they have thirty six and
Speaker 1: they debuted in St. Louis, but then went to New
Speaker 1: York to perform Rain or Shine on Broadway, and that
Speaker 1: is where a man named s L. Roxy that was
Speaker 1: his nickname, uh Rothafel, which is an interesting name. That's
Speaker 1: where he saw them and said, Hey, I gotta get
Speaker 1: in on this. This is amazing. Yeah. So Russell make
Speaker 1: Markert took the idea from John Tiller, and Roxy Rothafel said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want in on this jam. So I'm gonna grab
Speaker 1: a few of these dancers from St. Louis and bring
Speaker 1: him over to New York City and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: him start dancing there. Okay, And I know just the
Speaker 1: place for him. There's this new venue that's opening up
Speaker 1: in ninety two and they're gonna call it the Radio
Speaker 1: City Music Hall. And I'm going to make sure that
Speaker 1: these dancers are able to perform, and we're going to
Speaker 1: call them the Roxyettes. How about that, huh because of
Speaker 1: his nickname, right, And Marcaret said, that's fine, just make
Speaker 1: sure you pay me some money for it. Sure, And
Speaker 1: he did get paid and got paid until nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: He that's it's hard to believe. But he worked for
Speaker 1: the Rockets or with the Rockets from nineteen thirty two
Speaker 1: to or I guess even previous in St. Louis, all
Speaker 1: the way until nine. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty long career. UM. So they they opened
Speaker 1: Radio City Music Hall. I think they're part of a
Speaker 1: seventeen UM group act. Uh. And that was like such
Speaker 1: a hot ticket, something like a hundred thousand people wanted in.
Speaker 1: But there it's a theater, which I think it still
Speaker 1: remains the nation's largest UM indoor venue, which is really
Speaker 1: saying something because I guess it would just be a
Speaker 1: like a theatrical venue because obviously the largest indoor venue
Speaker 1: sports venues UM have it beat by quite a bit.
Speaker 1: But oh, theatrical it has to. Yeah, it's either movie
Speaker 1: or theatrical or something. But it's the largest venue of
Speaker 1: its kind in in the United States from what I see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for many years they they I mean they had
Speaker 1: specials every now and then, but it was sort of
Speaker 1: just a movie theater. Yeah, and here's the thing, you
Speaker 1: could go see the movies. I think especially it started
Speaker 1: to take off in the fifties, like before they would
Speaker 1: have premieres for movies, and the Rockets would like perform
Speaker 1: at the premiere. And then at some point, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was Russell Markeret or Roxy Rothefell, or
Speaker 1: somebody said, well, why why just do this once? How
Speaker 1: about every time somebody comes to see a movie at
Speaker 1: the Radio City Music Hall, We'll have the rock the
Speaker 1: Rockets perform before the movie. Can you imagine that? It
Speaker 1: would be pretty cool? I mean, like imagine seeing that
Speaker 1: and then being like, okay, now for the movie. That's
Speaker 1: just it would be a different experience for sure. But
Speaker 1: it was rough on the Rockets because not all the
Speaker 1: movies were successes. So they would change the Rockets show
Speaker 1: for each movie. So if a movie came along and
Speaker 1: it was just a terrible flop, this whole choreographed routine
Speaker 1: that they had learned would be out the door in
Speaker 1: two days. And now all of a sudden they had
Speaker 1: to learn a new one quick because there was a
Speaker 1: new movie coming into replace that one. So they did
Speaker 1: a different routine for each film. Yes, interesting, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they would have to learn it in a matter of hours,
Speaker 1: like around midnight before the next day's performances. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it was tied to the film sometimes, I think
Speaker 1: not all the time. I think it was. I think
Speaker 1: it was in some cases, but I think more than anything,
Speaker 1: they would change the routine just because the people coming
Speaker 1: to see a different film would want to see a
Speaker 1: different routine. Okay, I got you, that makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So in the nineteen forties they were one of
Speaker 1: the first groups to sign up for the United Service
Speaker 1: Organization and go and perform for the troops. Uh And
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties is when things really started to
Speaker 1: kind of take their toll. Like they were performing sometimes
Speaker 1: up to five times a day. Uh And so they
Speaker 1: said they built a dormitory there, which you know, they
Speaker 1: could live in. I don't think they were required to,
Speaker 1: but it really was to accommodate the fact that they
Speaker 1: were working almost around the clock, whether because learning these
Speaker 1: new routines like you said, and then performing up the
Speaker 1: five times a day really grueling stuff. It was basically
Speaker 1: the prototype for Google, just just making it so your
Speaker 1: employees didn't have to leave. Oh interesting, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Just go sleep in your pod. So the Rockets, UM,
Speaker 1: their fame started to grow pretty pretty quickly. Um And
Speaker 1: they made like a few steps, if you'll forgive the
Speaker 1: pun um along the way. That kind of cemented them
Speaker 1: as a as much a piece of America as apple
Speaker 1: pie or baseball or moms or what have you. So
Speaker 1: the fifties were also big for the Rockets too, because
Speaker 1: they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving they prayed in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that was the big the big move, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they went from just a group that you either
Speaker 1: had to go to New York or go off to
Speaker 1: war to see um too. While they're in my living
Speaker 1: room now, these girls are high kicking on my television
Speaker 1: and I'm just loving life, all right, So let's take
Speaker 1: a break. It's nineteen fifties. Good times are ahead, and
Speaker 1: then dark times come in the seventies because it's New
Speaker 1: York City in the seventies and everything was kind of
Speaker 1: awful then. So we'll be back right after this. Okay, Hey,
Speaker 1: before we get started to check, I want to say
Speaker 1: we put on a pretty good stage show ourselves. We've
Speaker 1: been known to and we've got some coming up, you know,
Speaker 1: plug plug. Yeah, there's no high kicking involved. There could
Speaker 1: be if people demanded it. I would be willing to
Speaker 1: do a little high kicking. So are we talking about
Speaker 1: some shows? Yeah, let's do the real quick, all right.
Speaker 1: So we're we're going out west for our annual sojourn
Speaker 1: in January where we go to Seattle and we go
Speaker 1: to Portland and then we end up at SF sketch
Speaker 1: Fest like we always do in mid January. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I've got an End of the World live show on
Speaker 1: Friday at sketch Fest, and you have a movie Crush
Speaker 1: on Saturday at sketch Fest, right. Yeah, I'm doing a
Speaker 1: matinee show at one o'clock on Saturday, January nineteenth with
Speaker 1: Busy Phillips is my guest, nice and my show is
Speaker 1: Friday the eighteenth that Cafe du Nord did I am
Speaker 1: my own guest, fine solo. And then I have another
Speaker 1: one in Brooklyn on the at the Bellhouse too. Oh
Speaker 1: I thought you already did that one. No, huh, it
Speaker 1: got postponed to January. Great, Yes, so you haven't missed it.
Speaker 1: There's still time for you to come. Fantastic. Uh. So
Speaker 1: that is our little plug, how about that? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: of course our our big stuff you should know show
Speaker 1: is that the Castro on what is that Thursday night?
Speaker 1: That is Thursday. The Yeah, so come see us at
Speaker 1: the More in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland, at the
Speaker 1: Castro in San Francisco. Check out our individual little shows.
Speaker 1: Are are cute little individual shows, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: information on s y s K live dot com. That's right.
Speaker 1: So now it's the seventies. Mhm. New York is uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's suffering, which is crazy when you look at
Speaker 1: pictures of New York City and the seventies and early
Speaker 1: eighties even just hard to believe how bad things were there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty rough. And actually it's funny, like you
Speaker 1: can thank Rudolph Giuliani for I guess, cleaning up the
Speaker 1: town if you want to call it that. Okay have
Speaker 1: you ever heard that? What too, Rudolph Giuliani for cleaning
Speaker 1: up the town? Huh uh sure, okay, good for him. So, um,
Speaker 1: I saw him in the park one day. You did,
Speaker 1: what was he doing talking to a duck? No, he was.
Speaker 1: He was doing like a photo op. But I had
Speaker 1: friends in from uh, from another country, even, I think,
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, guys, that's that's the mayor of
Speaker 1: New York over there, and they're like, oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1: I went it's kind of a big deal to just
Speaker 1: walk around and see the Mayor of New York Did
Speaker 1: they say have a chalk? I think they're Australian. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my Australian impression. That was good. Then that's
Speaker 1: pretty that's a great story, Chuck, Yeah, it's fine. But uh,
Speaker 1: for them, they didn't understand fully that the Mayor of
Speaker 1: New York City is is Uh, it's it's quite a
Speaker 1: big deal to see him just out and about in
Speaker 1: the city. I I have a similar story. I was
Speaker 1: watching um one of the first few seasons of Law
Speaker 1: and Order on my television one day, and there was
Speaker 1: the Mayor of New York City, really Rudy Giuliani. Interesting,
Speaker 1: but I you it was a big, big deal. I
Speaker 1: got another story, Okay, did you know and the Michael
Speaker 1: Bay film Pearl Harbor that they camped in Bruce Willis's
Speaker 1: John McClean character from die Hard in one hospital scene.
Speaker 1: How just digitalie, that's an anachronism right now, that doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Did they really do that? Yeah? There
Speaker 1: if you can look at up Pearl Harbor John McClean
Speaker 1: and there's like screenshots of of John McLean and his
Speaker 1: white tank top just briefly for a blip in the
Speaker 1: background of one of the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: It's so weird. So you know, there's a nude woman
Speaker 1: in the window of one of the buildings that the
Speaker 1: rescuers fly by. The Disney movie from the sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all these weird movie easter eggs just board editors. I
Speaker 1: guess that's exactly what it hit for juvenile editors. All Right,
Speaker 1: so it's the nineteen seventies in New York. None of
Speaker 1: this has happened yet that we're talking about. The rescuers did.
Speaker 1: The rescuers did, but there was no die Hard. There
Speaker 1: was no Pearl Harbor movie except for Toro Toora Toora,
Speaker 1: but no bad Pearl Harbor movie. Okay, uh No. Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani he was alive, sure, but he was not in
Speaker 1: the mayor of New York City and in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: not as far as we know, who was at that
Speaker 1: was Ed Cotch he was the eighties, I think was
Speaker 1: he maybe late seventies. All right, we'll get that straightened out.
Speaker 1: But New York City is going down the toilet, including
Speaker 1: believe it or not, Radio, the Great Radio City Music Hall,
Speaker 1: much like our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta, UH
Speaker 1: was facing shutdown and demolition potentially. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: rough transition from some of those old movie palaces after
Speaker 1: people stopped well going to movie palaces and moved out
Speaker 1: to the suburbs. Um, a lot of those beautiful places
Speaker 1: were left out in the cold, and some of them
Speaker 1: didn't well, a lot of them didn't make it, but
Speaker 1: some of them almost didn't make it. Like you said,
Speaker 1: the Fox and Radio City and apparently it was going
Speaker 1: to be turned into a parking lot. And Belushi himself
Speaker 1: got onto the news desk at Saturn and Live and
Speaker 1: was railing against the demise of Radio City Music Hall.
Speaker 1: And the Roquettes too had said, hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: this is our home. This is an iconic place. Let
Speaker 1: us help, like go raise awareness and funds to to
Speaker 1: save this place. And they did. They were successful. They
Speaker 1: got it put on the National Historic Register of Historic
Speaker 1: Places and it has a Landmark designation. Not just the
Speaker 1: buildings buildings in New York with the Landmark designation, but
Speaker 1: only a hundred and ten interiors have the landmark designation,
Speaker 1: and Radio City Music Hall is one of them, which
Speaker 1: means that its interior is so amazingly beautiful that is
Speaker 1: to be protected landmark in the United States. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never been in there. I haven't either. I've been to
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. Uh, that's on the
Speaker 1: list for sure. But um, it's interesting because they tried
Speaker 1: to Their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive movie bookings.
Speaker 1: Like they were they were to be the only theater
Speaker 1: in town that would be showing a particular movie, so
Speaker 1: that that limits there, uh, their pool immediately, and then
Speaker 1: they really prefer g rated movies. They had really strict
Speaker 1: screening criteria, so that just it narrowed down their their
Speaker 1: movie pool so small that they would go weeks and
Speaker 1: weeks at a time where nothing happened there. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they would just shut down because again, remember like the
Speaker 1: Rockets are a dance troupe that you would see before
Speaker 1: you saw a movie. So if they're not showing movies,
Speaker 1: they're not showing the Rocketts. And at this time in
Speaker 1: the seventies, the Rockets said, Okay, we're our talent is
Speaker 1: being wasted here. At least let us go take the
Speaker 1: show on the road. While you guys are sitting around
Speaker 1: waiting for another movie to come along. And they actually
Speaker 1: they gained that right because their union dancers. We should say,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that a little more later, but they
Speaker 1: made it's to get the right to take the show
Speaker 1: on the road and they really started to make a
Speaker 1: name for themselves in the seventies. Uh, in places like
Speaker 1: Tahoe in Vegas. Apparently made a huge fan out of
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Jr. Who would come see the same show
Speaker 1: like night after night when they when they play in
Speaker 1: Vegas or Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by
Speaker 1: the rockcats. Love that for sure. Little Sammy, what a
Speaker 1: great guy. We should do a show on him. Apparently
Speaker 1: he also, oh yeah, I'm done with that. He also
Speaker 1: surprised them on stage once by joining them on stage
Speaker 1: for a dance number, which apparently he knew because he'd
Speaker 1: seen the show so many times, which that's a pretty
Speaker 1: Sammy thing to do in Las Vegas. High kicking, Well,
Speaker 1: his his kicks weren't so high. Run out on stage, unbidden, uninvited.
Speaker 1: He's a little guy, he was. He was the littlest
Speaker 1: rockette I imagine. Wow, but he was too. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: they're doing their show on the road, here and there.
Speaker 1: They're making ends meet. Radio City is struggling, even though
Speaker 1: it was designated as a landmark. The eighties were not
Speaker 1: super kind to Radio City either. Um. They very famously
Speaker 1: appeared at the halftime show the Super Bowl, and um,
Speaker 1: they're trying to change with the times. Uh, they're dancing
Speaker 1: it uh in the nineties at different places. And they're
Speaker 1: always doing their Christmas deal throughout all this after you know,
Speaker 1: they started doing that. And what was at fifty seven?
Speaker 1: Oh they did the Macy's Prade in thirty two. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I thought you meant the Christmas Spectacular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Macy's Parade was the Thanksgiving Prairie was fifty seven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they've got their their holiday stuff, their Easter specials,
Speaker 1: their Christmas specials. Uh. They're dancing at inaugurations for George W. Bush. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, they came under under fire for dancing at
Speaker 1: Trump's inauguration. Well, the dance troop almost was split asunder
Speaker 1: over whether they wanted to do that or not. And
Speaker 1: it was a big deal. It was a huge deal actually,
Speaker 1: and they had revived the Easter extravaganza. They renamed it
Speaker 1: the New York Springs spectacular the year before or and
Speaker 1: they said they took a year off and I don't
Speaker 1: think they ever went back to it because of all
Speaker 1: the controversy over two thousand sixteen and the inauguration. It
Speaker 1: was just such an unusual experience for the Rocketts. Um
Speaker 1: like they're they're just like America personified. And for there
Speaker 1: to be a huge national conversation about, you know, them
Speaker 1: performing at an inauguration. It was a big deal for
Speaker 1: the organization for sure, especially for the dancers who were
Speaker 1: like career rockets. Yeah exactly, Um, should we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about just being a rocket? I think we should, man,
Speaker 1: because we've done it. We have. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: a brief time although we've basically entered Dina Lohan territory
Speaker 1: now Lindsay Lohan's mom, she very famously lied about being
Speaker 1: a rocket. Yeah, she said that her she has a
Speaker 1: background in show business. Um, she was a rocket for
Speaker 1: a while, and some journalists went and dug around and
Speaker 1: they found out that she was definitely They had no
Speaker 1: record whatsoever of her, under any name, maiden or married,
Speaker 1: ever being a rocket. It's always amazing to me when
Speaker 1: very provable or disprovable public lies are told by people
Speaker 1: like that, or like politicians who say that, you know,
Speaker 1: like they've fought in a war when they didn't, like
Speaker 1: that's happened. Uh, It's just I don't know why people
Speaker 1: say things like that. That's like, no, we kind of
Speaker 1: can go check that really easily. Yeah, even but even
Speaker 1: without like you know, the check ability of it to
Speaker 1: to just like you know, lie in an interview to
Speaker 1: puff yourself up. I guess, like I don't understand the
Speaker 1: psychology of it. Is it just because you don't feel
Speaker 1: like you're given the interview or enough of what they need?
Speaker 1: Or do they did they lay some sort of trick
Speaker 1: that led you into it? Or I don't understand it either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if people start to believe these lies, Like
Speaker 1: if you make up a story about yourself and you
Speaker 1: just stick with it for so long. It's weird. Psychology, Yes,
Speaker 1: human psychology is indeed quite weird. Didn't you have a
Speaker 1: web show called Psychology is Weird? Nuts? Psychology is Nuts,
Speaker 1: a little short lived video thing. Yeah, I can check
Speaker 1: that out. Everyone. Oh, we'll take a break. I am
Speaker 1: We're back. Yes, So we were going to tell everyone
Speaker 1: about our experiences rockets because we're Dina Lohan. So here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you're a rocket and you've been doing
Speaker 1: this for ten years, you're pretty long lived rocket. Although
Speaker 1: I think I saw um one woman who is a roquette.
Speaker 1: And if I'm talking weird all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: because I am stalling everybody looking for her name and
Speaker 1: I'm not finding it. But I think it's Lindsay How.
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive her name is Lindsay How. I believe
Speaker 1: she has been a rocket for fourteen years. That's a
Speaker 1: very long time to be a rocket, because, as you
Speaker 1: will soon learn, being a rocket is extremely difficult and
Speaker 1: very demanding, and inside of show business and out there
Speaker 1: widely seen is probably some of the best professional dancers
Speaker 1: in the business, and certainly some of the most disciplined
Speaker 1: professional dancers in the business as well. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: really hard to do for a really long time, and
Speaker 1: one of the main reasons why is because their work
Speaker 1: schedule is extremely grueling. But but with Lindsay um How,
Speaker 1: she would make the same amount of money that a
Speaker 1: first year rockette would make because they're all paid the same,
Speaker 1: they work the same hours, they do the same work.
Speaker 1: Some of them are kind of promoted as like the
Speaker 1: faces of the Rocketts. Um the company I think the
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden company that owns Radio City Music Hall,
Speaker 1: and the Rocketts are really protective of their image and um,
Speaker 1: like they aren't free to just kind of talk to
Speaker 1: the media or whatever. There's some that are kind of
Speaker 1: like you and you and you. You're the Rocketts. You're
Speaker 1: the face of the Rockets. But other than that, everyone
Speaker 1: does the same amount of work, same amount of ours,
Speaker 1: same amount of pay. And one of the reasons they
Speaker 1: do that is because the point of the Rockets is
Speaker 1: not to have standouts. It's not like other dance troops
Speaker 1: or other Broadway troops or anything like that. There's not
Speaker 1: meant to be stars. The Rocketts are the star and
Speaker 1: they're meant to be one single unit that moves and
Speaker 1: works and lives together. Yeah, and their their union. I
Speaker 1: so uh they make there. They make most of their
Speaker 1: money over holiday season. So they walk out after a
Speaker 1: couple of months with about forty grand in their pocket,
Speaker 1: which isn't bad. Um, you know, for a couple of
Speaker 1: months work, but it is, like you said, super grueling. Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to become a Rockett, you're not required to.
Speaker 1: But there is something called the Rockets Summer Intensive Dance
Speaker 1: Program where you can go, you can enroll, you can
Speaker 1: spend six hours a day learning uh, learning everything um
Speaker 1: over the course of about a week, UM. All the choreography, UM,
Speaker 1: how to how to get in that shape, stay in
Speaker 1: that shape, how to prevent injuries, um, and sort of
Speaker 1: the business of it all. And like I said, you
Speaker 1: don't have to do that, but they do place a
Speaker 1: lot of Rocketts if you attend that Intensive Dance program.
Speaker 1: Well some I saw out of a thousand that have
Speaker 1: taken it, sixty have gone on to actually become Rockets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's very tough to become a Rockett too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I get the feeling that's that has less
Speaker 1: to do with the program then, just how hard it
Speaker 1: is to make that cut right right exactly. So Uh,
Speaker 1: not only do you have to be fit enough to
Speaker 1: kick those famous kicks up to twelve hundred times a
Speaker 1: day through all these shows, but there's one, uh, there's
Speaker 1: one clothing change you gotta do all these costume changes,
Speaker 1: but there's one in particular in between, uh, the Parade
Speaker 1: of the Wooden Soldiers in New York at Christmas that
Speaker 1: you have to be completely changed out in seventy eight seconds.
Speaker 1: Seventy eight seconds, and these costumes are not like super
Speaker 1: easy to take off, the wooden Soldier one in particular,
Speaker 1: pretty complex. Um, So seventy eight seconds probably goes by
Speaker 1: extremely fast. Yeah, and there's there's thirty six Rockets total
Speaker 1: UH performing on stage, but there are eighty certified Rocketts
Speaker 1: total overall. You have a morning cast and afternoon cast,
Speaker 1: and then you have for each of those shows you
Speaker 1: have for UH swings or extras per so, like if
Speaker 1: someone's like I just twisted my ankle, I can't do this.
Speaker 1: They have four women waiting in the wings for each
Speaker 1: of those morning and afternoon shows. Yeah. So the thing is, though,
Speaker 1: is they're working six days a week, or the Rocketts
Speaker 1: are performing six days a week. If you have two casts,
Speaker 1: rather than work all work both casts six days a week. Um,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll alternate to give one another a day off.
Speaker 1: And they'll do that on days sometimes where there's four
Speaker 1: performances in a day, which means that if you're a Rocket,
Speaker 1: there are days and I've seen also sometimes they're back
Speaker 1: to back days where you're where you're doing four performances
Speaker 1: in a single day. Four ninety minute performances, and that's
Speaker 1: when those kicks that you mentioned, Chuck comes in, because
Speaker 1: some of those shows have three hundred high kicks, and
Speaker 1: we're talking eye level kicks, and if you do four
Speaker 1: of them in a day, you've just kicked at eye
Speaker 1: level are times in a day, And from some of
Speaker 1: the articles I've read, that is about as much as
Speaker 1: your body can possibly take. Yeah, I mean, they they
Speaker 1: all in the interviews I saw. There was that great
Speaker 1: New York Times article where they really sort of dive
Speaker 1: into a day in the life of a rocket during
Speaker 1: the holiday season, and they all kind of are are like,
Speaker 1: there's no way to prepare your body for this, Like
Speaker 1: we are in the best shape that a dancer can
Speaker 1: be in, and it just destroys us to the point where,
Speaker 1: like one of them said that just taking their stockings
Speaker 1: off at the the night is laborious. And you know,
Speaker 1: with their commute, depending on where they come from, some
Speaker 1: of them are are awake and either commuting or or
Speaker 1: rehearsing or performing twenty hours in a day, just grueling,
Speaker 1: grueling stuff. But across the board, they also all say
Speaker 1: that it is the only job that they want. It
Speaker 1: is a great sorority and sisterhood and an honor to
Speaker 1: be one of these over the years. Three in women
Speaker 1: who have made that cut you never were like, well,
Speaker 1: it's really not worth it in the end. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: the I mean, at least the ones who are allowed
Speaker 1: to speak to the media certainly have a lot of
Speaker 1: positive things to say about being a Rocket and like
Speaker 1: how familial it is and how you're just hanging out
Speaker 1: with your best friends, and um, it is a great
Speaker 1: gig for a dancer, especially as one of these articles
Speaker 1: pointed out, if you're a dancer who doesn't sing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a rare thing to get that kind of a gig.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the few, uh for jazz
Speaker 1: and tap dancers were singing is not involved. But also
Speaker 1: not just like a good gig, a good paying gig
Speaker 1: to like forty grand for a couple of months of performances.
Speaker 1: A lot of the Rocketts, um, they don't live in
Speaker 1: New York. They'll come live in New York during the
Speaker 1: season when they need to rehearse and then do the
Speaker 1: Christmas spectacular and then they go home. So they might
Speaker 1: live in New York from September to um the end
Speaker 1: of December, and then they go back home, and wherever
Speaker 1: home is, forty Graham probably goes a lot further than
Speaker 1: it does in New York, unless they live in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: in which case it is probably it goes even faster.
Speaker 1: But um, it's a really good paying gig. They also
Speaker 1: have benefits because their union in their contract workers, they
Speaker 1: have year round benefits and and forty Graham so they
Speaker 1: can go work as pilates, instructors, as nutritionists, as all
Speaker 1: the other stuff that they do during the year normally,
Speaker 1: and then they come back and they they're a rocket.
Speaker 1: But what something I thought was pretty cool it was
Speaker 1: even if you're say a tenth year roquette, um, you
Speaker 1: get invited back like once you're a roquette, you're in
Speaker 1: as a roquette, but you still have to audition in
Speaker 1: April like everybody else. So you audition in April, and
Speaker 1: if you make the cut, um you start to go
Speaker 1: get in shape, and then rehearsals I think start in September,
Speaker 1: and rehearsals are six hours, six days a week for
Speaker 1: basically the six weeks leading up to the performances, which
Speaker 1: run from mid November till I saw December thirty one.
Speaker 1: I also saw tickets available for January one show, so
Speaker 1: I don't know if they extended it or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's funny like it's forty grand sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of money over a couple of months, and
Speaker 1: it is. But when you break it down per show,
Speaker 1: it it breaks down to about a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: five bucks a show, which all of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem uh like great money. No, but that's what
Speaker 1: you make as a standard cast member for a Broadway
Speaker 1: union dancer or actor variety performer, I think is the
Speaker 1: nion they're they're part of. So no, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like much. But that's another reason why the Rockette gig
Speaker 1: is so good. You get over time on those days
Speaker 1: when you do a third and a fourth show, you're
Speaker 1: getting overtime pay um. And there's multiple shows in on
Speaker 1: multiple days, so you can I mean, if another actor
Speaker 1: at a different gig, working the same days over the
Speaker 1: same period would not make that amount of money that
Speaker 1: already grand because they wouldn't have any overtime, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have that many shows. Yeah, and I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: like dreams of going to Broadway to become rich and wealthy,
Speaker 1: like part of the allure Broadway as you're with the
Speaker 1: best of the best, and you can say I danced,
Speaker 1: or I sang or I acted on Broadway with Brian Cranston.
Speaker 1: I saw him on Broadway. Yeah. I saw Michael McKeon
Speaker 1: on Broadway. An accomplice. The audience was the accomplice. That
Speaker 1: was the big twist. Well, you just ruined that one.
Speaker 1: Was it good? It was great. It was one of
Speaker 1: the greatest stage performances I've ever seen. I saw Lenny
Speaker 1: live on stage Derek st Hubbinds. Yeah, this is before
Speaker 1: I knew him as anything but Lenny. I was like eight. Oh,
Speaker 1: so this is a while ago. Um Cranston is in
Speaker 1: something new on Broadway. Now, I think to network, right, man,
Speaker 1: I want to see that. Sure, but that's good. I
Speaker 1: saw that was described as get this Chuck, get ready
Speaker 1: for this boy. Electrifying. Really Broadway show described as electrifying.
Speaker 1: His performance was electrifying. I don't think I've ever heard
Speaker 1: that word used for the theater. Um. So another thing
Speaker 1: though about the Rockets, even though they do make most
Speaker 1: of their money over those couple of months and then
Speaker 1: they have the rest of the year too. Um and
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases be like a dance instructor
Speaker 1: or something like that, or fitness instructor. UM. They increasingly
Speaker 1: are working more and more, uh, more and more months
Speaker 1: out of the year, whether it's um as ambassadors for
Speaker 1: the Rockets or doing like video things for YouTube. UM.
Speaker 1: They are increasingly called on to do other other things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot the So what is the woman who came
Speaker 1: along as the league choreographer and director and really kind
Speaker 1: of punched punched it up even further. Her name is
Speaker 1: Linda Haberman, and she took over I think in like
Speaker 1: the mid two thousand's, maybe two thousan eight, and she
Speaker 1: kind of brought like this whole new not new, it's
Speaker 1: not a whole new thing. She just kind of she
Speaker 1: made it a little more pro feminist, a little more
Speaker 1: like you go girl kind of vibe to the Rockets
Speaker 1: than they had before they were seen, you know, rehearsing
Speaker 1: in the rehearsal gear rather than like full costume. And
Speaker 1: it was just kind of like, um, the the intent
Speaker 1: I get was to make them more Yeah. Yes, because
Speaker 1: one of the great criticisms of the Rockets is that
Speaker 1: they're nothing but like of teeth and legs, just a
Speaker 1: bunch of women out there kicking like forming one large
Speaker 1: uber woman who can kick her legs amazingly high and
Speaker 1: has like the widest gleaming ist teeth ever you've ever seen. UM,
Speaker 1: and that that it was really kind of just objectification
Speaker 1: of women like to like by definition, and uh, Linda
Speaker 1: Hammerman like really kind of took that and tried to
Speaker 1: unravel it quite a bit. And she also took the show.
Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about the show.
Speaker 1: It's a it's depending on who you are. It's either
Speaker 1: like just beloved traditional Americana, kitchy, UM, offensively sexist. Who knows,
Speaker 1: but I think the first two are kind of the
Speaker 1: predominant views of it. It's kitchy and sweet, or it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, endearing Americana. UM. And Linda Haberman kind
Speaker 1: of took that and tried to punch it up into
Speaker 1: the century a little more. And there's like way more
Speaker 1: visual effects than there were before. UM, there's like a
Speaker 1: three D component I think to this year's show or
Speaker 1: recent year shows like the whole The whole theme is
Speaker 1: like a girl wants a video game and her mom
Speaker 1: is kind of showing her. Um, you know why that's
Speaker 1: not so great because it's a violent video game. There's um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of kind of updating that's that the
Speaker 1: Rockets have undergone in the last few years. And that
Speaker 1: was largely from what I understand Linda Haberm is doing.
Speaker 1: I think she was the one that digitally inserted John
Speaker 1: McClean from die Hard. She was he swoops in in
Speaker 1: the New York Follies section. Now, I'm glad they updated
Speaker 1: things because this was a prime case of like a
Speaker 1: blood American tradition that could use some refreshing and you
Speaker 1: can't highlight them as humans and individuals and still you
Speaker 1: can have both, you know, and you can still have
Speaker 1: that desired effect of uniformity and precision that they're known for,
Speaker 1: you know, right exactly, But they don't have to be
Speaker 1: just like faceless and nameless, you know. Now. And I
Speaker 1: read a few like feminist critiques of the Rocketts, and
Speaker 1: they seem to have been kind of outdated. Like I
Speaker 1: really feel like Linda Haberman did a good job at like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she she kind of took those those critiques and changed
Speaker 1: them in a lot of ways. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: other criticisms is that it wasn't until ninety five that
Speaker 1: the Rockets are their first woman of color as a
Speaker 1: member of their cast, of their troop. The first woman
Speaker 1: of color was a Japanese woman named Setsuko Mada Haashi,
Speaker 1: and in she joined UM. The first African American woman
Speaker 1: joined her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning, apparently
Speaker 1: it was Mark Markert who was like, no, it from
Speaker 1: all I saw, it had nothing to do with racism.
Speaker 1: It was the idea that it was going to disrupt
Speaker 1: the visual unity of the dance line if there were um,
Speaker 1: you know, differing skin colors in this dance line. And
Speaker 1: apparently he was so um not so about it, like
Speaker 1: you would get in trouble if you had a sun tan,
Speaker 1: Like that's how that's how he wanted everything to be
Speaker 1: homogeneous and in unison. Well, regardless in the twenty century,
Speaker 1: in the late twentieth century that that sentiment didn't hold up.
Speaker 1: And I guess shortly after he died is when they
Speaker 1: started um adding women of color more to the Rockets troupe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they saw people of color in that same
Speaker 1: dance line and they went, oh, it's still awesome and
Speaker 1: synchronized and looks great exactly, and from his grave he went, no,
Speaker 1: he started rolling around in it. Oh goodness. So you
Speaker 1: haven't seen the Rockets Christmas Spectacular. Huh do you mean
Speaker 1: live in person? Yeah? I have not. I have not either.
Speaker 1: Are we going to go now? I think we should.
Speaker 1: I want to know if any Rockettes listen to the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would make me super super happy. It would for
Speaker 1: me as well. Uh. And the only other small tid
Speaker 1: better have as they have microphones in their heels of
Speaker 1: their shoes. I saw that too. They used to They
Speaker 1: used to play recordings of their um tapping right. Oh
Speaker 1: I don't know, and that that does not surprise me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they figured out how to do the actual
Speaker 1: like broadcast the actual tampling. So we're gonna go one day, Chuck,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go through the Christmas Spectacular. We're gonna go
Speaker 1: see the live Nativity with the real camel and donkeys
Speaker 1: and the wooden toy soldier um March where they fall
Speaker 1: down like a domino and slow motion. It's pretty amazing stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about the Rockets,
Speaker 1: then go to Radio City Music Hall and find them there.
Speaker 1: How about that that sounds great. Uh well, since I
Speaker 1: said that, then it's time for a listener, ma'am. I'm
Speaker 1: calling this. I was a Search and Rescue UM victim volunteer.
Speaker 1: So this guy his dad. I'm gonna summarize at the
Speaker 1: beginning of it because it's kind of long, but his
Speaker 1: dad lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and as
Speaker 1: a member of the local s a R team, and
Speaker 1: so they were like, we need someone to play the
Speaker 1: victim here, and he was like, I'll do it. This
Speaker 1: guy's son. So here's what happened. He said, off into
Speaker 1: the heavily wooded area and did he said. I did
Speaker 1: everything I could to think of to try and fool
Speaker 1: the dog in the handler. I ran in circles, went
Speaker 1: back over my own trail. I threw off my hat.
Speaker 1: I even found some garbage and rolled around in it.
Speaker 1: Didn't ask my scent. Once I had done everything I
Speaker 1: could think of to try and fool the dog and
Speaker 1: handler that would be tracking me, I found a nice
Speaker 1: comfy spot up in a bush on a hill where
Speaker 1: I could just watch the dog in the handler try
Speaker 1: and track me. I thought it had done a pretty
Speaker 1: good job, but once I called the handler and let
Speaker 1: him know I was in position. Was all over very quickly.
Speaker 1: I sat back, and everyone was shocked to watch the
Speaker 1: dog basically retrace my trail, step by step, every move
Speaker 1: I made, all those circles, finding my hat, even that
Speaker 1: I've thrown off, even getting into that pile of garbage
Speaker 1: that I'd rolled around in. I love that this dog
Speaker 1: is just basically making a fool look for Ryan up
Speaker 1: there in the mountains, so he said. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: the dog found me in short order. Gave him lots
Speaker 1: of praise uh for the great job he had done. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: I was never in any real danger, so my experience
Speaker 1: was a lot more enjoyable, obviously than when blurt in
Speaker 1: real need of a certain search and rescue dog. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the great episodes, guys, keep me company on overnight
Speaker 1: shifts and make it all go by quicker. So if
Speaker 1: you read this on the show, can I get a
Speaker 1: shout out to my girlfriend Tarn She would be thrilled
Speaker 1: to hear her name get called out on the show.
Speaker 1: I think that just happened, so that is from Ryan.
Speaker 1: I like the the gusto that Ryan put into trying
Speaker 1: to foold this dog. Ll holding a garbage, and I
Speaker 1: equally loved that this dog was like whatever. So thank
Speaker 1: you Ryan, thank you Terran for listening, and thank you
Speaker 1: to the star dog, sure scruffy. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch of this, you can go to our
Speaker 1: website Stuff you Should Know dot com. You can find
Speaker 1: all of our social links there. I have a website
Speaker 1: called the Josh clark Way dot com. And you can
Speaker 1: send an email to Chuck, Jerry and Me at Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff Works dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other top is it how staff
Speaker 1: works dot com mhm