Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, they.
Speaker 3: Called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super
Speaker 3: producer Andrew Treyforce Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 3: are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know. But yeah, yeah, we're going to trial.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, do you hear that we're supporting? Not yet,
Speaker 3: we edged toward that. When folks, the energy is live,
Speaker 3: we are in person, which is quite a rare treat
Speaker 3: for us. And we started asking, so we're always pitching
Speaker 3: ideas to each other, right, and we started asking, Hey,
Speaker 3: does anybody remember the weird, surreal wasteland of daytime TV
Speaker 3: before streaming?
Speaker 4: Right, surely it still exists to some degree, right, very much? So, okay,
Speaker 4: blissfully unaware of it.
Speaker 3: Spin offs of every reality show you've ever heard of,
Speaker 3: rights telenovela is still very big. Occasionally you'll also see
Speaker 3: the news, but they keep that brief because they got
Speaker 3: to get back to you know, as the world turns. Yeah,
Speaker 3: regularly scheduled.
Speaker 2: With the election coverage that just happened, people were actually
Speaker 2: watching TV right and on. I watched it in Instagram
Speaker 2: live from the Daily Show, and they had to keep pushing, like,
Speaker 2: turn on your television, your television, watch tonight on your television.
Speaker 3: Parents have that doesn't move seriously, Yeah, that's It's true.
Speaker 3: Reality TV has dominant aided. Reality TV and soaps have
Speaker 3: dominated daytime television for so long. And if you're of
Speaker 3: a certain age in the United States, you may recall
Speaker 3: a unique genre of reality TV. From far enough way.
Speaker 3: It looks like a courtroom. There's someone who looks like
Speaker 3: a judge. There are people who act like defendants. There
Speaker 3: there may be folks who strongly resemble lawyers, and maybe
Speaker 3: you know as sassy bailiff kind of always like you
Speaker 3: know it your honor.
Speaker 5: It's an important part of the cast ensemble.
Speaker 3: And so our question, guys, you know, and so our
Speaker 3: question tonight is are these court TV shows real? Sorry,
Speaker 3: we had some friends from the office come in a
Speaker 3: wave time. Oh man, he keeps saying he's not a
Speaker 3: cop anyway, that's our cold open.
Speaker 5: He has to tell us if he's a cop.
Speaker 3: Untrue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've found out.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. To know what a TV court
Speaker 3: show is, we have to look at a little bit
Speaker 3: of history, and honestly, it's surprising because you may not
Speaker 3: know this, folks. The ancestors of the court shows you
Speaker 3: see on television or streaming today they come from radio,
Speaker 3: not television.
Speaker 4: Well it makes sense, I mean, yeah, it's not a
Speaker 4: particularly visually captivating medium. But and let's to be clear too,
Speaker 4: we're talking about like, not like night court we're talking
Speaker 4: about which.
Speaker 3: Is awesome, yeah, with the God I love Nightmare.
Speaker 4: We're talking about like the People's Court or Judge Judy
Speaker 4: and execution.
Speaker 3: Judge Joe Brown, divorce Court. Yeah, and stakes are real
Speaker 3: or are they? All? Right? So let's travel back. It's
Speaker 3: the mid nineteen thirties. We're talking depression era. Life is
Speaker 3: super not great for a lot of people, and they
Speaker 3: want distractions, they want fantasy, They want another nicer world
Speaker 3: to live in, even if only for thirty minutes to pop.
Speaker 3: And so television was available since nineteen twenties right to
Speaker 3: the Riggie Riches and the Scrooge McDucks of the world,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't become America's main media venue until after
Speaker 3: World War Two, when everybody was able to buy a house,
Speaker 3: have two point five kids, it was possible to own
Speaker 3: your own car, and then of course you buy the box.
Speaker 3: Now you watch TV.
Speaker 4: Previously it was literally families gathered around the radio using
Speaker 4: their collective imaginations to picture the characters like the Shadow
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Right, it's a lot like how people gather around their
Speaker 2: Alexas now and listen to this show. That's like they're
Speaker 2: doing right now.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on, I know beak her name by the way.
Speaker 3: I know, I know you're working out, I know you're
Speaker 3: doing the dishes, and you know what you're doing. A
Speaker 3: great job, serious positive affirmations there.
Speaker 4: I think my Alexa is ill. She does not respond
Speaker 4: the way she used to. I don't know if I
Speaker 4: need like a hot update or something like that, but man,
Speaker 4: she hears her name in every piece of dialogue from
Speaker 4: television and interrupts my viewing experience on the regular.
Speaker 3: And we're not going to do the prank that we
Speaker 3: did previously because some people did not enjoy that. But
Speaker 3: check out our earlier episodes on surveillance.
Speaker 2: Do you think there will be couples counseling for personal
Speaker 2: assistance where it's like a user and a personal assistant.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think there will be AI avatar personal counseling.
Speaker 3: So you'll you'll get your AI avatar because people are
Speaker 3: dating via chat, GBT and so on. Now, so you'll
Speaker 3: just get the AI avatars to go to therapy with
Speaker 3: each other and then they'll come back and tell you
Speaker 3: what they learned, and then they'll tell you it was
Speaker 3: a success.
Speaker 4: Can't we just go back to peopling like you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, come on, I'm all about too much, too much, guys,
Speaker 4: it's gone too far.
Speaker 3: That came off weird.
Speaker 2: Well, when people are hanging out together, they get into arguments,
Speaker 2: they get into situations.
Speaker 5: Right, we are currently in the situation.
Speaker 2: Then you got to go to court.
Speaker 3: Bringing it back. Yeah. The golden age of radio lasts
Speaker 3: from the nineteen twenties till television takes over in the
Speaker 3: mid nineteen fifties. This is the origin of dramatic serialized narratives.
Speaker 3: I'd like to play one example here. Of course, it's
Speaker 3: a classic, and I don't think we'll get sued. I
Speaker 3: want to get sued. Can you guess what this is?
Speaker 5: Sounds spooky?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 2: HP Lovecraft presents.
Speaker 3: Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men?
Speaker 3: Who knows evil? It lurks, that's it, lurks.
Speaker 2: What is that? What is it?
Speaker 3: It's Alec Baldlin. No wait wait, oh, we missed it.
Speaker 3: He knows. Do you remember The Shadow?
Speaker 4: But the film starring Alec Baldlin as the Shadow did
Speaker 4: not do well.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, it did do well.
Speaker 4: Then there was The Phantom with Billy zaying. The Phantom
Speaker 4: was also another Golden age radio show.
Speaker 3: Didn't do didn't do super well. These are adaptations, this
Speaker 3: is uh, these are spook stories to tell in the dark,
Speaker 3: similar to what we did with Thirteen Days of Halloween,
Speaker 3: and people like we're saying, gathered around, listened to the
Speaker 3: radio with rapt attention. It was something we would call
Speaker 3: cinema of the mind. And all of that changed for radio.
Speaker 3: On March first, nineteen thirty two, a twenty month year
Speaker 3: old child named Charles Augustus Lindbergh Junior was kidnapped in
Speaker 3: a tragedy that drew national attention. The Lindburg Baby. The
Speaker 3: Limburg people.
Speaker 4: You're always talk going on about the Lindburg Baby constantly.
Speaker 3: We're talking to Andrew Treforce, Howard you want to stop,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, come on, man, yeah, I get it,
Speaker 3: I get it. It was a long time ago, Andrew.
Speaker 3: I'm shooting Drew a look to make sure we're still cool.
Speaker 3: He's shooting you one right back. It's a look for sure.
Speaker 3: All right. Later it's May twelfth. Unfortunately this child is
Speaker 3: found dead. Oh sorry, I'm at all those jokes. It's
Speaker 3: long past. But this investigation that ensues the arrest of
Speaker 3: a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hoftman, and then the
Speaker 3: subsequent trial, they capture the imagination of America. People are
Speaker 3: going blow by blow. They're buying the newspaper at four
Speaker 3: in the morning to get the latest hot costs.
Speaker 4: This is the predecessor to like the OJ Simpson craze,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean one hundred percent. This was very new,
Speaker 4: the ability to cover something like this and to essentially
Speaker 4: make it a cultural event, pop cultural moments.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yep. Stone When when you are getting your
Speaker 2: information as soon as the newspapers can print it and
Speaker 2: get it out to you, that's one thing that's a
Speaker 2: certain amount of time. But then when somebody can just
Speaker 2: turn on a microphone on scene outside the courtroom or
Speaker 2: something that is a whole different level of feeling like
Speaker 2: you're in the moment.
Speaker 3: While this is occurring, living vicariously right. Flip on the
Speaker 3: radio and we know it's we know it's two pm Eastern,
Speaker 3: and now we're here with live updates because they were
Speaker 3: still using that voice. This is true crime. This is
Speaker 3: the earliest example getting yeah, because the kidnapping and the
Speaker 3: trial of hop And could be an episode all their own.
Speaker 3: We'll need Andrew on obviously, but for our purposes tonight,
Speaker 3: we have to know the American public was glued to
Speaker 3: every step, not just every development and investigation, but every
Speaker 3: bit of speculation. This was the water cooler talk, and
Speaker 3: the courtroom was crowded to the Eves family, reporters, law
Speaker 3: enforcement lookie loose. People were like you were saying earlier, Matt,
Speaker 3: waiting eagerly outside just to figure out what happened, and
Speaker 3: often to be the first person who could report it,
Speaker 3: or to be the first person who could tell their friends.
Speaker 3: This trial ran from January to February of nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 3: Hoptman never said he was guilty, never confessed, always said
Speaker 3: he was innocent. None of his appeals succeeded. He was
Speaker 3: eventually electrocuted. He was executed in the electric chair in
Speaker 3: New Jersey on April third of nineteen thirty six, and
Speaker 3: people were still following the story for years now. Part
Speaker 3: of it is because the Limberg fan lose so high profile.
Speaker 3: Part of it is the Golden Age radio, the brutality
Speaker 3: of the crime. They mixed together like ingredients and a
Speaker 3: stew and this created what you're talking about, No, a
Speaker 3: great appetite for court shows. The American public was fascinated.
Speaker 3: They wanted to hear more trials, They wanted to hear
Speaker 3: more legal proceedings, and ideally they wanted it to be exciting.
Speaker 3: They didn't want the man bites, dog bites, ban cases.
Speaker 3: They didn't want someone arguing about their property line or
Speaker 3: their fits. They wanted the murder. They wanted the heist.
Speaker 4: Because in theory, right, couldn't even like the most boring
Speaker 4: of trials be televised if there were a demand for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could take the court transcript and have people
Speaker 3: read it back. It's all public record, you know.
Speaker 4: But like the thing that allows cameras, I've always been
Speaker 4: a little confused about, like the legality behind cameras in
Speaker 4: the court room. I mean, but there has to be
Speaker 4: a demand for that for it to be like the
Speaker 4: networks show up. But if there were a smaller, you know,
Speaker 4: seemingly more boring case and there were interest, they could
Speaker 4: they could film those, they could put those on TV.
Speaker 3: M hmm, yeah, you could have something like c SPAN
Speaker 3: and it's just twenty four hours of small claims court
Speaker 3: TV is kind of yes, well, kind of yes. That's
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is. So the radio studios,
Speaker 3: the producers, the reporters, they respond quickly. They take the
Speaker 3: public transcripts like we're mentioning the public reports, and they
Speaker 3: make what we call recrease dramatizations, yeah, reenactments of high
Speaker 3: visibility cases. They're looking for stuff that was the bloodiest,
Speaker 3: the most brutal, or the most morally reprehensible. And dudes,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist America loved this stuff. Leads. Do you
Speaker 3: think true crime podcast are popular? Had nothing on this.
Speaker 3: This was granddaddy. It was so new. It was just
Speaker 3: defeating frenzy.
Speaker 2: Well, imagine if a show like Up and Vanished was
Speaker 2: just on one of the forward networks that existed at the.
Speaker 4: Time, back when we had like that was it four choices?
Speaker 4: I mean really like even that many shows per choice, like.
Speaker 2: Everybody, oh that case now, because it's one of the
Speaker 2: things you can listen to or watch.
Speaker 3: And because other people are talking about it socially, a
Speaker 3: feedback loop occurs, so even if you are not necessarily
Speaker 3: interested in it, you're up to date on it, you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of have to be. Yeah, it's like, you
Speaker 3: know what's going on with the Yankees and the Mets
Speaker 3: just because you live in New York you don't have
Speaker 3: to go to the stadium to see them.
Speaker 4: I mean, my partner's been watching the dramatization recree or
Speaker 4: whatever of the Clinton Monica Lewinsky trials or whatever impeachment hearings,
Speaker 4: and I mean that.
Speaker 3: Was so huge.
Speaker 4: They literally remade the whole thing as like a drama
Speaker 4: fictionalized kind of account on television.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they just did it with oj Simpson
Speaker 2: like twice in a row of these. But like, the
Speaker 2: guy is still here so much. Let's get let's get
Speaker 2: back here. So we're still in radio land. We're in
Speaker 2: the thirties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're in the thirties. And to get around they
Speaker 3: have one other thing they had to do to get around,
Speaker 3: the pot possibility of ending up in a real court
Speaker 3: room because of their cute radio stories and going down
Speaker 3: for libel and slander. The creators would go back and
Speaker 3: take trials from decade years or decades past, and they
Speaker 3: were often looking for a trial where the wherein all
Speaker 3: of the original participants had died.
Speaker 4: So they were worried about libel or slander accusations because
Speaker 4: they were taking some liberties.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, with the with the transcripts. And also, you know,
Speaker 3: how how far can you go in dramatic recreation before
Speaker 3: you get to I'm kind of playing with the vacuuing
Speaker 3: Yeah a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, well, in a lot of the facts could be hearsay right,
Speaker 2: or at least argued to be here.
Speaker 4: And in a court of law you have a judge
Speaker 4: who will come down and say, ah, that should be
Speaker 4: struck from the recordures.
Speaker 3: In radio you have a host who probably had some
Speaker 3: improv training and was like, yes, and is it possible
Speaker 3: that the murderer was you know Welsh, which never shows
Speaker 3: up in the court case. They just go back to
Speaker 3: the transcript.
Speaker 4: And then the Welsh Defamation League is up up your tail,
Speaker 4: huge force huge.
Speaker 3: They run all the f's in the language. It's a
Speaker 3: joke for like two so many. Yeah. So this leads
Speaker 3: us to the first ancestor what we call a court
Speaker 3: show today, and it's on radio. It's named The Court
Speaker 3: of Human Relations or The True Story Court of Human Relations.
Speaker 3: I'm dumb. Yeah, Yeah. New Year's Day nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 3: just a bit after the Limberg case, and they did
Speaker 3: the reenactments. They had a guy called Percy Hemus playing
Speaker 3: the judge. Percy was not a judge. He was an actor.
Speaker 3: And I'm not a judge, but I just play one
Speaker 3: on television. Right, right, is what he told officers, right?
Speaker 3: What he got pulled over in his jealoppy anyway, I
Speaker 3: would bet he happy he did better than that. Also,
Speaker 3: Judge Reinhold, we're talking about this off air. I grew
Speaker 3: up thinking that guy was a judge who happened to
Speaker 3: be an actor. But not only is he not a judge,
Speaker 3: Judge is even his real first name. That was news
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 4: But he did go on to delightfully portray a television
Speaker 4: judge on Arrested Development. I believe it was called Judge Reinhold,
Speaker 4: and it was making fun of the exact stuff that
Speaker 4: we're talking about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also he got the nickname Judge as a
Speaker 3: baby because people saw he looked really stern and authoritative
Speaker 3: and judgmental.
Speaker 5: That is one judgmental baby right there.
Speaker 3: That sounds mean to the kid. But the mugging everybody
Speaker 3: all the time. So here's the brilliant thing about Percy's show.
Speaker 3: All right, they would air this compilation of recreations, and
Speaker 3: they would usually just go for the most exciting stuff,
Speaker 3: not not all the ins and outs of procedure, just
Speaker 3: the part where you know, it's like you're all right?
Speaker 3: Is sustained? Good or bad? Sustained? Well, it depends on
Speaker 3: if you're the person making the objection. If you're making
Speaker 3: the objection and your objection is sustained, that means the
Speaker 3: judge of grease, he.
Speaker 4: Accepts your objection. What's the opposite of sustainable? Thank you,
Speaker 4: thank you for getting our terminology.
Speaker 3: Yeah straight. I always love it. I always love how
Speaker 3: in copaganda there's a judge on the edge. He's like, hmm,
Speaker 3: I allow it, but you're on thin ice.
Speaker 4: I like the real Southern judge too, that's a real
Speaker 4: ju judge.
Speaker 3: Yes, also another good judge flavor. I love the I
Speaker 3: love the move in a trial that's televised or you
Speaker 3: know again the kind of propaganda stuff where the lawyer
Speaker 3: asked a crazy out there should be a legal question
Speaker 3: and uh, and they have to thing where it's like
Speaker 3: did you or did you not murder that penguin objection
Speaker 3: overruled withdrawing.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, And then on this show they would go, hmm,
Speaker 2: well what do you think? But they didn't have an
Speaker 2: email addresser phone number any right.
Speaker 3: That's the grift, that's the gas talk amongst yourselves friends.
Speaker 3: Right before the end of every broadcast, Percy would come
Speaker 3: in and invite everybody in the audience to render their
Speaker 3: own verdict before they tell you what happened. And they
Speaker 3: implied that they were immediately receiving correspondence from across the
Speaker 3: United States and that determined what actually happened. It is
Speaker 3: not the case. There was no way to contact the
Speaker 3: radio station whatsoever. And they pulled this off for years brilliant,
Speaker 3: pretty brilliant, ethical, diabolical, yeah, but brilliant. I respect it.
Speaker 3: They ran from nineteen thirty four to nineteen thirty nine, which,
Speaker 3: fun fact means stuff they don't want you to know
Speaker 3: has been on air longer than the world's first court show.
Speaker 2: We old.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, I think it's nacolade.
Speaker 5: What is Yeah, maybe they'll give us a trophy for
Speaker 5: it one maybe.
Speaker 3: What was the next show?
Speaker 2: Oh, this one's great. It was called Goodwill Court, So
Speaker 2: people would go into their local goodwill and they would
Speaker 2: buy things, and then the whole show is just haggling
Speaker 2: about how much it should actually is that's true?
Speaker 3: To make that joke. It turned into a It turned
Speaker 3: into a romantic kind of reality program where and later
Speaker 3: instead of arguing this was a ratings thing, they would
Speaker 3: have strangers meet and Goodwill and have to go on
Speaker 3: a date to get discounts at the goodwill.
Speaker 5: Brilliant, do you need discounts at Goodwill?
Speaker 3: It was a different time, and this was hosted by
Speaker 3: Al Alexander. All that other stuff is not true. By
Speaker 3: the way, this was hosted by Al Alexander. Heard real
Speaker 3: life defendants and cases all presented semi anonymously, so you'd
Speaker 3: hear their real voices, but you wouldn't know their names,
Speaker 3: and they would try to keep They played a little
Speaker 3: fast and loose with facts, and their defense for this
Speaker 3: was saying, we can't reveal exact specifics, so that's why
Speaker 3: we're punching stuff up and then boom, the case goes
Speaker 3: to a panel of real judges, and the judges sit
Speaker 3: around and go, well, you know what, here's what I
Speaker 3: here's wreckle mill I do declare you know?
Speaker 4: Do you think that was considered sort of like a
Speaker 4: you're sort of a has been judge and now this
Speaker 4: is all Hollywood squares kind of. Yeah, you gotta wonder
Speaker 4: if that was they didn't go over particularly well in
Speaker 4: the legal community, if you would appear on all of
Speaker 4: these types of.
Speaker 3: Things definitely didn't go over well.
Speaker 5: Well, we know it didn't go over well big picture
Speaker 5: wise for sure.
Speaker 4: So what happened, Like this legal advice technically ran a
Speaker 4: foul of some actual legal precedent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, New York County turns out has a lawyer's association.
Speaker 3: Who do Who would have assumed? Is that the same
Speaker 3: as the bar? Is that the bar? They mess with
Speaker 3: the bar, The bars your qualification to practice. Sometimes you
Speaker 3: eat the bar. Sometimes the bar is true most of
Speaker 3: the time. Sometimes you raise the bar, and sometimes you're
Speaker 3: just at the bar too.
Speaker 5: Long, limboing under the bar, doing the best you can.
Speaker 3: We've got bar jokes. How low can you go? We've
Speaker 3: got bars about bars. We've got more bars than the
Speaker 3: Bourbon District. This is not the kind of fun bar
Speaker 3: that these lawyers were messing with. They shut down this
Speaker 3: show because they said, look, if you're giving out real
Speaker 3: legal advice for free on the radio, we don't care
Speaker 3: for that, which makes sense because that's their job, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Yeah, if you run a donut
Speaker 3: shop and then some weirdo next door opens a a
Speaker 3: place that just gives away free donuts, you're gonna have
Speaker 3: some problems.
Speaker 4: So that is his right if he wishes to do that,
Speaker 4: as long as he's checked all the boxes and filled
Speaker 4: out all the appropriate paperwork.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta have a license. It's a spike store
Speaker 3: kind of situation. Yeah, you can't be a rogue donut benefactor.
Speaker 3: You will get in trouble. So now we get to
Speaker 3: the age of TV. We'll show this up real quick.
Speaker 3: The first show like this to make it to television
Speaker 3: was Famous Jury Trials. It was on the radio in
Speaker 3: the thirties to the late nineteen forties, and then in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty nine it got adapted to television. They even
Speaker 3: had a film come out in nineteen seventy one. And
Speaker 3: these were all reenactments of past famous cases. I hope
Speaker 3: they went super deep into the archives. I hope they
Speaker 3: had some cases from the seventeen hundred's pirate trials.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it'd be fun.
Speaker 3: Willful witchcraft or was it? Was it the manslaughter equivalent
Speaker 3: of witchcraft? Was was this person accidentally a witch? Witch? Hobby?
Speaker 2: My client black Beard has been accused of many things today, didn't.
Speaker 5: They get accused of like eating babies or something that
Speaker 5: I make that good?
Speaker 3: Accused of a lot of things.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, Isn't that the problem with a lot of
Speaker 4: this Accusations in the court of public opinion are way
Speaker 4: more interesting than the truth.
Speaker 3: And they have a much lower burden of a court room.
Speaker 4: The judge can do a lot of things to mitigate that,
Speaker 4: and you know, instruct the jury and every everything. But
Speaker 4: with the once this stuff starts circulating, you know, in
Speaker 4: the real world, your base trying people in the court
Speaker 4: of public opinion.
Speaker 3: Back to the seventeen hundreds. To follow up on that example,
Speaker 3: in a real court, a judge could say, I do
Speaker 3: not consider that to be a witch mark. I believe
Speaker 3: that is a mode. But if there were a twitter
Speaker 3: of some sort back then, probably word of mouth at
Speaker 3: the church. In this instance, then the verdict is already
Speaker 3: done for the public. That's right. No one has to
Speaker 3: prove it, you know what I mean. Marm Mabel tells
Speaker 3: good wife Johanneson that it's definitely witch mark because she's
Speaker 3: seen a mole before, and then boom, it's the devil's mark.
Speaker 2: It's witch in time, the kitty cat is definitely drinking
Speaker 2: milk from that thing. Okay, so that's how how they
Speaker 2: were third nipple.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And that's how witch marks are the thing?
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, you're familiar.
Speaker 3: Of them, you're familiar. Did not suckles, you did not know?
Speaker 3: And that cat is deafe demon anyway. So this is
Speaker 3: this is a weird history because for a lot of us,
Speaker 3: the TV court show has always been there if you
Speaker 3: grew up in the US, just a staple of TV,
Speaker 3: just like infomercials or those talk shows that are just vapid.
Speaker 2: I'll say, yeah, come on, you don't like the view.
Speaker 2: You gotta love a good talk show, guys.
Speaker 3: I love kind of what we do. I love the
Speaker 3: segues though on the talk shows, because you know, if
Speaker 3: you turn on at the right time, they're like forty
Speaker 3: thousand confirmed dead in other news Dogs in office. Let's
Speaker 3: go to Denver, Colorado, where mister Sparkles has been making
Speaker 3: some waves in Congress.
Speaker 2: How would we have ever learned to be, you know,
Speaker 2: panicking about satanic ing if we didn't have those talk
Speaker 2: shows you know.
Speaker 4: WoT you're talking about, like the Doctor Phills of the World, Jesse, all.
Speaker 2: These formats that are just like weird. It's the line
Speaker 2: between what is real and what is not real is blurred.
Speaker 3: I think reality consensus.
Speaker 4: I distinctly remember being a kid and seeing some of
Speaker 4: this daytime stuff and it was an episode about white supremacists,
Speaker 4: and it was like Phil Donahue, and they had these
Speaker 4: white supremacists on, and they had like their kids on
Speaker 4: and they were saying the most foul racist stuff and
Speaker 4: given this platform, and of course it's presented as like,
Speaker 4: here are these bad people, but let's just let them
Speaker 4: say and do whatever they want. And I found it shocking,
Speaker 4: like as a kid, the horrible slurs, you know, that's
Speaker 4: what they want to also be well aware of.
Speaker 3: Folks in those talk shows like Noela's describing, I guarantee
Speaker 3: you before they went on air, there was a producer
Speaker 3: doing this. Yeah, okay, so just go up there, you know,
Speaker 3: beat yourself.
Speaker 5: But me warriors a little more racist, dial it up
Speaker 5: in the ash because we want people to really understand
Speaker 5: where you're coming from.
Speaker 4: Oh God, let me at him and he and if
Speaker 4: you get to it, throw that chair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's the it's marked with blue tape at
Speaker 3: the bottom. It's the throwing chair. Yeah, that's your mark,
Speaker 3: you know. But what what was the show where there
Speaker 3: were always big fights? Jerry Springer? But it was all
Speaker 3: of those yeah, yeah, except for Oprah. Oprah was classic Oprah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And as we as we think about these phenomenon, and
Speaker 3: we did have an episode previously on reality TV, I
Speaker 3: believe as we think about this phenomenon, we had to
Speaker 3: ask is there a conspiracy afoot? How real is this
Speaker 3: form of reality TV? What is the truth about court shows?
Speaker 3: We'll have a quick recess for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 3: and then we'll dive into uh something like real sustain
Speaker 3: stained sustaint all rise be seated. Here's where it gets.
Speaker 3: Can I just stay seated? Is that?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 3: Objection over how overstained? If you really like overstained.
Speaker 2: Oxy clean, this is really great reason to have the
Speaker 2: commercial breaks.
Speaker 5: Is you'all cop it overstained?
Speaker 3: Is your shift a robe overstained? I just wanted to say,
Speaker 3: shift rope? All right, great, I think.
Speaker 2: There's a great way to talk about the difference between
Speaker 2: the reality of these things and the reality of these things.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, one of the first court shows that ever came
Speaker 2: about was a thing called divorce Court, right, And it's
Speaker 2: another one of these shows that it's very, very similar
Speaker 2: to the when we just described to you before the break,
Speaker 2: where it was a radio version kind of make them
Speaker 2: up seas not really about a show, like a fictionalized
Speaker 2: version of that or a recreated version of these court
Speaker 2: rooms dramatized dramatized. The Worst Court did the same thing
Speaker 2: early on. It had four separate runs, and on the
Speaker 2: first couple of runs it was just re enacting a
Speaker 2: divorce court proceeding, which I don't I guess it's salacious
Speaker 2: enough that people would want to watch that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, think about the demographic. You're at home, you're watching TV.
Speaker 3: Maybe it makes you start thinking about your own relationships.
Speaker 3: You find something some validation in there.
Speaker 4: Like at least we're not this ft up, Right, you
Speaker 4: know or at least like a judge agrees with me
Speaker 4: that a dog should not be as important in a household.
Speaker 2: That is so fat because this is fifty seven to
Speaker 2: sixty two, then sixty seven to sixty nine. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: it is they're aiming at that time at at mothers,
Speaker 2: like stay at home mothers, fantasizing about divorce and.
Speaker 3: Also there there my god, yeah, maybe not fantasized, but
Speaker 3: also thinking there but for the grace of God go
Speaker 3: I maybe, but also the money spends to say is
Speaker 3: the thing and there's and we also have to realize
Speaker 3: the context. There are huge civil rights women's rights movements
Speaker 3: occurring at the same time.
Speaker 2: Well, but then when they came back though, they did
Speaker 2: a version. That is what we're talking about right right now.
Speaker 3: And let's step back because our first question was what
Speaker 3: do we mean by real That's where we find the answer.
Speaker 3: It's a gradient. It's not binary. These shows are not
Speaker 3: all created equally in how much they do or do
Speaker 3: not cleave to the reality of a courtroom. Some are
Speaker 3: more like a real courtroom than others. But let's start
Speaker 3: at the top. Let's go piece by piece. In these systems,
Speaker 3: are the judges actual judges. Judge Judy Yes was a judge,
Speaker 3: is not a judge. Was a judge and then began
Speaker 3: to play one on television.
Speaker 2: Judge Mills Lamee, same thing.
Speaker 3: Judge Joe Brown definitely a judge prior to the television career.
Speaker 3: So these folks were judges at one time. They were
Speaker 3: judges at one point.
Speaker 2: They know the law, that is what we're saying.
Speaker 3: Right, they are well acquainted with different parts of the law.
Speaker 2: Well, what about Steve Harvey.
Speaker 3: I just I think he's just a judgmental dude.
Speaker 2: Because he is one of the most famous Yes Courtroom
Speaker 2: TV judges right now.
Speaker 3: Because he doesn't take back something, but he is all
Speaker 3: about the court of public opinion.
Speaker 2: That's I know.
Speaker 4: But it's funny that you should say that, because it
Speaker 4: just goes to show how similar it is, like how
Speaker 4: these judges are like stand ins for talk show hosts
Speaker 4: in anyways they are holding holding court yard.
Speaker 2: Oh snap.
Speaker 3: And Steve Harvey is interesting, the guy from a family feud. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's the dude who always looks amazed by a slightly
Speaker 3: risque answer. Yeah, you know, someone's like, well I would
Speaker 3: say balls, and then he just loses his mind and
Speaker 3: can't believe it's number one on the list of toys
Speaker 3: and sports.
Speaker 2: You know, Steve Hardy's hilarious to me, Guys, I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is. I think maybe I have an
Speaker 2: SNL version of Steve Harvey playing my head. I watch him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I don't know.
Speaker 3: He also his show, Judge Steve Harvey is also technically
Speaker 3: qualified as a court comedy. To your point about.
Speaker 4: I'm not even aware of this his Judge show. I
Speaker 4: thought you were joking. No, he has a Judge show.
Speaker 4: And it's funny too because he's also a big radio
Speaker 4: guy and he just has like doesn't he host a game.
Speaker 3: Show, Family Feud, Family Food? Sorry, ye surprised when he's
Speaker 3: ticking as the king of old media in a way?
Speaker 2: Baby.
Speaker 3: He also hosted the Miss Universe competition and has seven
Speaker 3: Daytime Emmy Awards. Dude, I don't know if that's like
Speaker 3: it's like ad de emotion JV.
Speaker 2: But so, so, what we're talking about here is you've
Speaker 2: got the spectrum of a television host personality that can
Speaker 2: lead one of these shows as a judge. But on
Speaker 2: the other end, and you've got Judge Joe Brown, and
Speaker 2: that's the person I'm putting on this end because that
Speaker 2: guy was a legitimate judge for a long time. He
Speaker 2: was overseeing. We just we're talking about this when we
Speaker 2: made the MLK tapes, we talked to Judge Brown, right,
Speaker 2: but he oversaw the last appeal that James Earl Ray
Speaker 2: had before he was taken off of it because he
Speaker 2: was biased. But this is a legitimate judge that is
Speaker 2: doing the same work, the same job as Steve Harvey.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, okay, and we'll see why as well. Not
Speaker 3: all of these TV judges are real judges. Some of
Speaker 3: these shows are just borrowing a format loosely inspired by
Speaker 3: what you would imagine a courtroom to look like. There
Speaker 3: are other cases of this, you know, if you look
Speaker 3: at Judge Greg Mathis, host of the show Judge Mathis.
Speaker 3: He got a law degree and he worked as a
Speaker 3: district judge in Michigan's thirty six District Court. He dealt
Speaker 3: primarily with misdemeanors. But these court shows who not take
Speaker 3: place in real courtrooms, They don't feature real trials happening
Speaker 3: in real time. They are usually real cases, but the producers,
Speaker 3: to our earlier example, here's how they scout people. They
Speaker 3: look through pending litigation in small claims courts in the area,
Speaker 3: and then they call people and say, hey, do you
Speaker 3: want to just go sort this out on television?
Speaker 5: Is that like a form of arbitration or it is
Speaker 5: a spoiler?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, well we're seeing on these shows it's not
Speaker 3: real court cases. Instead, you're watching an arbitration process. Do
Speaker 3: we want to explain what arbitration is? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's literally a third party that
Speaker 2: listens to two people's sides of a story, essentially who
Speaker 2: have who.
Speaker 4: Have agreed to participate in this, and to take it
Speaker 4: outside of the scope of a normal courtroom proceeding.
Speaker 2: If you're doing actual arbitration, right, that is theoretically the
Speaker 2: way it works, that third party that is non biased.
Speaker 2: But again, especially if you're dealing with a corporation arbitration process.
Speaker 3: Here's where your coderation arbitration. Here's where you're gonna run
Speaker 3: into arbitration. Folks, anytime you have signed terms and conditions
Speaker 3: for literally any elect service in media or with electronic product,
Speaker 3: pre agree you have agreed to arbitration. That's why it's
Speaker 3: usually towards the second half of the contract because they
Speaker 3: know ninety five percent of people are not going to
Speaker 3: read it. You should read it, as a matter of fact.
Speaker 3: Start reading at the bottom and work your way up.
Speaker 4: That came up recently with that case of the woman
Speaker 4: being a food poisoned by Disney Food and Disney Springs
Speaker 4: associated and because the husband had signed up for like
Speaker 4: a free trial of Disney, plus he had technically agreed
Speaker 4: to arbitration, which is not in his favor because this
Speaker 4: is a case that he could potentially have won big on,
Speaker 4: but now he's been demoted to arbitration, which puts the
Speaker 4: power really in the hands of the corporation.
Speaker 2: Let's compare it to if it was in a court
Speaker 2: of law. Right, in the court of law, there's the
Speaker 2: same thing. Two arguments, right from a team of lawyers
Speaker 2: for basically someone who's defending someone who is accusing or
Speaker 2: the plaintive, and the defendant, they make their case, the
Speaker 2: jury in that case decides what's up, or the judge,
Speaker 2: depending on trial, and then that judge or jury decides,
Speaker 2: here's what's going to happen who, Here's who's going to
Speaker 2: pay money, Here's who's gonna face consequences. In arbitration, you
Speaker 2: hear this case and everything, and that one person who
Speaker 2: is your arbiter binding gets to the decide you.
Speaker 3: Can do it. There may be more than one arbiter, true,
Speaker 3: but this is alternative dispute resolution, meaning that you can say,
Speaker 3: you know, if you two guys are fighting, you could
Speaker 3: come to me and say like, hey, we don't want
Speaker 3: this to go to court. We just hear it out,
Speaker 3: we'll record it. We agree in writing that that decision
Speaker 3: to that point we'll be binding, which means that even
Speaker 3: though you're not in court with this mediation, the arbiter's
Speaker 3: decision is almost always final. It's very rare for court
Speaker 3: to go back and step on the toes. So it's
Speaker 3: a It's like how instead of going straight from kindergarten
Speaker 3: to first grade, your case goes from kindergarten to pre first.
Speaker 2: Yes and yes, And one of the most important parts
Speaker 2: of this is exactly what you said, Ben. You're not
Speaker 2: going by the laws necessarily. Sometimes you are, but especially
Speaker 2: in certain cases, you are deciding what the rules in
Speaker 2: consequences can even be. Before you begin the discussion.
Speaker 3: And scope out. You make the field of play and
Speaker 3: I contact listen close fellow conspiracy realist, not accusing anyone specifically,
Speaker 3: but you cannot do arbitration for a lot of criminal cases. Okay,
Speaker 3: so if there's a grand theft auto for instance, if
Speaker 3: there's a purposeful arson, or you have god forbid arguably
Speaker 3: committed homicide, can't go to the cops and say, well,
Speaker 3: what if we just sort of get an arbiter, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, like get get someone we all trust.
Speaker 3: Like what if we ask Bill Nye you know.
Speaker 5: What the science got?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or what if we get jaw ruled because Jaw will.
Speaker 4: Figure science gott yes or Shaggy too dope, the science yes.
Speaker 3: And so this is uh, you know, it's.
Speaker 5: About magnets, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 3: He is wilfully agreed on all things magnetic. So the
Speaker 3: power the judges have in these TV shows is just
Speaker 3: granted by the contract. Uh. And it's the contract that
Speaker 3: you sign when you agree to appear. Everybody is there voluntarily,
Speaker 3: even the devil. The fine print and also love fine print.
Speaker 3: I think they should make the fine print and just
Speaker 3: the sexier fond she's just called words. They should make
Speaker 3: it sexy.
Speaker 4: Okay, how about comic sans comic sands the sexiest thoughts.
Speaker 3: It's no wing dings. You know. So there's here's the issue.
Speaker 3: If we have an aggrieved party and a plaintiff, and
Speaker 3: the judge judge finds in favor of the of the defendant,
Speaker 3: both parties get an appearance fee. Yeah, so even if
Speaker 3: you lose your case, you still get paid for your time.
Speaker 3: And yes, if you're wondering, it is more than the
Speaker 3: fee that people in an actual jury get.
Speaker 4: Bro I found my jury duty check. It was so
Speaker 4: embarrassing and hilarious that I never even cashed it. And
Speaker 4: I looked at it and I was like, I should
Speaker 4: cash this, But now it's ninety days.
Speaker 3: It was void.
Speaker 5: It was fourteen dollars fourteen fourteen US.
Speaker 3: Dollars for coffee. It was a coffee.
Speaker 4: It was a full day of the selection process and
Speaker 4: then a full day of the trial.
Speaker 3: Seven bucks a day. Unreal coffee's on you.
Speaker 2: That's insanity.
Speaker 3: They do charge you for coffee. It's a machine. Yeah no,
Speaker 3: I mean you you buy the next round of coffee. Fourteen.
Speaker 3: I think we could recuit. There weren't even donuts, there
Speaker 3: was no spread.
Speaker 2: It's just such an important point, guys, what Ben's saying here,
Speaker 2: that is how you get somebody to come on a
Speaker 2: court television show who appears to be the bad guy,
Speaker 2: at least according to the story, right, all right, right,
Speaker 2: that's the way you get on there, because I always
Speaker 2: wondered why on earth would this cheating husband or whatever
Speaker 2: it is like go on television.
Speaker 4: And that's why it's also kind of considered poor form
Speaker 4: in journalism to pay your subjects.
Speaker 3: There you go technically illegal. Right, so depending on well, okay,
Speaker 3: we hear you, FCC's we got it, we got it.
Speaker 2: But not only would they not have to pay whatever
Speaker 2: the small claims.
Speaker 3: Is, Yes, we've got that later too, Yes, it just.
Speaker 2: You can you can definitely see while that that is
Speaker 2: better than having to pay somebody if it actually went
Speaker 2: to court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of advantages. The
Speaker 3: consumerists had a great snarky line about this. They said,
Speaker 3: while the cases and people may be real, the court
Speaker 3: could be held on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise
Speaker 3: and would still have the same effect.
Speaker 4: I mean, it might as well be it's on a set.
Speaker 4: The Starship Enterprise set may well be next door.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and that's a good point. The quote concludes,
Speaker 3: it's all just part of the collective hallucination. We call television.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a great It's very cool.
Speaker 4: I recently went to my very first taping of a
Speaker 4: late show and you know, there's a tonight show is
Speaker 4: Jimmy Fallen And I'd always pictured what the studio was like,
Speaker 4: and it is tiny. They make it look so big,
Speaker 4: but the way the camera sweeps throughout it and I
Speaker 4: guess the lens maybe the wide angle lens or whatever,
Speaker 4: and it is a tiny audience.
Speaker 3: It's a never show.
Speaker 4: Usually it's like maybe if they do show it, they
Speaker 4: show it in close up, which makes you think that
Speaker 4: it just goes on forever.
Speaker 5: But it's like a black box theater and it is
Speaker 5: that you're.
Speaker 3: In a shoe box.
Speaker 4: It's crazy how small is The band is on one wall,
Speaker 4: the band that plays as a guest is on the
Speaker 4: far wall, and then Fallin on the desk is on
Speaker 4: the left wall, and then the audience is on the
Speaker 4: back wall, and it is the illusion is real.
Speaker 3: It was very trippy being in there. Like, have you
Speaker 3: guys ever been to the SNL studios? Heck now also
Speaker 3: very small?
Speaker 4: Uh, very I'm not saying I would never. I would
Speaker 4: love to just have not know that's cool.
Speaker 3: And then if you go. Yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 3: late shows have a similar format on stage as they
Speaker 3: do in their presentation, which is all to your point
Speaker 3: to build that illusion. And speaking of illusion, we're talking
Speaker 3: about this off air, some of the defendants are actors, like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: the case might be real, but you know, the guy
Speaker 3: who is portraying the defendant also has a real on
Speaker 3: IMDb where he lists a lot of his work.
Speaker 4: Well, and there's no real jury, but there are there
Speaker 4: is a studio audience for and they sit in a
Speaker 4: jury box, right, It's it's it's an.
Speaker 2: Illusion, yeah, but they don't. Well, it depends on the
Speaker 2: format of the show. Some of the formats have interaction
Speaker 2: like with that audience, but usually it's it is an
Speaker 2: illusion that they are just an audience the way it
Speaker 2: would be in a courtroom. But they don't say anything.
Speaker 2: They just they're quiet. The only people who speak are
Speaker 2: the plaintiff, the defendant or the.
Speaker 3: And the bailiff who's like, you got that right, he's
Speaker 3: the shifty, sassy one exactly.
Speaker 4: But isn't that funny though that because as time has progressed,
Speaker 4: and you know, this being a tried and true format,
Speaker 4: you certainly have some like Steve Harvey that lean more
Speaker 4: into the absurdity of it and can be a little
Speaker 4: more goofy.
Speaker 3: With Well, all the judges quote unquote judges, whatever their providence,
Speaker 3: they have to have a personality, right, they have a
Speaker 3: list of attributes that attract people to the show again
Speaker 3: and again. You know, a no nonsense judge versus a
Speaker 3: judge who kind of sees the you know, the lighter
Speaker 3: side of things, right, you know, versus a judge who's like,
Speaker 3: my main thing is I dig parakeets. Is why this
Speaker 3: case is interesting.
Speaker 5: The parakeet judge. He always has one on his shoulder.
Speaker 3: Birth also.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my understanding just to what we're talking about
Speaker 2: here is usually they're not actors putting on a show
Speaker 2: like fake cases. They're real cases. It's just they are
Speaker 2: presented as real cases to the so then the producers
Speaker 2: decide which ones. So the way you would fake get
Speaker 2: on one of these court TV shows, in my understanding
Speaker 2: is you would have a small claims thing, or you
Speaker 2: would create a small claims thing that's wild, and then
Speaker 2: a producer would somehow come to it. I it can
Speaker 2: work that way, or I guess you would go to
Speaker 2: you'd send an email to the producers and say, guys,
Speaker 2: I've got a crazy story for you, and the fake
Speaker 2: get on.
Speaker 3: But it's also similar to so the producers play a
Speaker 3: huge role, and that's a great point. Sometimes it works
Speaker 3: the way you're describing that would actually be one of
Speaker 3: the ethical ways from the producer's end. Sometimes the producers
Speaker 3: will find an old court transcript that they really like
Speaker 3: and they'll have a recreation of that. Sometimes these are
Speaker 3: made up out of a whole cloth, or kind of
Speaker 3: like a plot for Law and Order. They're inspired by
Speaker 3: true events. Other times there will be defendants and the
Speaker 3: actually grieved parties on camera, but it's an open secret. Again.
Speaker 3: Prior to going on camera, the show's producers will pop
Speaker 3: by and just say, hey, let's judge this up a little,
Speaker 3: even if that means playing a little fast and loose
Speaker 3: with the facts. I don't know, what do you guys think,
Speaker 3: another recess for an ad brink. I don't see why not.
Speaker 3: I was waiting for an overruled or sustained sustained thank you,
Speaker 3: and we've returned, all right. There are lots of producers
Speaker 3: who will speak about this. One that I think stood
Speaker 3: out to us is a guy named Dave d. Venerio,
Speaker 3: producer of Black Chip Studios out in San Diego, he
Speaker 3: had he had a pretty good first hand account of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said, Assigning a level of reality to reality
Speaker 4: court shows is difficult because, like with most reality TV,
Speaker 4: these shows fall more in the area of contrived, that cold,
Speaker 4: you know, that contrived area, then exactly genuine or fabricate him.
Speaker 4: That's interesting, yeah, because you contrived does kind of live
Speaker 4: between those two mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And he said, you know, some shows even have scripts,
Speaker 3: because you know they're working off transcripts. Some are more improved. Right.
Speaker 3: Regardless of how these things lean into or out of reality,
Speaker 3: they all have one goal to make as much spectacle
Speaker 3: as possible, to play up the drama. If you've ever
Speaker 3: watched a real court proceeding, people are often very formal,
Speaker 3: they're pretty dry. They try to be fact based, and
Speaker 3: if you watch these shows, then people sometimes become hyper
Speaker 3: exaggerated versions of themselves. I will not have a circus
Speaker 3: in my court room, you know. Yeah, And they're saying
Speaker 3: that while the defendant and the plaintiff are dressed as
Speaker 3: literal clowns, because it clown claim, is that a thing clown?
Speaker 3: Court there's clown college. Why shouldn't there be clown court.
Speaker 3: That's true, clown rights, you know what I mean. Now
Speaker 3: clown rights. Now, where about the issues? So Divernio has
Speaker 3: this idea that may be reassuring, where he says, you know,
Speaker 3: most of these cases, most of these people are real.
Speaker 3: But to your point, Matt, occasionally people will fabricate a
Speaker 3: case to get on a show. They'll conspire right, and
Speaker 3: the producer may not know that these aggrieved parties are
Speaker 3: actually buddies coming up in the comedy scene and they
Speaker 3: because it's easy to file small claim, anyone can. But
Speaker 3: do we have examples of this being discovered?
Speaker 2: Not really there at least I couldn't find anything concrete
Speaker 2: where it's like this is definitely what happened, because is embarrassing,
Speaker 2: especially for the production if it gets through. But it
Speaker 2: used to happen all the time on talk shows where
Speaker 2: you know actors who are trying to make it out
Speaker 2: in Hollywood and they come up with a way to
Speaker 2: get on television. Again, I mean, I use Ricky Lake
Speaker 2: as an example, but it's not really necessarily that it
Speaker 2: would be one of the more salacious ones where it's
Speaker 2: like this kid is or is not my child or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's just actors and they're just having fun and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter necessarily even to the producers if it's
Speaker 2: real or not, because it makes for good TV.
Speaker 3: You just don't want that the girlfriend mistress, baby mama fights.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, sorry, folks, sometimes they know each other.
Speaker 4: I think that's interesting because what we're pointing out here
Speaker 4: is that it does seem that there is some need
Speaker 4: to maintain some semblance of credibility even in the schlockiest
Speaker 4: of these court type shows. Sure, if that is at
Speaker 4: the heart of the thing, the moment that is broken,
Speaker 4: and we cannot believe the true crime aspect of these things,
Speaker 4: it loses us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, think about it. If if the illusion that there
Speaker 2: are not direct consequences to one or the other of
Speaker 2: the people who are there on the stage, course, yeah,
Speaker 2: then nobody gives a crap. So you have to truly
Speaker 2: believe that illusion. That illusion has to exist, or else
Speaker 2: the show's canceled.
Speaker 3: And you can skirt the line there ethically and legally
Speaker 3: by not outright stating this is or is not true.
Speaker 3: Right by not outright stating this is a real court case.
Speaker 3: All you have to do is imply it through appearance,
Speaker 3: through tropes, through format, and then from far enough away
Speaker 3: you know this will seem true to a lot of people,
Speaker 3: even though it is ersatz, which is a word for
Speaker 3: appearing true without being true. And with that we have
Speaker 3: to ask, Okay, what happens when somebody is found innocent
Speaker 3: or guilty? Like we said earlier, if you're the defendant,
Speaker 3: you're found innocent, you and the other party still get
Speaker 3: an appearance fee.
Speaker 4: Is there a problem? I mean, it just depends, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think this kind of reality television in
Speaker 4: general is sort of to blame for some cultural erosion
Speaker 4: of like morals, you know. But that's me like being
Speaker 4: soapboxy about it. To me, the stakes are pretty low
Speaker 4: and everybody kind of knows what they're signing up for
Speaker 4: on both sides, the audience side and the participants side.
Speaker 4: So is it damaging to what democracy to like the law?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think it's just frivolous. Well,
Speaker 3: here's one thing they don't tell you on the show
Speaker 3: as a member of the public. To Matt, I think
Speaker 3: there's your point there about the actual penalties. What are
Speaker 3: our stakes? What happens when a penalty is leveled. They say, yes,
Speaker 3: you're the evil clown in this situation. You stole the
Speaker 3: Seltzer water and the squeaky shoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you left that house a little bit messy when
Speaker 2: you sold it to this other person and they won
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five dollars.
Speaker 3: Here's the kicker. The production pays for fines and penalties
Speaker 3: leveled as part of the arbitration agreement. So we can
Speaker 3: understand the perspective of a defendant. If you have a
Speaker 3: small claim, a real one, and you feel like your
Speaker 3: odds of winning aren't great, why wouldn't you I mean
Speaker 3: it's a cost benefit. Are you okay being a little
Speaker 3: embarrassed to save some money.
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody in Hollywood was ever.
Speaker 4: I'm too afraid of being a little embarrassed because you
Speaker 4: got to have humility and shame to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3: I know it's a good question, but you could see
Speaker 3: right because we're saying you could you could still be
Speaker 3: found guilty, and you thought you would be or found
Speaker 3: at fault, and now you can get away without having
Speaker 3: to actually pay the financial consequence.
Speaker 2: Or not just financial consequence. It's like there are no consequences. Now,
Speaker 2: some people saw you, you know. I however, many hundred
Speaker 2: or thousands of people saw you on TV doing this thing.
Speaker 2: But other than that, you're good. It's like it never.
Speaker 3: Happened, except that they might syndicate this show, which means
Speaker 3: that every night at seven pm, you know, every other month,
Speaker 3: it's back up there.
Speaker 4: But to your previous point, Ben too mean or both
Speaker 4: of you guys are on the stakes. Like, we're not
Speaker 4: dealing with sexual assault cases. We're not dealing with actual
Speaker 4: serious damages of psychological nature or of like physical bodily harm.
Speaker 4: Maybe psychological maybe, But the stakes to me on any
Speaker 4: of these that I've ever seen are always so low.
Speaker 4: Oh and kind of, like I said, frivolous that I
Speaker 4: just don't think it's that big a deal. And I
Speaker 4: think everybody kind of knows what they're getting in on,
Speaker 4: you know, whether you're participating, whether you're producing it, or
Speaker 4: whether you're at home consuming it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And to your point there from earlier, I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people watching know some degree of reality
Speaker 3: is compromised in these shows. The real reality is compromised, agreed,
Speaker 3: But there's still a lot of misconceptions. That's why people
Speaker 3: might have a problem with this. Plenty of legal boffins,
Speaker 3: TV critics and consumer advocates don't love TV court shows,
Speaker 3: and their biggest concern is that this might mess up
Speaker 3: attitudes and preconceptions about actual facts court shout out Lower
Speaker 3: and Vogel bam the idea that you know, God, I
Speaker 3: know legal professionals who've run into this. You're talking to
Speaker 3: a witness, a defendant, someone else affiliated with the case
Speaker 3: who's not a legal professional, and they say, wait, I
Speaker 3: know you're the judge or you're a big lawyer or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I've seen a lot of Judge Judy, and I've
Speaker 3: watched a lot of Law and Order SVU, so let
Speaker 3: me tell you how this goes on TV.
Speaker 4: It's true, But again, I think like everyone knows that
Speaker 4: there is a certain suspension of disbelief where it's like,
Speaker 4: I don't really apply.
Speaker 3: But maybe that's just me. You're the people that I know.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are people that see this and really
Speaker 4: think that's how things go down. So maybe I'm taking
Speaker 4: that point for granted a little bit.
Speaker 3: Well, isn't it one of the common questions you see
Speaker 3: on some jury panels or auditions where they say, do
Speaker 3: you watch you know, law and order or what do
Speaker 3: they say? Do you watch crime shows?
Speaker 5: Nowadays they've probably just abbreviated to true crime are you?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Like, yeah, what do you
Speaker 3: like true crime podcast? And that's a question that comes
Speaker 3: up because they're trying to see if you have a
Speaker 3: stilted view of what a court should look like. Since
Speaker 3: it's arbitration, it doesn't have to occur in a court room.
Speaker 3: You could put it anyway. You could even put it
Speaker 3: on social media. What about TikTok court? I mean, it's
Speaker 3: probably common guys. You know, I don't see why not
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: Of people on TikTok are getting in trouble for making
Speaker 2: up crazy stuff and not being able to back get
Speaker 2: up and then not stopping talking about the crazy stuff.
Speaker 4: But it's also there's so much ability to shield yourself
Speaker 4: by saying it's satire, you know what I mean? But
Speaker 4: there's it's really riding the line these days. You'll see
Speaker 4: someone being like, I this thing happened to me, I
Speaker 4: did this thing, I experienced this thing and it's made up.
Speaker 4: But they're doing with such a straight face, and it
Speaker 4: it feels.
Speaker 3: Like it's a real account.
Speaker 4: But it's absolutely satire, and it's up to you to
Speaker 4: figure out what that is because there's no disclaimer.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also I'm just asking questions, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like, why has what what's a weird celebrity.
Speaker 5: Chapel Roone.
Speaker 3: Why has chapel Roone never explicitly denied the allegations that
Speaker 3: she runs an a legal goat herding operation across the
Speaker 3: Columbian border.
Speaker 5: It's a good question, Ben, I've been wondering asking question.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering.
Speaker 4: Now you got me think, Ben, I've got to know,
Speaker 4: I've got to find out.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Iron
Speaker 3: must be stopped.
Speaker 2: I really thought she was talking about the Pink Pony
Speaker 2: Club here in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: I think there's a just sort of considered almost a
Speaker 4: it's like such an old school institution of strip clubs.
Speaker 5: Then it's just like a stand in like Coke happened.
Speaker 4: I was just she's got a really popular song called
Speaker 4: Pink Pony Club, and there it's about a you know,
Speaker 4: a dancer at an adult institution, and there is the
Speaker 4: famous Pink Pony in Atlanta. But chapel Roone is referring
Speaker 4: to a place that may or may not exist in
Speaker 4: West Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Exactly, at least according to the lyrics. Okay, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna believe the lyrics, well, let's.
Speaker 3: Talk about how lyrics have been put on trial.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is out of the scope of this conversation,
Speaker 4: but it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, Matt, give us the court sound cute please, sir.
Speaker 2: Dun dunn. Oh wait, that's a different one.
Speaker 3: This is perfect. You guys are doing it great. All right.
Speaker 3: Here we are in podcast court, which will be a
Speaker 3: thing later. Shout out to our pal, judge John Hayes.
Speaker 5: He's my favorite celebrity judge.
Speaker 3: He's pretty great. But we are we are also friends
Speaker 3: with him when we're in this area. We're increasingly empowering
Speaker 3: the court of public opinion, right getting ratioed on Twitter,
Speaker 3: as he said, Matt, people being surprised they encounter real
Speaker 3: world consequences for performative things on TikTok. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess the verdict is court shows are entertaining and
Speaker 3: they help and that they do conduct real arbitration, but
Speaker 3: we can't call them real if we mean their real courtrooms.
Speaker 3: Is that fair?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that is the question, though, like where
Speaker 4: when you have an OJ Simpson trial, or you have
Speaker 4: like a you know, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 3: Trial or.
Speaker 4: Brother's trial, it is it is presented in an entertaining
Speaker 4: way by the news media, but it is a news event,
Speaker 4: whereas these are somewhere in between an entertainment you know,
Speaker 4: product and a little taste of real consequences in real
Speaker 4: legal stakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, think about how obsessed we are with this stuff.
Speaker 2: Remember we uh, oh gosh, what was the movie not
Speaker 2: twelve Angry Men? That was like nineteen fifties when that
Speaker 2: was written, Well, monkeys, it was a few good men. Yes,
Speaker 2: of course we talked about how compelled America was with
Speaker 2: that film, and it is most of it is not
Speaker 2: most of it. A lot of the most heightened moments
Speaker 2: are just inside a courtroom.
Speaker 3: You can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2: But it's just people talking to each other, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with the real type back and forth camera angle.
Speaker 2: The same with the radio place back in the day.
Speaker 2: It's just really about the words and the way people
Speaker 2: are saying things to each other. And that's where the
Speaker 2: drama actually is.
Speaker 4: And sometimes the drama comes in all how you frame it,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, and what you pull from
Speaker 4: it because sitting in at court eat like that the
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 3: It's pretty dry, are formal because they've got a lot
Speaker 3: on the line. Also reminds me of a well, what
Speaker 3: was that movie with al Pacino as a blind incentive
Speaker 3: woman who is also who was also somehow incent He
Speaker 3: stands up in a hearing. Yeah, because he talks about
Speaker 3: a central one. He stands up in a hearing and
Speaker 3: has pretty salacious name. If you think yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, he talks about it. He stand anyway. Uh.
Speaker 3: The point is he stands up in a hearing and
Speaker 3: he delivers this excoriating uh monologue and statement. And that's
Speaker 3: the kind of stuff that stays with people, Just like
Speaker 3: in a Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson's character is a
Speaker 3: very brief part but extremely pivotal juncture of the story.
Speaker 4: Opening and closing arguments are always the big drama, well
Speaker 4: not the only, but like the opportunities for the litigator
Speaker 4: to hold court, to actually have the all eyes on me.
Speaker 4: I'm setting it up, I'm laying out the stakes.
Speaker 3: Think of Atticus fans to kill a mockingbird.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, it's the phrase stand and deliver. Just reminding
Speaker 2: me of that movie. Stand and deliver about the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, And with this we see that pop
Speaker 3: culture has already kind of blurred the line. I won't
Speaker 3: even say kind of pop culture has blurred the line
Speaker 3: between what we think is real and what we think
Speaker 3: is entertainment. So maybe our verdict is this h If
Speaker 3: you take away anything from this episode, remember that anything
Speaker 3: you learn from watching Court TV should not be confused
Speaker 3: with something that might help you in an actual courtroom,
Speaker 3: unless you just want the judge to be irritated at you.
Speaker 3: I feel like your honor. Do you know, Judge Joe Brown,
Speaker 3: their eyes will roll so hard, or or maybe they'll
Speaker 3: do that face you just did, Matt, what do you
Speaker 3: know about Joe?
Speaker 2: He's such a weird case study because because he's a
Speaker 2: he's a legit judge, you like it, is so good
Speaker 2: at doing that job. Yes, and then he's also only
Speaker 2: really known for this stuff. And he got that job
Speaker 2: as Judge Joe Brown right after the whole involvement with
Speaker 2: James Earl Ray, which made me think conspiratorially, of course,
Speaker 2: maybe he was given this as like, don't make a
Speaker 2: stink about this whole thing. Okay, So here's some a
Speaker 2: lot of money and be a judge.
Speaker 3: Now here's your door prize.
Speaker 2: I don't mean that. Sorry, that's an accuistion. It's not
Speaker 2: an accusation, it's an observation. Thinking about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thought experiment.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 4: But also you got to think too, that's a little
Speaker 4: bit of a happier life for a guy like that,
Speaker 4: oh for sure, in terms of the stakes being so
Speaker 4: comparatively lower.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just you know, as long as we pretend like some
Speaker 2: elements of the government didn't want MLK to to be dead,
Speaker 2: it's fine.
Speaker 3: The devil you say. Do check out our episodes on
Speaker 3: co Hotel pro. Do check out the MLK tapes which
Speaker 3: Matt let the charge on chick out our previous episodes
Speaker 3: on not just reality TV but the nature of reality.
Speaker 3: For now, our verdict is court shows are entertaining, but
Speaker 3: they are not real. Court case dismissed, sustain. Yes, you
Speaker 3: can also find us. I don't think I still don't
Speaker 3: understand the terms. Sorry, we want to hear your thoughts, folks.
Speaker 3: You can find us all kinds of places. Unlike that
Speaker 3: radio show from years past, you can actually contact us.
Speaker 3: We can find us on email. We got a phone number.
Speaker 3: We're all over the place online it's right.
Speaker 4: You can shout into your podcast consuming device of choice,
Speaker 4: or you can find us all over the internet. As
Speaker 4: Ben said at the Hamil Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
Speaker 4: on Facebook with our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: On x FKA, Twitter and on YouTube where we have
Speaker 4: video content galore for your enjoyment.
Speaker 5: On Instagram and TikTok. However, we are conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 2: Show Yes, if you have a case you want to
Speaker 2: have arbitrated, reach out to Judge John Hodgman. We're pretty
Speaker 2: sure he still does that. Yes, and they're fun, so
Speaker 2: do that. If you want to call us and tell
Speaker 2: us about anything you w want adjudicated, call our number.
Speaker 2: It is one eight three three S C D W
Speaker 2: I T k K feels.
Speaker 4: Good, say KKK, I'm not picking.
Speaker 2: That's our phone number. When you call, and give yourself
Speaker 2: a cool nickname and let us know if we can
Speaker 2: use your name and message on the air. It's a
Speaker 2: three minute voicemail. If you've got more that can fit
Speaker 2: in that, why not instead send us a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid the shadow knows,
Speaker 3: and sometimes the shadow writes back, join us out here
Speaker 3: in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.