Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. I got a select for you.
Speaker 1: This is Chuck here of the Stuff You Should Know
Speaker 1: podcast introducing Rockettes Colon still kicking after all these years.
Speaker 1: This one came out January first, twenty nineteen, and it's
Speaker 1: about the Rocketts, and this is the time of year
Speaker 1: to talk about the Rockets. I learned a lot about
Speaker 1: this organization, organization, this dance troup and their storied history,
Speaker 1: and I think you're gonna like it, So give it
Speaker 1: a listen and please enjoy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Speaker 3: Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Happy New Year.
Speaker 2: You are too tall to be a rocket, aren't you?
Speaker 3: Just barely?
Speaker 2: Jerry and I can be rockettes. That's a good than
Speaker 2: you can't. No, it's true, which is a shame because
Speaker 2: you have the.
Speaker 3: I do. Actually, I've got pretty decent legs, you know,
Speaker 3: at least my calves are all right.
Speaker 2: What no thighs.
Speaker 3: They're a little tree trunky for my taste. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've got a bit of like a fertility idle thing
Speaker 3: going on, like up toward the hips and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's because of all those squats.
Speaker 3: I was not expecting to talk about this.
Speaker 2: About your gams. Yeah, oh well, I'll talk about my
Speaker 2: legs all day long.
Speaker 3: Well, let's hear it.
Speaker 2: They're shapely, Okay, they're they're not. I gain all my
Speaker 2: weight between my waist and my chin. Aha, Like I don't.
Speaker 2: If you looked at my legs in my arms, you'd
Speaker 2: be like, thin guy weighs one hundred and sixty pounds
Speaker 2: and then the rest of me comes along to bust
Speaker 2: that myth step aside, still have a nice little fanny,
Speaker 2: sure everybody knows that. Sorry listeners in the UK, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that means something different over there, does It's just so
Speaker 2: dainty and nice that a little little five year old kids.
Speaker 3: Can say fanny in the United States.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: It's just the Brits who are sick ghos.
Speaker 2: But this isn't about our gambs. This is about a
Speaker 2: dance troupe, A legendary dance troupe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, about as legendary as a dance troup can possibly be.
Speaker 3: Are the Rockets?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 3: I just said that sentence like Yoda, can you do
Speaker 3: the voice no, no, no, not even going to try.
Speaker 2: But this totally surprised me digging into the research on
Speaker 2: this to learn that the legendary Rockets of New York
Speaker 2: City and Radio City Music Hall are not from New
Speaker 2: York City.
Speaker 3: No, they're not. Where are they from? Chuck?
Speaker 2: Did you know this?
Speaker 3: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, so shout out to Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They were founded in the nineteen twenties, nineteen twenty
Speaker 3: five to be exacted in Saint Louis, Missouri as the Rockets,
Speaker 3: the Saint Louis Rockets, which I think they were trying
Speaker 3: to be a basketball team.
Speaker 2: Maybe Saint Louis Rockets.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There was a choreographer named Russell Markert, which is
Speaker 2: I kept wanting to say market but that is an
Speaker 2: r yep. And he founded them, like you said, in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, and he was he was inspired by
Speaker 2: a British dance troupe named the Tiller Girls, which was
Speaker 2: founded in the eighteen ninety four by John Tiller, and
Speaker 2: it was kind of a similar idea. He saw these
Speaker 2: Tiller Girls and he was like, I want a high kicking, glamorous,
Speaker 2: theatrical dance troupe of my own. Yeah, so I'm gonna
Speaker 2: rip it off.
Speaker 3: He did, actually, so. John Tillers is widely acknowledged as
Speaker 3: the creator of what's called precision dance, which is where
Speaker 3: you have a bunch of dancers who were really highly trained,
Speaker 3: really athletic, and really precise in their movements that can
Speaker 3: move in such unison. Yeah, that you take a number,
Speaker 3: like a number of different dancers and they basically become
Speaker 3: one thing that can do things that an individual dancer
Speaker 3: can't do. That's precision dance technique. And John Tiller literally
Speaker 3: invented it with I think four ten year old girls
Speaker 3: in the eighteen nineties, and he came up with some
Speaker 3: further refinements to it, like when you put your hand
Speaker 3: around the waists of the people on either side of you,
Speaker 3: it kind of lends to the unity of the whole thing.
Speaker 3: And Russell Maker Markert saw this and was like, this
Speaker 3: is amazing. If I can get some American girls with
Speaker 3: longer legs to kick higher, it'll knock everybody's socks off.
Speaker 3: That's a quote, by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a there's something too that that synchronicity
Speaker 2: of for me for movement and sound that just knocks
Speaker 2: me out every time when I go and see a choir,
Speaker 2: what's like one hundred people singing together and high kicking.
Speaker 2: Or a symphony, just the not only the sound, but
Speaker 2: the movement when you watch a symphony, that's a big
Speaker 2: part of it for me. Forget a choral symphony. Like
Speaker 2: I'm on the floor weeping if you take me to
Speaker 2: a choral symphony. But there's something about that precision of
Speaker 2: all these people together. It's just really like, I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is about it. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: collective voice or collective movement, but it's that precision that
Speaker 2: really just gets me every time for sure.
Speaker 3: Well that's what the Rockets are known for. It's their
Speaker 3: trade is precision dance. They're as good as it gets
Speaker 3: with it. Although the Tailor girls are definitely still around.
Speaker 3: They still have Christmas specials themselves and they're doing their
Speaker 3: thing for sure. So it's it's not just an offhand
Speaker 3: thing to say the Rockets are as good as it comes,
Speaker 3: as good as they come in precision dance, because the
Speaker 3: Tiller girls would probably say I would dispute that statement, but.
Speaker 2: They would say it with a British accent.
Speaker 3: Right, I dispute that statement.
Speaker 2: So they were not as tall. Back then, the original
Speaker 2: height requirements were between five to two and five six
Speaker 2: and a half. And now they went, we'll take your
Speaker 2: tallest dancer and make them our shortest dancer, because I
Speaker 2: guess it's just I don't know. I'm not sure why
Speaker 2: they did that. But now it's between five six and
Speaker 2: five ten and a half. And it is not because
Speaker 2: they want to exclude people or any or discriminate against
Speaker 2: people who are too tall or they feel too short,
Speaker 2: but so they can just all look it's an optical illusion,
Speaker 2: so they can all look the same height because they
Speaker 2: take that five foot ten and a half inch dancer,
Speaker 2: although they don't have to be that tall, but they
Speaker 2: take whoever their tallest. Answer is put her right in
Speaker 2: the middle and then just stagger it out from there
Speaker 2: and in the end everyone looks. It's weird. Everyone looks
Speaker 2: to be the same height even though they're not.
Speaker 3: I don't understand how this works. It's just I saw
Speaker 3: so many different places that I'm convinced that it does work.
Speaker 3: I just don't get the illusion of it. How it works.
Speaker 2: Well, I think over four inches and thirty six women,
Speaker 2: it's just so minute of differences as you scale down
Speaker 2: that it would take I guess an extraordinary human to
Speaker 2: be like that woman is an inch and a half
Speaker 2: taller than the one five people away from her, right,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I got you. Yeah, I guess that's true.
Speaker 2: So you're just a normal person, is what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you should feel good about that. I fall for that
Speaker 2: optical illusion every time. Yeah, everybody should. So they started
Speaker 2: with the Missouri Rockets with just sixteen women, and like
Speaker 2: I said, now they have thirty six. And they debuted
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis, but then went to New York to
Speaker 2: perform Rain or Shine on Broadway. And that is where
Speaker 2: a man named sl Roxy that was his nickname, Rothefel,
Speaker 2: which is an interesting name. That's where he saw them
Speaker 2: and said, hey, I gotta get in on this. This
Speaker 2: is amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Russell Mamarkert took the idea from John Tiller,
Speaker 3: and Roxy Rothafel said, Hey, I want in on this.
Speaker 3: Cham So I'm going to grab a few of these
Speaker 3: dancers from Saint Louis and bring them over to New
Speaker 3: York City and we're going to have him start dancing there. Okay,
Speaker 3: And I know, just the place for him. There's this
Speaker 3: new venue that's opening up in nineteen thirty two, and
Speaker 3: they're going to call it the Radio City Music Hall,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to make sure that these dancers are
Speaker 3: a to perform and we're going to call them the Roxyets.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 2: Huh huh because of his nickname.
Speaker 3: Right, And Markert said, that's fine, just make sure you
Speaker 3: pay me some money for it.
Speaker 2: Sure, And he did get paid and got paid until
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. It's hard to believe, but he worked
Speaker 2: for the Rockets or with the Rockets from nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: two to or I guess even previous in Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nineteen twenty five, all the way.
Speaker 2: Until nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Really amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is pretty amazing. That's a pretty long career.
Speaker 3: So they opened Radio City Music Hall. I think they
Speaker 3: were part of a seventeen group act and that was
Speaker 3: like such a hot ticket, something like one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people wanted in. But it's a sixty two hundred seat theater,
Speaker 3: which I think it still remains the nation's largest indoor venue,
Speaker 3: which is really saying something because I guess it'd just
Speaker 3: be a like a theatrical venue, because obviously.
Speaker 2: The largest indoor venue sports venues.
Speaker 3: Have it beat by quite a bit.
Speaker 2: But oh, theatrical, Okay, I got you.
Speaker 3: It has to be. Yeah, it's either movie or theatrical
Speaker 3: or something. But it's the largest venue of its kind
Speaker 3: in the United States from what I see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for many years they I mean they had
Speaker 2: specials every now and then, but it was sort of
Speaker 2: just a movie theater.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and here's the thing, you could go see the movies.
Speaker 3: I think especially it started to take off in the fifties.
Speaker 3: Like before, they would have premieres for movies and the
Speaker 3: Rockets would like perform at the premiere. And then at
Speaker 3: some point, I don't know if it was Russell Markert
Speaker 3: or Roxy Rothafeller or somebody said, well, why just do
Speaker 3: this once. How about every time somebody comes to see
Speaker 3: a movie at the Radio City Music Hall, We'll have
Speaker 3: the Rockets perform before the movie.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that?
Speaker 3: It would be pretty cool? I mean, like imagine seeing
Speaker 3: that and then being like, okay, now for the movie.
Speaker 3: It's just it'd be a different experience for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But it was rough on the Rockets because not all
Speaker 3: the movies were successes, so they would change the rockets
Speaker 3: show for each movie. So if a movie came along
Speaker 3: and it was just a terrible flop, this whole choreographed
Speaker 3: routine that they'd learned would be out the door in
Speaker 3: two days, and now all of a sudden they had
Speaker 3: to learn a new one quick because there was a
Speaker 3: new movie coming in to replace that one.
Speaker 2: Oh, so they did a different routine for each film.
Speaker 3: Yes, interesting, Yeah, And sometimes they would have to learn
Speaker 3: it in a matter of hours, like around midnight before
Speaker 3: the next day's performances.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it was tied to the film.
Speaker 3: Sometimes, I think, but not all the time. I think
Speaker 3: it was. I think it was in some cases, but
Speaker 3: I think more than anything, they would change the routine
Speaker 3: just because the people coming to see a different film
Speaker 3: would want to see a different routine.
Speaker 2: Okay, I gotcha, Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in the nineteen forties they were one of the
Speaker 2: first groups to sign up for the United Service Organization
Speaker 2: and go and perform for the troops. And in the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties is when things really started to kind of
Speaker 2: take their toll. Like they were performing sometimes up to
Speaker 2: five times a day, and so they said they built
Speaker 2: a dormitory there, which you know, they could live in.
Speaker 2: I don't think they were required to, but it really
Speaker 2: was to accommodate the fact that they were working almost
Speaker 2: around the clock rather because learning these new routines, like
Speaker 2: you said, and then performing up the five times a
Speaker 2: day really grueling stuff.
Speaker 3: It was basically the prototype for Google. Yeah, just making
Speaker 3: it so your employees didn't have to leave.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, just go
Speaker 2: sleep in your pod.
Speaker 3: So the Rockets their fame started to grow pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: and they made like a few steps I feel free
Speaker 3: of the pun along the way that kind of cemented
Speaker 3: them as as much a piece of America as apple
Speaker 3: pie or baseball or moms or what have you. So
Speaker 3: the fifties were also big for the Rockets too, because
Speaker 3: they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving they prayed in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, that was the big move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they went from just a group that you
Speaker 3: either had to go to New York or go off
Speaker 3: to war to see to. While they're in my living
Speaker 3: room now, these girls are high kicking on my television
Speaker 3: and I'm just loving life, all right.
Speaker 2: So let's take a break to nineteen fifties. Good times
Speaker 2: are ahead, and then dark times come in the seventies
Speaker 2: because it's New York City in the seventies and everything
Speaker 2: was kind of awful then. So we'll be back right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 3: Okay, Hey, before we get started to check, I want
Speaker 3: to say we put on a pretty good stage show ourselves.
Speaker 3: We've been known to and we've got some coming up,
Speaker 3: you know, plug plug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no high kicking involved.
Speaker 3: There could be if people demanded it. I would be
Speaker 3: willing to do a little high kicking.
Speaker 2: So are we talking about some shows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do that real quick, all right.
Speaker 2: So we're going out west for our annual sojourn in
Speaker 2: January where we go to Seattle, we go to Portland,
Speaker 2: and then we end up at SF sketch Fest like
Speaker 2: we always do in mid January.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've got an End of the World live
Speaker 3: show on Friday sketch Fest, and you have a movie
Speaker 3: Crush on Saturday at sketch Fest, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing a matinee show at one o'clock on Saturday,
Speaker 2: January nineteenth, with Busy Phillips as my guest.
Speaker 3: Nice, and my show is Friday the eighteenth, at Cafe
Speaker 3: Do Nord and I am my own guest, fine solo.
Speaker 3: And then I have another one in Brooklyn on the
Speaker 3: twenty fourth at the Bellhouse too.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought you already did that one now huh.
Speaker 3: It got postponed to January twenty fourth. Oh great, yes,
Speaker 3: so you haven't missed it. There's still time for you
Speaker 3: to come.
Speaker 2: Fantastic.
Speaker 3: So that is our little plug, how about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And of course our big stuff you should know
Speaker 2: show is at the Castro on what is that Thursday night?
Speaker 3: That is Thursday the seventeenth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so come see us at the More in Seattle,
Speaker 2: Revolution Hall in Portland, at the Castro in San Francisco. Yeah,
Speaker 2: check out. Our individual little shows are cute little individual shows.
Speaker 3: And there's plenty of information on SYSK live.
Speaker 2: That's right. So now it's the seventies. New York is
Speaker 2: uh is suffering? Yehih is crazy. When you look at
Speaker 2: pictures of New York City in the seventies and early eighties,
Speaker 2: even just hard to believe how bad things were there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty rough. And actually it's funny, like
Speaker 3: you can thank Rudolph Giuliani for I guess cleaning up
Speaker 3: the town. If you want to call it that.
Speaker 2: Okay, have you ever heard that? What to thank Rudolph
Speaker 2: Giuliani for cleaning up the town?
Speaker 3: Uh? Huh uh sure, okay.
Speaker 2: Good for him. So I saw him in the park
Speaker 2: one day.
Speaker 3: You did, what was he doing talking to a duck?
Speaker 2: No, he was. He was doing like a photo op.
Speaker 2: But I had friends in from uh from another country even,
Speaker 2: I think, and I said, hey, guys, that's the Mayor
Speaker 2: of New York over there, and they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's nice. I went, it's kind of a big deal
Speaker 2: to just walk around and see the Mayor of.
Speaker 3: New York did they say, but they have a chalk.
Speaker 2: I think they're Australian.
Speaker 3: Actually, oh that was my Australian impression.
Speaker 2: Oh that was good.
Speaker 3: Then, yeah, thank you, that's pretty that's a great story, Chuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fine. But for them, they didn't understand fully
Speaker 2: that the mayor of New York City is is it's
Speaker 2: quite a big deal to see him just out and
Speaker 2: about in the city.
Speaker 3: I have a similar story. I was watching one of
Speaker 3: the first few seasons of Law and Order on my
Speaker 3: television one day, and there was the Mayor of New
Speaker 3: York City, ruly Rudy Giuliani. Interesting, but I knew it
Speaker 3: was a big, a big deal.
Speaker 2: I got another story. Okay, did you know in the
Speaker 2: Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor that they comped in Bruce
Speaker 2: Willis's John McClain character from Diehard in one hospital scene.
Speaker 3: How just digitally? That's an anachronism. I know that doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense. Did they really do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can look it up Pearl Harbor John McLain
Speaker 2: And there's like screenshots of John McLain and his white
Speaker 2: tank top just briefly for a blip in the background
Speaker 2: of one of the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor. It's
Speaker 2: so weird.
Speaker 3: So you know, there's a nude woman in the window
Speaker 3: of one of the buildings that the rescuers fly by.
Speaker 3: Really the Disney movie from the sixties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all these weird movie easter eggs just board editors.
Speaker 3: I guess that's exactly what it hits because we're juvenile.
Speaker 2: Editors, all right. So it's the nineteen seventies in New York.
Speaker 2: None of this has happened yet that we're talking about.
Speaker 3: The rescuers did.
Speaker 2: The rescuers did, but there was no Diehard, there was
Speaker 2: no Pearl Harbor. Movie except for Tora Toro, Torah, But
Speaker 2: no bad Pearl Harbor movie. Okay, No Rudy Giuliani. He
Speaker 2: was alive, sure, but he was not in the mayor
Speaker 2: of New York City in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3: Not as far as we know. Who was at that
Speaker 3: was Ed Koch, he was the eighties, I think was
Speaker 3: he maybe late seventies.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll get that straightened out. Okay, But New
Speaker 2: York City is going down the toilet, including, believe it
Speaker 2: or not, the Great Radio City Music Hall, much like
Speaker 2: our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta, was facing shut
Speaker 2: down and demolition potentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a rough transition from some of those
Speaker 3: old movie palaces after people stopped well going to movie
Speaker 3: palaces and moved out to the suburbs. A lot of
Speaker 3: those beautiful places were left out in the cold, and
Speaker 3: some of them didn't well, a lot of them didn't
Speaker 3: make it, but some of them almost didn't make it.
Speaker 3: Like you said, the Fox and Radio City, and apparently
Speaker 3: it was going to be turned into a parking lot.
Speaker 3: And Belushi himself got onto the news desk at Saturday
Speaker 3: Night Live and was railing against the demise of radio
Speaker 3: City Music Hall, and the Roquettes too had said hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 3: this is our home. This is an iconic place. Let
Speaker 3: us help go raise awareness and funds to save this place.
Speaker 3: And they did. They were successful. They got it put
Speaker 3: on the National Historic Register of Historic Places and it
Speaker 3: has a landmark designation, not just the building. There's twelve
Speaker 3: hundred buildings in New York with the landmark designation, but
Speaker 3: only one hundred and ten interiors have the landmark designation,
Speaker 3: and Radio City Music Hall is one of them, which
Speaker 3: means that its interior is so amazingly beautiful that it
Speaker 3: is a protected landmark in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never been in there.
Speaker 3: I haven't either.
Speaker 2: I've been to Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. That's
Speaker 2: on the list for sure. But it's interesting because they
Speaker 2: tried to Their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive
Speaker 2: movie bookings, like they were to be the only theater
Speaker 2: in town that would be showing a particular movie, so
Speaker 2: that limits their pool immediately, and then they really preferred
Speaker 2: g rated movies. They had really strict screening criteria, so
Speaker 2: that just it narrowed down their movie pool so small
Speaker 2: that they would go weeks and weeks at a time
Speaker 2: where nothing happened there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they would just shut down because again, remember
Speaker 3: like the Rockets are a dance troupe that you would
Speaker 3: see before you saw a movie. So if they're not
Speaker 3: showing movies, they're not showing the Rockets. And at this
Speaker 3: time in the seventies, the Rockets said, Okay, we're our
Speaker 3: talent is being wasted here. At least let us go
Speaker 3: take the show on the road while you guys are
Speaker 3: sitting around waiting for another movie to come along. And
Speaker 3: they actually they gained that right because their union dancers.
Speaker 3: We should say, we'll get into that a little more later,
Speaker 3: but they managed to get the right to take the
Speaker 3: show on the road and they really started to make
Speaker 3: a name for themselves in the seventies in places like
Speaker 3: Tahoe and Vegas. Apparently made a huge fan out of
Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Junior, who would come see the same show
Speaker 3: like night after night when they play in Vegas or
Speaker 3: Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by the Rockets.
Speaker 2: I love that for sure, Little Sammy, what a great guy.
Speaker 2: We should do a show on him.
Speaker 3: Apparently he also, oh yeah, I'm down with that. He
Speaker 3: also surprised them on stage once by joe them on
Speaker 3: stage for a dance number, which apparently he knew because
Speaker 3: he'd seen the show so many times. Wow, Which that's
Speaker 3: a pretty sammy thing to do in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: High kicking, Well, his his kicks weren't so high.
Speaker 3: Run out on stage, unbidden, uninvited.
Speaker 2: He's a little guy, he was. He's the littlest rocket.
Speaker 2: I imagine Wow that he was too. So they're doing
Speaker 2: their show on the road here and there, they're making
Speaker 2: ends meet. Radio City is struggling, even though it was
Speaker 2: designated as a landmark. The eighties were not super kind
Speaker 2: to Radio City either. They very famously appeared at the
Speaker 2: halftime show of the Super Bowl in eighty eight. They're
Speaker 2: trying to change with the times. They're dancing it in
Speaker 2: the nineties at different places, and they're always doing their
Speaker 2: Christmas deal throughout all this after you know, they started
Speaker 2: doing that. And what was that fifty seven two? Oh
Speaker 2: they did the Macy's Prayed in thirty two.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm sorry, I thought you meant the Christmas Spectacular. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Macy's Prayed was the Thanksgiving Parade was fifty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they've got their their holiday stuff, their Easter specials,
Speaker 2: their Christmas specials. They're dancing inaugurations for George W. Bush.
Speaker 2: In fact, they came under fire for dancing at Trump's inauguration.
Speaker 3: Well, the dance troupe almost was split asunder over whether
Speaker 3: they wanted to do that or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big deal.
Speaker 3: It was a huge deal actually, And they had revived
Speaker 3: the Easter Extravaganza they renamed it the New York Spring
Speaker 3: Spectacular the year before, and they said they took a
Speaker 3: year off and I don't think they ever went back
Speaker 3: to it because of all the controversy over twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: In the inauguration, it was just such an unusual experience
Speaker 3: for the Rockets, like they're just like America personified, and
Speaker 3: for there to be a huge national conversation about, you know,
Speaker 3: them performing at an inauguration. It was a big deal
Speaker 3: for the organization for sure, especially for the dancers who
Speaker 3: are like career rockets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, should we talk a little bit about just
Speaker 2: being a rocket?
Speaker 3: I think we should, man, because we've done it. We have.
Speaker 3: I mean there was a brief time although we've basically
Speaker 3: entered Dinah Lohan territory now who's that Lindsay Lohan's mom.
Speaker 3: She very famously lied about being a rock cat. Oh
Speaker 3: really Yeah, she said that she has a background in
Speaker 3: show business. She was a rocket for a while, and
Speaker 3: some journalists went and dug around and they found out
Speaker 3: that she was definitely They had no record whatsoever of
Speaker 3: her under any name, maiden or married, ever being a
Speaker 3: rock cat.
Speaker 2: It's always amazing to me when very provable or disprovable
Speaker 2: public lies are told by people like that, or like
Speaker 2: politicians who say that, you know, like they've fought in
Speaker 2: a war when they didn't, like that's happened. Yeah, It's
Speaker 2: just I don't know why people say things like that.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, we kind of can go check that
Speaker 2: really easily.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but even without like you know, the check ability
Speaker 3: of it, to just like, you know, lie in an
Speaker 3: interview to puff yourself up, I guess it's yeah, Like
Speaker 3: I don't understand the psychology of it. Is it just
Speaker 3: because you don't feel like you're given the interviewer enough
Speaker 3: of what they need or do they did they lay
Speaker 3: some sort of trick that led you into it, or
Speaker 3: I don't understand it either.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder if people start to believe these lies.
Speaker 2: Like if you make up a story about yourself and
Speaker 2: you just stick with it for so long, it's weird.
Speaker 3: Psychology, Yes, human psychology is indeed quite weird.
Speaker 2: Did you have a web show called Psychology is Weird?
Speaker 3: Nuts?
Speaker 2: Psychology is nuts?
Speaker 3: Well, little short lived video thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go check that out. Everyone. Oh, we'll take a break.
Speaker 3: Stop I am, We're back.
Speaker 2: Yes, So we were gonna tell everyone about our experience
Speaker 2: as rockets because we're Dinah Lohan.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. If you're a rocket and you've
Speaker 3: been doing this for ten years, you're a pretty long
Speaker 3: lived rocket. Although I think I saw one woman who
Speaker 3: is a rocket, And if I'm talking weird all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, it's because I am stalling everybody looking for
Speaker 3: her name and I'm not finding it. But I think
Speaker 3: it's Lindsay Howe. I'm just positive her name's Lindsay Howe.
Speaker 3: I believe she has been a rocket for fourteen years.
Speaker 3: That's a long time. That's a very long time to
Speaker 3: be a rocket because, as you will see learn, being
Speaker 3: a roquette is extremely difficult and very demanding, and inside
Speaker 3: of show business and out they're widely seen as probably
Speaker 3: some of the best professional dancers in the business and
Speaker 3: certainly some of the most disciplined professional dancers in the
Speaker 3: business as well. But it's really hard to do for
Speaker 3: a really long time. And one of the main reasons
Speaker 3: why is because their work schedule is extremely grueling. But
Speaker 3: with Lindsey Howe, she would make the same amount of
Speaker 3: money that a first year roquette would make because they're
Speaker 3: all paid the same, they work the same hours, they
Speaker 3: do the same work. Some of them are kind of
Speaker 3: promoted as like the faces of the Rockets the company.
Speaker 3: I think the Madison Square Garden company that owns Radio
Speaker 3: City Music Hall, and the Roquettes are really protective of
Speaker 3: their image and like they aren't free to just kind
Speaker 3: of talk to the media whatever. There's some that are
Speaker 3: kind of like you and you and you you're the Rockets,
Speaker 3: hear the face of the Rockets. But other than that,
Speaker 3: everyone does the same amount of work, same amount of hours,
Speaker 3: same amount of pay. And one of the reasons they
Speaker 3: do that is because the point of the Rockets is
Speaker 3: not to have standouts. It's not like other dance troops
Speaker 3: or other Broadway troops or anything like that. There's not
Speaker 3: meant to be stars. The rockets are the star and
Speaker 3: they're meant to be one single unit that moves and
Speaker 3: works and lives together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're they're unionized, so they make there. They
Speaker 2: make most of their money over the holiday season. So
Speaker 2: they walk out after a couple of months with about
Speaker 2: forty grand in their pocket, which isn't bad, you know,
Speaker 2: for a couple of months work. But it is, like
Speaker 2: you said, super grueling. If you want to become a rocket,
Speaker 2: you're not required to, but there is something called the
Speaker 2: Rocket Summer Intensive Dance Program where you can go, you
Speaker 2: can enroll, you can spend six hours a day learning,
Speaker 2: learning everything over the course of a week, all the choreography,
Speaker 2: how to get in that shape, stay in that shape,
Speaker 2: how to prevent injuries, and sort of the business of
Speaker 2: it all. And like I said, you don't have to
Speaker 2: do that, but they do place a lot of Rockets
Speaker 2: if you attend that intensive dance program.
Speaker 3: Well some I saw out of a thousand that have
Speaker 3: taken it, sixty have gone on to actually become rockets. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's very tough to become a rocket too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I get the feeling that has
Speaker 2: less to do with the program than just how hard
Speaker 2: it is to make that cut.
Speaker 3: Right right exactly.
Speaker 2: So not only do you have to be fit enough
Speaker 2: to kick those famous kicks up to twelve hundred times
Speaker 2: a day through all these shows, but there's one there's
Speaker 2: one clothing change. You got to do all these costume changes,
Speaker 2: but there's one in particular in between the Parade of
Speaker 2: the Wooden Soldiers in New York at Christmas that you
Speaker 2: have to be complete changed out in seventy eight seconds.
Speaker 3: Seventy eight seconds, And these costumes are not like super
Speaker 3: easy to take off, the Wooden Soldier one in particular
Speaker 3: pretty complex, So seventy eight seconds probably goes by extremely fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's thirty six rockettes total performing on stage,
Speaker 2: but there are eighty certified roquettes total. Overall. You have
Speaker 2: a morning cast and afternoon cast, and then you have
Speaker 2: for each of those shows, you have four swings or
Speaker 2: extras per so like if someone's like I just twisted
Speaker 2: my ankle, I can't do this, they have four women
Speaker 2: waiting in the wings for each of those morning and
Speaker 2: afternoon shows.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the thing is, though, is they're working six
Speaker 3: days a week, or the rockettes are performing six days
Speaker 3: a week. If you have two casts rather than all
Speaker 3: work both casts six days a week. They'll alternate to
Speaker 3: give one another a day off, and they'll do that
Speaker 3: on days sometimes where there's four performances in a day,
Speaker 3: which means that if you are a rocket, there are
Speaker 3: days and I've seen also sometimes they're back to back
Speaker 3: days where you're doing four performances in a single day,
Speaker 3: four ninety minute performances. And that's when those twelve hundred
Speaker 3: kicks that you mentioned, Chuck comes in, because some of
Speaker 3: those shows have three hundred high kicks, and we're talking
Speaker 3: eye level kicks, and if you do four of them
Speaker 3: in a day, you've just kicked at eye level twelve
Speaker 3: hundred times in a day. And from some of the
Speaker 3: articles I've read, that is about as much as your
Speaker 3: body can possibly take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they all in the interviews I saw.
Speaker 2: There was that great New York Times article where they
Speaker 2: really sort of dive into a day in the life
Speaker 2: of a rocket during the holiday season, and they all
Speaker 2: kind of are like, there's no way to prepare your
Speaker 2: body for this, Like we are in the best shape
Speaker 2: that a dancer can be in, and it just destroys
Speaker 2: us to the point where, like one of said that
Speaker 2: just taking their stockings off at the end of the
Speaker 2: night is laborious, and you know, with their commute, depending
Speaker 2: on where they come from, some of them are awake
Speaker 2: and either commuting or rehearsing or performing twenty hours in
Speaker 2: a day, just grueling, grueling stuff. But across the board,
Speaker 2: they also all say that it's the only job that
Speaker 2: they want. It is a great sorority and sisterhood and
Speaker 2: an honor to be one of these. Over the years,
Speaker 2: three thousand women who have made that cut, right, you know,
Speaker 2: never we're like, well, it's really not worth it in
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, the I mean, at least the ones who
Speaker 3: are allowed to speak to the media certainly have a
Speaker 3: lot of positive things to say about being a Rocket
Speaker 3: and like how familial it is and how you're just
Speaker 3: hanging out with your best friends. And it is a
Speaker 3: great gig for a dancer, especially as one of these
Speaker 3: articles pointed out, if you're a dancer who doesn't sing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a rare thing to get that kind of
Speaker 2: a gig. I think it's one of the few for
Speaker 2: jazz and tap banters where singing's not involved.
Speaker 3: But also not just like a good gig, a good
Speaker 3: paying gig too, like forty grand for a couple of
Speaker 3: months of performances. A lot of the Roquets they don't
Speaker 3: live in New York. They'll come live in New York
Speaker 3: during the season when they need to rehearse and then
Speaker 3: do the Christmas spectacular, and then they go home, so
Speaker 3: they might live in New York from September to the
Speaker 3: end of December, and then they go back home. And
Speaker 3: wherever home is, forty grand probably goes a lot further
Speaker 3: than it does in New York, unless they live in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, in which case it is probably it goes
Speaker 3: even faster. But it's a really good paying gig. They
Speaker 3: also have benefits because their union and their contract workers,
Speaker 3: they have year round benefits and forty gran so they
Speaker 3: can go work as pilates, instructors, as nutritionists, as all
Speaker 3: the other stuff that they do during the year normally,
Speaker 3: and then they come back and they they're a rocket.
Speaker 3: But something I thought was pretty cool was even if
Speaker 3: you're say a tenth year rocket, you get invited back,
Speaker 3: like once you're a roquette, you're in as a roquette,
Speaker 3: but you still have to audition in April like everybody else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you audition in April and if you make the cut,
Speaker 3: you start to go get in shape, and then rehearsals
Speaker 3: I think start in September, and rehearsals are six hours,
Speaker 3: six days a week for basically the six weeks leading
Speaker 3: up to the performances, which run from mid November till
Speaker 3: I saw December thirty first. I also saw tickets available
Speaker 3: for a January first show, so I don't know if
Speaker 3: they extended it or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's funny like it's forty grand sounds
Speaker 2: like a lot of money over a couple of months,
Speaker 2: and it is. But when you break it down per show,
Speaker 2: it it breaks down to about one hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: five bucks a show. Yeah, which all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like great money.
Speaker 3: No, but that's what you make as a standard cast
Speaker 3: member for a Broadway Union day answer, yeah, or actor
Speaker 3: or variety performer I think is the union they're part of.
Speaker 3: So no, it doesn't seem like much. But that's another
Speaker 3: reason why the Roquet gig is so good. You get
Speaker 3: overtime on those days when you do a third and
Speaker 3: fourth show, you're getting overtime pay, and there's multiple shows
Speaker 3: on multiple days, so you can I mean another actor
Speaker 3: at a different gig, working the same days over the
Speaker 3: same period would not make that amount of money, that
Speaker 3: forty grand, because they wouldn't have any overtime, they wouldn't
Speaker 3: have that many shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't think anyone like dreams of going
Speaker 2: to Broadway to become rich and wealthy, like part of
Speaker 2: the allure Broadway as you're with the best of the best.
Speaker 2: And you can say I danced, or I saying or
Speaker 2: I acted.
Speaker 3: On Broadway with Brian Cranston.
Speaker 2: I saw him on Broadway.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I saw Michael McKeon on Broadway. Oh yeah, an accomplice.
Speaker 3: The audience was the accomplice. That was the big twist.
Speaker 2: Oh well, you just ruined that one.
Speaker 3: Wasn't good? It was great. It was one of the
Speaker 3: greatest stage performances I've ever seen. I saw Lenny live
Speaker 3: on stage.
Speaker 2: Derek Saint Hubbins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is before I knew him as anything but Lenny.
Speaker 3: I was like eight.
Speaker 2: Oh, so this is a while ago. Cranston is in
Speaker 2: something new on Broadway now, I think too. The network, right,
Speaker 2: Oh man, I want to see that. Sure, I bet
Speaker 2: that's good.
Speaker 3: I saw that it was described as get this, Chuck,
Speaker 3: get ready for this? Oh boy, electrifying.
Speaker 2: Really, the Broadway show described as electrifying.
Speaker 3: His performance was electrifying.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever heard that word used for
Speaker 2: the theater. So another thing though about the Rockets. Even
Speaker 2: though they do make most of their money over those
Speaker 2: couple of months and then they have the rest of
Speaker 2: the year or two and in a lot of cases
Speaker 2: be like a dance instructor or something like that, or
Speaker 2: a fitness instructor, they increasingly are working more and more
Speaker 2: and more months out of the year, whether it's as
Speaker 2: ambassadors for the Rockets or doing like video things for YouTube.
Speaker 2: They are increasingly called on to do other things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot. So I what is the woman who
Speaker 3: came along as the league choreographer and director and really
Speaker 3: kind of punched it up even further. Her name is
Speaker 3: Linda Haberman, and she took over I think in like
Speaker 3: the mid two thousands, maybe two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 3: she kind of brought like this whole new not new,
Speaker 3: it's not a whole new thing. She just kind of
Speaker 3: she made it a little more pro feminist, a little
Speaker 3: more like you go girl kind of vibe to the
Speaker 3: Rockets than they had before they were seen, you know,
Speaker 3: rehearsing in the rehearsal gear rather than like full costume,
Speaker 3: and it was just kind of like the intent I
Speaker 3: get was to make them more people. Yes, yes, because
Speaker 3: one of the great criticisms of the Rockets is that
Speaker 3: they're nothing but like teeth and legs, just a bunch
Speaker 3: of women, yeah, out there kicking, like forming one large
Speaker 3: uber woman who can kick her legs amazingly high and
Speaker 3: has like the whitest, gleamingest teeth ever you've ever seen,
Speaker 3: and that it was really kind of just objectification of
Speaker 3: women like to like by definition. And Linda Hammerman like
Speaker 3: really kind of took that and tried to unravel it
Speaker 3: quite a bit, and she also took the show. So
Speaker 3: we should talk a little bit about the show. It's
Speaker 3: a depending on who you are, it's either like just
Speaker 3: beloved traditional Americana, KITCHI offensively sexists. Who knows, but I
Speaker 3: think the first two are kind of the predominant views
Speaker 3: of it. It's kitchen and sweet, or it's it's you know,
Speaker 3: endearing Americana, and Linda Haman kind of took that and
Speaker 3: tried to punch it up into the twenty first century
Speaker 3: a little more, and there's like way more visual effects
Speaker 3: than there were before. There's like a three D component.
Speaker 3: I think to this year's show or recent year shows
Speaker 3: like the Whole The whole theme is like a girl
Speaker 3: wants a video game and her mom is kind of
Speaker 3: showing her. You know why, that's not so great because
Speaker 3: it's a violent video game. There's there's a lot of
Speaker 3: kind of updating that's that the Rockets have undergone in
Speaker 3: the last few years. And that was largely from what
Speaker 3: I understand Linda Haberman's doing.
Speaker 2: I think she was the one that digitally inserted John
Speaker 2: McLean from Diehard.
Speaker 3: She was he swoops in in the New York Follies section.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm glad they updated things because this was a
Speaker 2: prime case of like a belooved American tradition that could
Speaker 2: use some refreshing. And you can't highlight them as humans
Speaker 2: and individuals and still you can have both, you know,
Speaker 2: and you can still have that desired effect of uniformity
Speaker 2: and precision that they're known for, you know, right exactly,
Speaker 2: But they don't have to be just like faceless and nameless,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Now, And I read a few like feminist critiques of
Speaker 3: the Rockets, and they seem to have been kind of outdated.
Speaker 3: Like I really feel like Linda Haberman she did a
Speaker 3: good job at like Tate. Yeah, she kind of took
Speaker 3: those those critiques and changed them in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 3: One of the other criticisms is that it wasn't until
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five that the Rockets are their first woman
Speaker 3: of color as a member of their cast, of their troop.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: The first woman of color was a Japanese woman named
Speaker 3: Setsuko Mara Hashi, and in nineteen eighty five she joined.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight, the first African American woman joined.
Speaker 3: Her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning, apparently it
Speaker 3: was Mark Markert who was like, no, from all I saw,
Speaker 3: it had nothing to do with racism. It was the
Speaker 3: idea that it was going to disrupt the visual unity
Speaker 3: of the dance line if there were, you know, differing
Speaker 3: skin colors in this dance line. And apparently he was
Speaker 3: so nutso about it, like you would get in trouble
Speaker 3: if you had a son tan like that. That's how
Speaker 3: he wanted everything to be homogenous in Unison. Well, regardless
Speaker 3: in the twenty first century. In the late twentieth century,
Speaker 3: that sentiment didn't hold up. And I guess shortly after
Speaker 3: he died is when they started adding women of color
Speaker 3: more to the Rockets troop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they saw people of color in that
Speaker 2: same dance line and they went, oh, it's still awesome
Speaker 2: and synchronized and looks great exactly, and from his grave
Speaker 2: he went no.
Speaker 3: He started rolling around in it.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness.
Speaker 3: So you haven't seen a Rocket's Christmas Spectacular.
Speaker 2: Huh you mean live in person? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I have not. I have not either. Are we going
Speaker 3: to go now?
Speaker 2: I think we should. I want to know if any
Speaker 2: Rockets listen to the show. Yeah, that would make me
Speaker 2: super super happy.
Speaker 3: It would for me as well.
Speaker 2: And the only other small tid bet I have is
Speaker 2: they have microphones in their heels of their shoes.
Speaker 3: I saw that too. They used to They used to
Speaker 3: play recordings of their tapping, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, and that does not surprise me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they figured out how to do the
Speaker 3: actual like broadcast the actual tamping. So we're going to
Speaker 3: go one day, Chuck, We're going to go see the
Speaker 3: Christmas Spectacular. We're going to go through the live Nativity
Speaker 3: with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy
Speaker 3: soldier march where they fall down like a domino and
Speaker 3: slow motion. It's pretty amazing stuff. And if you want
Speaker 3: to know more about the Rockets, then go to Radio
Speaker 3: City Music Hall and find them there.
Speaker 2: How about that that sounds great?
Speaker 3: Well? Since I said that, then it's time for a
Speaker 3: listener mail.
Speaker 2: I'm calling this. I was a search and rescue victim volunteer.
Speaker 2: So this guy, his dad. I'm gonna summarize at the
Speaker 2: beginning of it because it's kind of long, but his
Speaker 2: dad lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is
Speaker 2: a member of the local SAAR team, And so they
Speaker 2: were like, we need someone to play the victim here,
Speaker 2: and he was like, I'll do it. This guy's son.
Speaker 2: So here's what happened. He set off into the heavily
Speaker 2: wooded area. He said, I did everything I could to
Speaker 2: think of to try and fool the dog in the handler.
Speaker 2: I ran in circles, went back over my own trail.
Speaker 2: I threw off my hat. I even found some garbage
Speaker 2: and rolled around in it to mask my scent. Once
Speaker 2: I had done everything I could think of to try
Speaker 2: and fool the dog and handler that would be tracking me.
Speaker 2: I found a nice comfy spot up in a bush
Speaker 2: on a hill where I could just watch the dog
Speaker 2: in the handler try and track me. I thought I
Speaker 2: had done a pretty good job, but once I called
Speaker 2: the handler and let him know I was in position,
Speaker 2: was all over very quickly. I sat back, and everyone
Speaker 2: was shocked to watch the dog basically retrace my trail
Speaker 2: step by step, every move I made, all those circles,
Speaker 2: finding my hat, even that I'd thrown off, even getting
Speaker 2: into that pile of garbage that I'd rolled around in.
Speaker 2: I love that this dog is just basically making a
Speaker 2: fool of poor Ryan up there in the mountains, so
Speaker 2: he said. Needless to say, the dog found me in
Speaker 2: short order. Gave him lots of praise for the great
Speaker 2: job he had done. Thankfully, I was never in any
Speaker 2: real danger, so my experience was a lot more enjoyable,
Speaker 2: obviously than when people are in real need of search
Speaker 2: and rescue.
Speaker 3: Dog.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the great episodes, guys, keep me company on
Speaker 2: overnight shifts and make it all go by quicker. So
Speaker 2: if you read this on the show, can I get
Speaker 2: a shout out to my girlfriend Taren. She would be
Speaker 2: thrilled to hear her name get called out on the show.
Speaker 3: I think that just happened.
Speaker 2: Yep, so that is from Ryan. I like the gusto
Speaker 2: that Ryan put into trying to.
Speaker 3: Fool this dog rolling in garbage, and I.
Speaker 2: Equally love that this dog was like whatever. So thank
Speaker 2: you Ryan, thank you Taran.
Speaker 3: For listening, and thank you to the star dog, sure Scruffy.
Speaker 3: If you want to get in touch of this, you
Speaker 3: can go to our website, stuff youshould Know dot com.
Speaker 3: You can find all of our social links there, and
Speaker 3: you can send an email to Chuck jerrym Me at
Speaker 3: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,