Speaker 1: Fall schworm Jagger. That was a German named for paratrooper.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I started the episode saying, Tom,
Speaker 1: how are you? How are you doing? Do you know
Speaker 1: that the German word for paratrooper is falseh room jagger?
Speaker 1: I did not know that. Well, now you do, thank you.
Speaker 1: They had, you know, the Nazis had an aquatic little
Speaker 1: jeep that could go on the water. They called a
Speaker 1: schwimmin wagin. That's sweet, that's kind of funny. What do
Speaker 1: we call it? That's our swimming wagon? Head is ye vehicle?
Speaker 1: It does the old Tom? Yeah, how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: Two pieces of ship into this? I'm vibing on some
Speaker 1: clown shoes right now. You are vibing on some clown shoes. Well,
Speaker 1: right now, Tom, this exact moment, the second in time
Speaker 1: that we both inhabit, which may be eternal if if
Speaker 1: certain philosophers are right, this very moment could go on forever,
Speaker 1: both forwards and backwards in time, be completely encompassing, as
Speaker 1: all moments are. This moment we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a guy you have heard of. Mr Morton Downey dances
Speaker 1: all the way down just just my ears. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a name. That's a name. Yeah, Tom, what do you
Speaker 1: know about Morton Danny Jr. J As we call him.
Speaker 1: He's like a pinky ring that fell into a puddle
Speaker 1: of toxic waste to became a man. He's he's played.
Speaker 1: He plays the slick, he plays the slimy journalist that
Speaker 1: Danny Glover punches in the face and Predator to And
Speaker 1: he sure isn't Predator to you, God damn right playing himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's absolutely playing himself in Predator to, which is incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: easily the second best Predator movie. It's it's easily the
Speaker 1: second Predator film. Yeah, definitely, you can't take that away
Speaker 1: from it. It is the second one of the Insure
Speaker 1: dobly the second Predator film. Yeah, I know, he's like,
Speaker 1: he's he's uh. He was sort of like um the
Speaker 1: uh the yeng to Phil Donna Hughes Yang at the time,
Speaker 1: where Phil Donna Hue was like kind of nice and
Speaker 1: personable and Morton Downey was a real son of a
Speaker 1: bitch when he was a real piece of shit. And
Speaker 1: the fun thing about Morton Downey Junior, Tom Uh is
Speaker 1: that if you start researching Morton Downey Jr. The first
Speaker 1: like Google result that tries to auto fill when you
Speaker 1: start typing his name in is is Morton Downey Junior
Speaker 1: related to Robert Downey Jr. And my answer to that
Speaker 1: is it does not appear to be, so just just
Speaker 1: just a fun coincidence, which is weird because he does
Speaker 1: have a famous dad like Robert Downey Jr. Um, but
Speaker 1: just a completely different one. I just that's that's very funny. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so uh, let's let's let's let's talk about m d j. So.
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Jr. Was born on December nine, nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California. His father was obviously a guy
Speaker 1: named Morton Downey. Two thirds of these guys are Californians.
Speaker 1: Well that in the thirties, I'm like, funk, he's old, ancient, dusty,
Speaker 1: old racist mummies. That's because they were established by the
Speaker 1: time the eighties got going and they could really start
Speaker 1: fucking some ship up for everybody. That's true. I keep
Speaker 1: saying at the eighties was four decades ago. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been a long time since the eighties, thank god. So. Um.
Speaker 1: His father was obviously Morton Downey, which probably means nothing
Speaker 1: to everyone listening, but it meant an awful lot to people.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties and early thirties. Morton Downey's nickname
Speaker 1: was the Irish Nightingale, and he was one of the
Speaker 1: most popular singers of his day. He had Morton Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Whose first name was Sean, with his first wife, Barbara Bennett,
Speaker 1: and Barbara was famous because she was the sister of
Speaker 1: two women who were famous actresses. Morton Downey Senior would
Speaker 1: ultimately have five children, four sons and a daughter. He
Speaker 1: was not a nice man, or at least people who
Speaker 1: knew Morton Downey Jr. Say he did not think well
Speaker 1: of his father. There is, in fact, significant evidence that
Speaker 1: he despised the man. He desperately wanted to succeed as
Speaker 1: a singer, and he tried repeatedly as a young man
Speaker 1: to follow in his father's footsteps, appearing on early game shows,
Speaker 1: where his performance was reviewed positively by guys like Dean Martin.
Speaker 1: I thought he had an alright voice, but most experts
Speaker 1: agree he just didn't have what his father had. There
Speaker 1: was something lacking in his voice that like he was
Speaker 1: just never going to have the kind of career his
Speaker 1: dad had. The Downey family were well to do he
Speaker 1: grew up, you know rich Ish. Um they lived in
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to know how well to
Speaker 1: do they were, they lived in Hyannas Sport in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: And their next door neighbors worth the Kennedy's. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: it's like that's how that's how much money they got.
Speaker 1: His kids which ish Yeah, Yeah, they're hanging there, hanging
Speaker 1: with the Kennedy's. Morton Downey Jr. Was good friends with
Speaker 1: Joe Kennedy. Well, Morton or Morton Downey Senior was good
Speaker 1: friends with Joe Kennedy one and um as When Morton
Speaker 1: Downy Jr. Was a child, he would hang out regularly
Speaker 1: with the Kennedy boys, you know, like he knew Robert
Speaker 1: and JFK when they were younger. Um, like they were
Speaker 1: all buds together. I guess down Emmy's a bit younger.
Speaker 1: But Downey attended New York University, and like the others
Speaker 1: and like our other subjects, seems to have immediately known
Speaker 1: he wanted a career in radio. He got a job
Speaker 1: as the program director and announcer for a radio station
Speaker 1: in Hartford, Connecticut, in the early nineteen fifties. Over the
Speaker 1: next decade, and change. He was hired primarily as a DJ,
Speaker 1: although he also sang for several pop and country records
Speaker 1: and wrote a handful of songs that saw modest success.
Speaker 1: Like Wally, George Morton Downey Jr. Bounced around various markets Phoenix, Miami,
Speaker 1: Kansas City, San Diego, and Seattle. Also, like Wally, he
Speaker 1: was a huge asshole and had trouble working with people.
Speaker 1: He was forced to resign from a Miami network when
Speaker 1: he gave the home phone number for a competing DJ
Speaker 1: out on the air and insulted the man's wife, like
Speaker 1: doc's the guy on live on the air. I want
Speaker 1: to I want to hear I hear him croon. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that was his background. Oh, I mean
Speaker 1: we can he cut an album? Tom? You know what, Tom,
Speaker 1: We'll play this right now, see it? Yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: do this now. I need you to hear his song
Speaker 1: about the war on drugs? What's it called? Hey there,
Speaker 1: Mr dealer man? Mr dealer pushes. So that's the kids
Speaker 1: of America. Just make that Dyn sleeves bag country comb
Speaker 1: a la. He's like attacking the microphone. Yeah, feel welcome
Speaker 1: to his eternal laugh. He looks like a skeleton at
Speaker 1: a costume contest, dressed his team. All right, that's probably
Speaker 1: enough of Hey there, Mr dealer, So this will mean
Speaker 1: more when you've had Dean Martin was too kind to him.
Speaker 1: He was better when he was younger too, his earlier
Speaker 1: his earlier ship is I think because he's he's he
Speaker 1: was famous when he recorded, so he was like doing yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's still like yeah, it's yeah, yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: think he had a bad voice and the stuff you
Speaker 1: can hear from younger. There's a good documentary about but
Speaker 1: yeah he has he has going real agro there um.
Speaker 1: And it's because you know, he was already a name
Speaker 1: at that point and he was he was doing a
Speaker 1: bit or maybe he just like was out of his mind,
Speaker 1: because that's what being famous does to you after a while.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can see the cocaine just like
Speaker 1: in an aura. Yeah, yeah, it followed him around. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, Morton took a break from his work,
Speaker 1: his career, which was again he was kind of a
Speaker 1: mix of a DJ and and a kind of a
Speaker 1: pinch hitter in the music industry, coming in to do
Speaker 1: background vocals and stuff to work on that campaign for
Speaker 1: his good childhood friend Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy was assassinated,
Speaker 1: Morton wrote a book of poetry with the title Quiet
Speaker 1: Thoughts Make the Loudest Noise. The book was a way
Speaker 1: of processing grief. And you can still find a handful
Speaker 1: of hardcover copies on Amazon for like a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty eight dollars. I am not buying one of them,
Speaker 1: but I did transcribe one of the poems he wrote
Speaker 1: specifically about Robert Kennedy's death. Um from the documentary A
Speaker 1: Bocketur and I'm gonna read that to you now, row
Speaker 1: upon row of grief racked followers, sunken cheeks replacing their
Speaker 1: years ago happy faces, saying proudly for their departed friend,
Speaker 1: their final hope, and wondered why a man must die
Speaker 1: to be a hero, and whether we honor only those
Speaker 1: our own selfish hearts destroy. Yeah. I don't think sunken
Speaker 1: cheeks is what he meant to say, but um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of you know, it's kind of profound, right, Al.
Speaker 1: He's certainly like a man who's thinking about like the
Speaker 1: nature of Yeah, that was it was thoughtful. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: call him a shallow man based on that, Um, he's
Speaker 1: a man who's trying to process complicated, in sorrowful emotions
Speaker 1: in a in an artistic way. Clearly a person capable
Speaker 1: of not just feeling grief, but of expressing it artistically. Um.
Speaker 1: He continued to sing occasionally, and he made his living
Speaker 1: as yet another disc jockey until in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: the same year that the Wally George TV Show starts,
Speaker 1: a year before Rush Limbaugh gots on talk radio, he
Speaker 1: gets a job as a talk radio host on w
Speaker 1: d b O in Orlando, Florida. So yeah, and again
Speaker 1: they're both kind of writing this wave of right wing
Speaker 1: populism and the rise of the religious right and Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan like they're part of a thing. They're not starting it,
Speaker 1: but they are also influencing the way this thing grows.
Speaker 1: So Wally George and Morton Danny Jr. Both rode that
Speaker 1: right wing wave and helped to shape it. Morton Danny Jr.
Speaker 1: Was even more incendiary and control uncontrolled than Wally. He
Speaker 1: lost his first talk show gig after he punched a guest,
Speaker 1: an abortion rights activist named Bill Baird, who he then
Speaker 1: called a son of a bitch, so how many episodes
Speaker 1: in that? So yeah, Wally George screams at people and stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh and I think shoved some folks a few times.
Speaker 1: Or Nanny Jr. Just called Cox some motherfucker like months
Speaker 1: into his first talk show and again a radio talk show.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can hear like the meat sound
Speaker 1: on the on the microphone. I haven't found this audio,
Speaker 1: but I bet it's great. Next. According to the New
Speaker 1: York Times quote, Mr Downey was soon hired by kf
Speaker 1: b K a M radio, a news talk station in Sacramento, California.
Speaker 1: There he told a joke in which he used the
Speaker 1: word Chinaman several times, angering Tom Yeah. Not that surprising,
Speaker 1: is it, um um? So yeah, he tells a joke
Speaker 1: in which he uses the word chinaman several times, which
Speaker 1: pisces off Tom Chin, a Chinese American member of Sacramento
Speaker 1: City Council who was listening in his car. And why
Speaker 1: I wonder why that bothered him? Wonder why he get
Speaker 1: angry at that? Mr Chin called the station. According to
Speaker 1: the councilman and to Paul our errand then the station's
Speaker 1: program director. Mr Chin was put through to Mr Downey,
Speaker 1: who let loose a verbal tirade against him. Mr Downey
Speaker 1: was discharged the next day. So he tells a racist
Speaker 1: joke on air. It offends the member of the city
Speaker 1: council who calls, and then he proceeds to be racist
Speaker 1: to that guy laugh on the air and loses his job. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's usually probably should be what happens. Yeah. Yeah, Now
Speaker 1: the station had to obviously had to shoot can Morton.
Speaker 1: Danny june I liked that. He was like, Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'll just be racist to you directly then, Yeah, do
Speaker 1: you do what would you like me to just be
Speaker 1: a piece of ship to your face? I did not
Speaker 1: mean to do it to your back on the air,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. Forgive me. Let me be an asshole directly
Speaker 1: to me, to be an asshole directly to you, I
Speaker 1: don't mean to be rude. Um. So they had to
Speaker 1: fire him. But he was also and you'll you'll hear
Speaker 1: different things about how popular he was. By some accounts
Speaker 1: he was he was very successful. By some accounts just
Speaker 1: modestly successful. I I can't tell you which. Um, but
Speaker 1: he did well enough that the station was like, well,
Speaker 1: this guy's built an audience. They're very dedicated and so
Speaker 1: when he leaves, they decide they need to replace him
Speaker 1: with another right wing firebrand, someone who can still stir
Speaker 1: up the same kind of populist rage, but also isn't
Speaker 1: quite as race sist. You know, they picked Tom. I
Speaker 1: don't wanna know who followed him into the job. You
Speaker 1: might have heard of this guy, little fella. He might
Speaker 1: know his name, Rush Limbaugh. Oh yeah, that's how Rush
Speaker 1: gets his first big political gig. It was Morton Downey
Speaker 1: being too racist on the air. It was too racist,
Speaker 1: and so Rush Limbaugh came in and said, I can
Speaker 1: be slightly less racist than that. I can for a while,
Speaker 1: for a little while. Eventually I'll be much more racist
Speaker 1: than that. I could be slightly less racist. Two people's faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah again for a while, for a for a while.
Speaker 1: I love like, man, that was too racist. Let's get
Speaker 1: Rush in here. Let's get you get that Rush Limbach
Speaker 1: hit in here. Tone things down somewhat. Tom, Where do
Speaker 1: you go when you've just gotten fired from your right
Speaker 1: wing radio job for being too much of a racist
Speaker 1: television No? I mean, but what city do you go to?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Cleveland? Cleveland? Yeah, you get you get
Speaker 1: your ass on down to Cleveland. Hey, our rivers are
Speaker 1: very rarely on fire, um, unlike Cleveland. So he gets
Speaker 1: hired by W E. R. E a M. To improve
Speaker 1: the poor ratings of its talk show department. He was
Speaker 1: forced out there when he again hurld racial slurs at
Speaker 1: an elected leader. This one of you municipal court judge?
Speaker 1: Who seeing this coming? Who could have guessed? Wally George,
Speaker 1: the man who punched an abortion rights activist and lost
Speaker 1: his first radio show, lost his second for screaming racial
Speaker 1: slurs at a city councilor would lose his third show
Speaker 1: for screaming racial slurs at a municipal court Judgeops among us,
Speaker 1: who among us has not on a bad day hurld
Speaker 1: racial slurs at a circuit court judge? Or where was
Speaker 1: those of us who have not gone to jail have
Speaker 1: done that? Um? So while his former employer wrestled with
Speaker 1: a lawsuit as a result of this, Morton Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Moved to Chicago to do it all over again. And
Speaker 1: so during both of the state Yeah the strategy Chicago Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chicago forgives all sense. During his first two dalliances with
Speaker 1: talk radio, Morton Downey Jr. Had a regular segment on
Speaker 1: his shows called the Executive Intelligence Report, which is him
Speaker 1: reading from a magazine published by Lyndon LaRouche. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to do a whole episode on Lyndon LaRouche at
Speaker 1: some point, um, but for now you'll have to be
Speaker 1: satisfied with this quick description of Lyndon courtesy of a
Speaker 1: New York Times obituary. And again this is the source
Speaker 1: of of Morton Downey Junior's Executive Intelligence Report quote. Lyndon Larus,
Speaker 1: the quixotic, apocalyptic leader of a cult like political organization
Speaker 1: who ran for president eight times once more a prison cell,
Speaker 1: died on Tuesday. He was nineties six. Defining what yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, that's a motherfucking sentence as an entire sentence,
Speaker 1: Defining what Mr Laruche stood for or was no easy task.
Speaker 1: He began his political career on the far left and
Speaker 1: ended it on the far right. He said he admired
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan and
Speaker 1: loathed Hitler the composure Richard Wagner and other anti Semites,
Speaker 1: though he himself made anti Semitic statements, and boy did
Speaker 1: he a lot of them. He was a fascist Tom
Speaker 1: he was a fascist political cult leader, was like, we
Speaker 1: don't know what the funk he believed. He believed in
Speaker 1: Lyndon Laruge having a bunch of like he had a
Speaker 1: bunch of followers who basically it was a cult, like
Speaker 1: they lived for this man, and they would go out
Speaker 1: and proselytize on the street. They would hand out papers
Speaker 1: at college campuses. Laruche argued that environmentalists were trying to
Speaker 1: wipe out the human race, which is a claim that
Speaker 1: Alex Jones now parents. He believed Clean Queen Elizabeth was
Speaker 1: trying to murder him personally. He argued that Jews had
Speaker 1: founded the KKK, and he described Indigenous Americans as lower beasts.
Speaker 1: So this is the source of Morton Downey Jr's intel
Speaker 1: of finding a couple of consistent threads in his belief
Speaker 1: structure that perhaps his obituary could have latched onto he
Speaker 1: may and I think they may have gotten into that later.
Speaker 1: That was like the first two paragraphs. I just read
Speaker 1: that obituary and was like, my god, that is a sentence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that first sentence almost knocked me out of my chair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a fucking life. The president eight times once from prison,
Speaker 1: but it was a tax thing. I think, um again,
Speaker 1: we'll do I'll have to read into him and we'll
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on Lyndon Laruche. He's quite a character.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the head of Morton Downey Jr's Intel program. Now,
Speaker 1: the fact that Morton Downy Junior platform this guy is
Speaker 1: very fucked up, and it's arguably more fucked up because
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Jr. Did not really like him. As he
Speaker 1: told The New York Times, I decided I was going
Speaker 1: to be as friendly towards these people and get as
Speaker 1: much information out of them as I could, because someday
Speaker 1: I would expose them. Now that's bullshit. It's true that
Speaker 1: he did eventually get Lyndon Laruche on his TV show
Speaker 1: and he tore him apart like it was a very
Speaker 1: aggressive interview with Lyndon, but he also continued to spread
Speaker 1: Larusha's newsletter and other publications after that point, calling the
Speaker 1: fascist cult leaders intelligence information quote the second or third
Speaker 1: best in the world based on what Morton Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Junior doesn't know. Ninth build cast member of
Speaker 1: Predator to yeah, mother, I mean he did make the
Speaker 1: top ten. Look look in fairness, that's more than either
Speaker 1: of us have ever done in terms of predators. But
Speaker 1: I'm not out here saying this is the second or
Speaker 1: third most reputable intelligence with mort in the world. No,
Speaker 1: you're not. No, based on your your experience, which is
Speaker 1: you and I both did get to look at the
Speaker 1: predator costume. Yes, O wait, No I didn't. Well you
Speaker 1: weren't there. That wasn't to but I saw the video.
Speaker 1: It was radem just knowing that I was that close
Speaker 1: to something that had touched Morton Downey Jr. Was It
Speaker 1: was just powerful, Tom, really powerful. You know what else
Speaker 1: has touched Morton Downey Jr. In a secual These products
Speaker 1: and services Probably they fucked him. They fucked him. Products
Speaker 1: and services have been inserted into Morton Downey Jr. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: That is again the only promise we make about our sponsors.
Speaker 1: So if he seems fine with us, so I'm just
Speaker 1: going to continue. That's an ad that's an AD throw.
Speaker 1: That's an AD throw. Baby. Oh we're back. So by
Speaker 1: nine seven, Rush Limbaugh Show had exploded in popularity. Wally
Speaker 1: George was the talk of Orange County. This is kind
Speaker 1: of the height of the Wally George Show too, and
Speaker 1: despite Morton's mixed success on radio a station in New
Speaker 1: York slash New Jersey. I guess it covered both decided
Speaker 1: let's give this guy a TV show. And I think
Speaker 1: they're looking at Wally George over in OC. They're seeing
Speaker 1: Rush Limbabo in the radio and they're like, this guy
Speaker 1: could be a could be a hit on TV. And
Speaker 1: in fairness, they're not wrong. He was. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: filmed in c Caucus. The Morton Downey Junior Show was
Speaker 1: cut very much in the shape of Wally George his
Speaker 1: hot seat. In fact, while he even had Morton on
Speaker 1: his show in the late nineteen eighties and it was
Speaker 1: immediately hostile. And I'm first going to play this clip
Speaker 1: more than Daddy Jr. On the It's really a Freddie
Speaker 1: versus Jason moment, say, two rats fighting over a dead cato.
Speaker 1: And I have to say before if you're wondering what
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Jr. Looks like, well, so if he gets
Speaker 1: this clip together, remember Iron Giant, Remember the bad guy
Speaker 1: from Iron Giant. He looks like Christopher's sleazy fed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he looks like he looks like Shooter McGavin. He looks
Speaker 1: he does who was the same. I was blew me
Speaker 1: away to learn that Shooter McGavin and the fed from
Speaker 1: uh the Iron Giant are the same guy. Incredible thing
Speaker 1: it he looks like he looks like Shooter McGavin with
Speaker 1: novelty teeth, Shooter McGavin. If Shooter McGavin did like birthday
Speaker 1: parties for children here it is. You're you're coming up
Speaker 1: with the usual simplistic answers. Wally that conservatives who don't
Speaker 1: know what the hell they're talking about. I've got an
Speaker 1: audience out here. You've got an audience of monkeys out here.
Speaker 1: We'll do everything that you tell them to do. He's
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I'm warning the next time you don't warn me.
Speaker 1: Punk God, Wally George looks incredible a man. It looks
Speaker 1: like the entertainment director and a cruise ship, like a
Speaker 1: bad cruise ship. The cops have come on now and
Speaker 1: they're pulling Morton Downey Jr. Off the show and tackling
Speaker 1: he gets tackled by here, total Roger Stone vibes from
Speaker 1: that guy. Was like yeah, And obviously all of that
Speaker 1: was set up ahead of time. The plan was always
Speaker 1: I suspect from Morton Downey Junior to get tackled by
Speaker 1: share stepput Saw on the seat of Wally George's hot seat.
Speaker 1: It seems so extreme and he's already so famous at
Speaker 1: that point that they wouldn't Yeah, they would not dare
Speaker 1: do that to him and listen to stage. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean while yeah, yeah, it's it's very funny. Um and
Speaker 1: and honestly, I can't tell you it may not have
Speaker 1: been pre planned as much as both men just naturally
Speaker 1: new going in. This is how this is going to end.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm Morton Downy Jr. And the Wally George Show.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm going to get tackled off stage during
Speaker 1: like a nearly physical fight between the two of us.
Speaker 1: This is just how this has to happen. I am
Speaker 1: naturally enough of a right wing ship head firebrand that
Speaker 1: that's just in my blood. The thing that the moment
Speaker 1: we were on a camera together, this was what had
Speaker 1: to happen. Right, whoever wins, we lose. Yeah. The real
Speaker 1: Freddy Jason situation they stuck out to me was when
Speaker 1: there's a scene, were not a scene. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: this like it's a movie because it's so stage. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a part of the cliff where Wally George stands
Speaker 1: up after uh, Morton Downey says, don't don't warn me.
Speaker 1: He stands up like he's going to fight. But he
Speaker 1: he says, he buttons his coat. He buttons his fucking coat.
Speaker 1: That's the thing you do when you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: be on camera. Do you do the opposite when you
Speaker 1: know you're about to start throwing hands as you want
Speaker 1: to unbutton that coat? So it's like you want to
Speaker 1: but you might even want to take that if you're
Speaker 1: really gonna throw hands, you take that shirt off and
Speaker 1: you folded on the table. What you say, All right,
Speaker 1: here's how things are gonna go, you know. So the
Speaker 1: fact that he stood up and buttoned his jacket, it's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you're not gonna course of course, yeah that
Speaker 1: it would have been very fun, but I don't think
Speaker 1: either of well, actually, no, Morton Downy Jr. Definitely threw
Speaker 1: a punch. He punched that guy who came on his
Speaker 1: radio cheft to every you know, all the all the
Speaker 1: what a terrible piece of shitty is and all the
Speaker 1: funny things we're gonna do to to make fun of him.
Speaker 1: On this episode, Morton Downey doesn't look like he hasn't
Speaker 1: been in a fight. No, No, Morton Downy Jr. Morton
Speaker 1: Downey Jr. Wouldn't have survived to this age if he
Speaker 1: hadn't learned a couple of things about fighting, because that's
Speaker 1: a man who piss his people off. Yeah, Wally George
Speaker 1: is a man who was very careful to never piss
Speaker 1: anyone off until he felt like he wouldn't get the
Speaker 1: ship beating out of him, like he was an adult
Speaker 1: and polite society. That was a kid who hide bully
Speaker 1: into giving you an extra ride on the teacups at
Speaker 1: the carnival like now moren Downy Jr. Was different from
Speaker 1: Wally George and in fact, well he started off as
Speaker 1: way more out of control. Again he got fired from
Speaker 1: his first job for assaulting a guest. Um. He toned
Speaker 1: it down for his actual TV show, Um, not much,
Speaker 1: but in a in an intelligent way. He was actually
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, he was kind of a
Speaker 1: mix between Wally George and and Joe pine Um because
Speaker 1: like Wally George, he would be like a lunatic a
Speaker 1: bunch of the time and like very loud, getting too
Speaker 1: fights on stage and whatnot. A showman, but like Joe Pine,
Speaker 1: he could actually sit down and have conversations with people,
Speaker 1: even once he disagreed with about just screaming at them,
Speaker 1: and there were actual debates on his show. Um So
Speaker 1: he was not the same as Wally, and I think
Speaker 1: that's why he was. He made more of an impact
Speaker 1: because Wally George was never anything but just like pure
Speaker 1: id And there was a little bit of of thinking
Speaker 1: on the Morton Downey Junior show. Not I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that to praise it, just to like characterized what he
Speaker 1: was doing. It was a bit different than Wally George.
Speaker 1: He opened his first episode with the words certain things
Speaker 1: really burn my buns, and that more or less summed
Speaker 1: up the focus. Morton was irritated by a lot of
Speaker 1: things feminism, environmentalism, social justice, and he wanted to make
Speaker 1: his audience angry too. Like Wally, he was happy to
Speaker 1: platform people with differing beliefs so long as they would
Speaker 1: get into arguments with him. That made good television. His
Speaker 1: show was an immediate success, and it's wide audience meant
Speaker 1: that some of his guests became stars in their own right.
Speaker 1: One of his early interviews was a little known congressman
Speaker 1: you might have heard of tom named Ron Paul. Now
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Jr. Not a friendly introduction of Ron Paul.
Speaker 1: Here he brings the congressman up on stage by saying,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to a man who could be
Speaker 1: snorting cocaine in the Oval office. Because again, Ron Paul,
Speaker 1: the thing that like, one of the things that made
Speaker 1: him prominent early on is he's for the decriminalization or
Speaker 1: legalization of all drugs. And Morton Downey Jr. Is, as
Speaker 1: a Republican in this period of time, an arch drug warrior. Um.
Speaker 1: So here's here's Ron Paul on the Morton Downey Junior Show.
Speaker 1: You believe that the government should stay out of our
Speaker 1: personal business altogether? What happens that's good, guys, but also
Speaker 1: happens to be my personal business if I want to
Speaker 1: kill my four year old kid. Right, No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait, you're giving you're giving libertarian a
Speaker 1: distorted explanation, sir, Your people gave it to yourselves and
Speaker 1: your platfor no. Let me explain that the answer is
Speaker 1: that we are a lot of do what we want.
Speaker 1: We even permit people smoke, siretutes happen that happens to
Speaker 1: be the most deadly drug and not of states today.
Speaker 1: Maybe we ought to abandoned. I wish you'd band it
Speaker 1: right right now. You can buy it out on the street. Hey,
Speaker 1: five dollars a pack. Do you see what a number one?
Speaker 1: Ron Paul really comes across as a reasonable man in
Speaker 1: that interfield? Yeah? Yeah, um, but you see that, you
Speaker 1: see what I'm talking about. He's kind of a mix
Speaker 1: of Wally George and Joe Pine because he's way more
Speaker 1: aggressive and rude than Joe Pine. But he's also he's
Speaker 1: not just shouting over him. Ron Paul gets he and
Speaker 1: he'll he'll he'll quiet his audience down and whatnot. Like
Speaker 1: he's he's he's he's found this middle level between the
Speaker 1: two men. Um, that's certainly not like I mean, he's
Speaker 1: a bully, he's a dick, but he's not what Wally
Speaker 1: George was. It's not quite that same level of like
Speaker 1: it's not as much of a lynch mob the audience.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, still a lot of audience participation, but yeah,
Speaker 1: less violently fascist, yeah, but still the bad faith arguments
Speaker 1: still of course, in the same way that Joe Pine
Speaker 1: was bad faith by you know, they all have this
Speaker 1: in common. They all have this in common, and I
Speaker 1: just think it's interesting how Morton. I think it's very
Speaker 1: consciously mixing Joe Pine with Wally George in order to
Speaker 1: kind of like Wally went way too far. Joe Pine
Speaker 1: is not far enough for today's TV. Nobody would listen
Speaker 1: to Joe Pine today. He's too calm, you know, he's
Speaker 1: he's like he wants to maintain he wants the same
Speaker 1: kind of controversy and and intense emotions of of Wally George,
Speaker 1: but he wants to main same firm control of the show. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly That's exactly it, um. And this
Speaker 1: is probably why his show. And also you know the
Speaker 1: fact that when he has people on embally disagrees with,
Speaker 1: he does allow them more of a chance to make
Speaker 1: their point. Ron Paul gets to say a lot in
Speaker 1: this interview, and this is I don't want to say
Speaker 1: this is like the reason he became prominent, but this
Speaker 1: is a decent part of it. This is a significant
Speaker 1: reason for his like why he started to become well known,
Speaker 1: and it's in part because he does get he looks
Speaker 1: good up there. He makes a lot of sense and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people like listening to Ron
Speaker 1: Paul on the Morton Danny Junior Show, would be like, well,
Speaker 1: this is actually a reasonable man um. I suspect, especially
Speaker 1: considering the kind of like angry young men who would
Speaker 1: watch the Morton Danny Junior Show. I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of them got into Ron Paul watching this um in
Speaker 1: a way that like with Wally George, that I'm sure
Speaker 1: never happened because he never let people say that much.
Speaker 1: UM and yeah. I mean it's hard to watch the
Speaker 1: Ron Paul interview and dislike the man um where Joe
Speaker 1: Pine was always chivalrous to his female guests, though even
Speaker 1: though he agreed with Morton, felt no need to hold
Speaker 1: his punches. At one point he had on a vegan,
Speaker 1: which is again that was like the first thing we
Speaker 1: saw Joe Pine doing is like talking to a vegan
Speaker 1: so we can make fun of him. Um, which is
Speaker 1: a big, a long reoccurring thing in like right wing politics.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, she made the point this vegan that
Speaker 1: that that Morton's talking to you made the point that
Speaker 1: vegan diets were healthier, to which Wally responded, I eat
Speaker 1: raw hamburger, I eat raw fish. I smoked four packs
Speaker 1: of cigarettes a day. I have about four drinks a day.
Speaker 1: I'm fifty five years old, and I look as good
Speaker 1: as you do, which is gonna be funny later, although
Speaker 1: you do have to be fair like he looks a
Speaker 1: lot younger than Joe Pine does. When Joe Pine was
Speaker 1: like forty, Joe Pine looked like a pyramid, like a
Speaker 1: pyramid made man. He says he's smoking four packs of
Speaker 1: cigarettes a day. Joe Pine is smoking four packs of
Speaker 1: cigarettes an hour, like he sees here. So one of
Speaker 1: his most popular sparring partners was feminist lawyer Gloria Allred,
Speaker 1: who again gained a lot of her popularity because of
Speaker 1: the Morton Downey Junior Show. This is a big vector
Speaker 1: for a lot of people who are who are still
Speaker 1: prominent today. Again not the only reason, but like, this
Speaker 1: is a big show, this is a significant cultural moment,
Speaker 1: and she has a big role in it. She's a
Speaker 1: regular guest um and she and Downey would like spar
Speaker 1: a lot constantly. You might have expected her to hate him,
Speaker 1: like given her politics and his politics. They certainly fought
Speaker 1: like Hey and is on the air. But as the
Speaker 1: documentary of Vocatur makes clear, the two got along. This
Speaker 1: was a game and they were both happy to play
Speaker 1: it in order to make themselves famous. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have Sophie play this club. This is from the documentary
Speaker 1: of Vocatur, which I really do recommend. Anyone who had
Speaker 1: breasts was a feminist, saying almost no feminist who have
Speaker 1: ever burned a brass So let me get that straight.
Speaker 1: Whoever had anything that they needed to wear a bra for?
Speaker 1: Between us, there was a certain amount of sexual attention,
Speaker 1: likewise on your jockstrap, but in how does she know
Speaker 1: she has a tape measure on her tongue? Like Jesus,
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's just that's just gross all around. I
Speaker 1: feel like I need a shower. But also you you
Speaker 1: see the difference again when Wally Wally George never had
Speaker 1: it like it wasn't yelling at people, he was like
Speaker 1: friendly with, Like clearly he wanted that with some of them,
Speaker 1: Like he was willing to like talk with Blaze and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, we could have a good thing going.
Speaker 1: He was able to find people who were media trained,
Speaker 1: who were talented in their own right, who could go
Speaker 1: on and have show arguments with him to keep the
Speaker 1: crowd braying. But there was nothing. He didn't. He didn't again,
Speaker 1: he didn't believe in ship. But while Wally George like couldn't.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't think Wally, when Morton Jenny Jr.
Speaker 1: Was willing to do was have someone get in hits
Speaker 1: on him verbally, like he wanted that kind of sparring,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's good TV. I think Wally George
Speaker 1: was just too brittle a man to accept that. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Morton Enny, I don't I think never would have taken
Speaker 1: anything really personally because he's a showman and he gets
Speaker 1: that like, well, I'm Evan Gloria On Like, neither of
Speaker 1: us believe in anything. We just are using this as
Speaker 1: a vehicle for our own personal fame and we can say,
Speaker 1: like have whatever fights we want to have. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they would have made a good couple because they're both
Speaker 1: the same person more or less. Ye. So, eight months
Speaker 1: into its run, the Morton Downey Junior Show was a
Speaker 1: wildfire hit. The New York Times sent in a reporter
Speaker 1: to watch the show as it was taped, and his
Speaker 1: recollection does a good job of setting up the mood.
Speaker 1: Quote Sean Morton Downey Jr. Shawn to his friends more
Speaker 1: mort to the adoring t shirted fans crowding the New
Speaker 1: Jersey Television studio audience, smoked in paste and spewed venom.
Speaker 1: You're not licking the beauties of the boots of the bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: That doesn't give a damn about the American people, he commanded.
Speaker 1: Bureaucratic bitch, he shouted. As the congregation and unruly, as
Speaker 1: unruly as any Splatter film crowd at the nearby Lows
Speaker 1: Metal Plaza eight jumped up and loudly voiced its approval. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the it's it's combatitive. But as you saw from
Speaker 1: that glare alrd quote, they'll cheer it like somebody getting
Speaker 1: in a hit on Morton too. There's it's not the
Speaker 1: same Springer here. We're getting closer to Springer here. It's right,
Speaker 1: it's more about the spectacle. They just want to see him,
Speaker 1: They just want to see fla. Yeah. Mort was separated
Speaker 1: from later imitators, people like Jerry Springer, and from people
Speaker 1: like Wally George, who was a little earlier by his
Speaker 1: willingness to physically confront his guests. He came very close
Speaker 1: to getting into fights on several occasions, and his studio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his studio was the first in television to put the
Speaker 1: audience through a metal detector. Oh man, And I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was a mix of that's practical because he has
Speaker 1: somebody might get fucking stabbed, but also that's like, that's
Speaker 1: another thing we can brag about. This TV is so hot,
Speaker 1: we gotta have a metal detector for the audience. That's
Speaker 1: how intense this show is. Yeah, it's a it's a gimmick.
Speaker 1: As with Wally George, his live audience particularly skewed towards
Speaker 1: young and disaffected men, a lot of the same kind
Speaker 1: of guys who would have been in the alt right
Speaker 1: and would have been like edgy kids online today. The
Speaker 1: documentary of Acatur includes interviews with some of these audience members,
Speaker 1: including Joshua Rothman, who was now a history professor who
Speaker 1: was part of Wally's regular audience when he was like
Speaker 1: fucking like, it looks like he's like sixteen in this.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a little older. But here's here's
Speaker 1: Joshua explaining the appeal of showing up to a taping
Speaker 1: of more show. If you guys and that other gram
Speaker 1: went over there, like you pads a kid, I shove.
Speaker 1: It was also sort of perfect for seventeen year olds
Speaker 1: because it had no nuance at all. Everything was black
Speaker 1: or white, and seventeen year olds problem. Everything is either
Speaker 1: totally one thing or totally the other. There is no middle.
Speaker 1: We are we're number one. You know what I think.
Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump should take his board game and
Speaker 1: just go to hell. Yeah that's all that's what you got, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looked like he was going to say something colorful
Speaker 1: sixteen years you know, so that that says a lot
Speaker 1: of it right there. Um, both like we didn't have YouTube.
Speaker 1: If you were a kid and you want to, like
Speaker 1: you feel like you have something to say, you could
Speaker 1: get on TV if as long as you're willing to
Speaker 1: like shout something stupid, Morton Downey Junior will put your
Speaker 1: ass on television as long as you're to get possibly
Speaker 1: beaten up by him on the air. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I get I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, he's given them not only in uh, he's
Speaker 1: giving them an outlet. Um. Yeah, and it seems like
Speaker 1: they like we we're talking about with the crowd of
Speaker 1: Wally's show. It's it's more that it's it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the political views. It's they're latching onto this sort of
Speaker 1: maximum anger. Anything goes this kind of environment. It's this
Speaker 1: space where they can let out like every seventeen year
Speaker 1: old as angry as ship about a bunch of different things.
Speaker 1: And you could get on Morton Downey Junior Show and
Speaker 1: you could either express real anger with something or what's
Speaker 1: probably more common, you could express the anger inside you
Speaker 1: and just throw it at anything, like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He just wants you to be loud and yelling and
Speaker 1: he'll be happy with you. And and there's no you
Speaker 1: can be edgy. If you want to just say something
Speaker 1: funked up on TV, he can. He'll let you do that.
Speaker 1: It's like ship posting to like all of this like
Speaker 1: four chance stuff. You can see those impulses. He's giving
Speaker 1: people an outlet for them. Yeah, And they showed the
Speaker 1: clip from their homemade video that they that they made
Speaker 1: like a sketch that they did these kids, yeah, pretending
Speaker 1: to be Morton Downey Jr. So it's clear that it's
Speaker 1: it's his like bombastic, this character that he is that
Speaker 1: they're latching onto, less than his views. It's more it's
Speaker 1: just the way he speaks and the way he behaves
Speaker 1: and the way he's sort of you know, it's like
Speaker 1: when people would chant, when people would chant Jerry Jerry, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: people would get into fights. It's nothing to do with
Speaker 1: Springer himself. Yeah, and it's it's nothing to do these
Speaker 1: kids don't care about I'm sure didn't. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure at the time they agreed with whatever political ship
Speaker 1: he was saying, but didn't think. They're fucking seventeen year
Speaker 1: olds like they were. Just they identified with the way
Speaker 1: that he expressed emotion and the way that he let
Speaker 1: them do it, and they're identified with an angry white
Speaker 1: man being a hungry white man on television and being
Speaker 1: colorful about it. Yeah. Um, Morton absolutely played the role
Speaker 1: of a religious extremist. Again, I don't think he believed
Speaker 1: in anything, certainly not God, but he knew that fights
Speaker 1: over religion could make good television. And I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: an exerpt here from an episode titled God Versus Atheism. Now,
Speaker 1: we don't think to pray when they don't want to.
Speaker 1: Any child is free to praying any time that he wants.
Speaker 1: In the public schools today, we just say we're gonna
Speaker 1: give you a minute to pray any time you want. No,
Speaker 1: they the government doesn't tell children when to pray, what
Speaker 1: to pray, how to pray, or even if they don't
Speaker 1: like you and Madam God in the and made sure
Speaker 1: we can't even say in the Bredge of Allegiance the
Speaker 1: word God anymore in a public school because of you, guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the same ship you see in nowadays. Stupid useless
Speaker 1: argument we're still making. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Later on in
Speaker 1: that same interview, Downey tells his atheist guest, this is
Speaker 1: a nation of freedom. Are you a religion? Then you
Speaker 1: have no fucking freedom, just like like nine year old
Speaker 1: old arguments. You know, yeah, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: the funk that's supposed to be. Um. Now. While the
Speaker 1: Morton Danny Junior Show had lots of yelling and fighting,
Speaker 1: some of its most sinister impacts came from the segments
Speaker 1: that were calm, thoughtful debates. In my research, I came
Speaker 1: across a roundtable discussion from night about black crime featuring
Speaker 1: Reverend Al Sharpton, who is another person who really The
Speaker 1: Morton Downy Junior Show massively increased his his platform, his profile,
Speaker 1: like he owes a lot of his fame to the
Speaker 1: Morton Danny Junior show. UM. It like it. It made
Speaker 1: him and it helped make him into like a regular
Speaker 1: fixture on tv UM. While the authority or while the
Speaker 1: audience does hoot and holler some the discussion is very
Speaker 1: civil and it's kind of chilling because one of Morton's
Speaker 1: guests here goes on an extended tirade about black on
Speaker 1: white crime statistics, which is like a major argument point
Speaker 1: for fucking neo Nazis today. So here that is, in
Speaker 1: the United States, more murders were committed by blacks twelve
Speaker 1: percent of the population, then we're committed by white of
Speaker 1: the population. These are the numbers right here, right out
Speaker 1: of the Justice Department figures, and you can check them
Speaker 1: later if anyone has any doubts on that. When you
Speaker 1: check the murder figures in inter raciel crime, now inter
Speaker 1: raciel means that you have a perpetrator of one race
Speaker 1: and another race. Figures. Yeah, you find and I'll just
Speaker 1: get to the conclusion of it. You find that the
Speaker 1: black was more likely to murder of white than a
Speaker 1: white was. That's enough of this. So obviously this guy's
Speaker 1: statistics are very flawed, and one of Morton's other guests, Dr.
Speaker 1: Gloria Toot does point this out pretty much immediately. We're
Speaker 1: going to play that clip now too. Here's her like
Speaker 1: slapping back on this. Number one, your credit is coloneous.
Speaker 1: Crime is being reduced in America, not justid by blacks,
Speaker 1: but by Americans in general. We have less crime in
Speaker 1: N seven than we had ten years ago. Number two,
Speaker 1: The Justice Department and state and local government officials in
Speaker 1: crime have admitted that the reporting statistics are an era
Speaker 1: as it relates to the crime reported by minorities and
Speaker 1: crimes reported about white Number three. Also, it has now
Speaker 1: been acknowledged by those officials that in many instances the
Speaker 1: white criminal is not is not convicted or even arrested,
Speaker 1: whereas your minority is. Now, I could go on and
Speaker 1: on and on, but the fact that he has given
Speaker 1: are just not accurate. And we do ourselves at disservice
Speaker 1: when we don't look at what the problem is. So obviously, Um,
Speaker 1: that's a more productive debate than was ever had on
Speaker 1: the Wally George Show. It seems more like the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff you might have heard on Joe Pine. Um.
Speaker 1: And in fairness, he is bringing on people to contradict
Speaker 1: and argue with this guy talking about black on white crime.
Speaker 1: So you could call this, on one level, a more
Speaker 1: responsible and productive debate than a lot of what you
Speaker 1: see on right wing TV today. But I can't help
Speaker 1: but see in this echoes of the kind of fascist
Speaker 1: platforming that would become much more common in later years
Speaker 1: without the measured pushback that Morton Show at least gave it.
Speaker 1: The specter of black on white crime and high crime
Speaker 1: rates among black people are two of the most virulent
Speaker 1: uh and productive talking points of the fascist right. I
Speaker 1: could go on a rant about Dylan Roof here, who
Speaker 1: was he claims inspired to go on his massacre by
Speaker 1: reading about black on white crime, But this discussion has
Speaker 1: very deep roots. And I'm kind of torn between seeing
Speaker 1: Morton here as someone who handed it better than some
Speaker 1: people in the right um because he did have two
Speaker 1: very well prepared black guests to counter this line of argument,
Speaker 1: or whether I'm just more unsettled by the fact that
Speaker 1: he put this fucking argument on television at all. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know kind of where to land on that,
Speaker 1: but it it leaves me feeling unsettled. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 1: I don't trust anything that any of these people do.
Speaker 1: So it's I he just did it for Ray. He
Speaker 1: knew this was a hot button issue for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and he had a full panel so that
Speaker 1: he could maximize the outrage and the controversy and just
Speaker 1: you know, you you don't get one person on there
Speaker 1: to talk about their views, because that's not going to
Speaker 1: start a fight. You have to get somebody else on
Speaker 1: there to contradict what they're saying or counter what they're saying. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's uh, I think, I think what's going on here.
Speaker 1: But you know who won't platform people spreading Nazi talking
Speaker 1: points about race related crimes, Tom Hope, hopefully the fine
Speaker 1: people bringing us these products and services. Yeah, they absolutely
Speaker 1: do not, um unless it's in which case, oh boy,
Speaker 1: here's ads. All right, we're back. Oh yeah. So Reverend
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton was another media figure who got a massive
Speaker 1: lee boost to his career thanks to the Morton Downey Jr. Show.
Speaker 1: I want maybe not early, but he got this really
Speaker 1: increased a lot of his visibility. He and Morton were
Speaker 1: regular sparring partners, and they also were clearly friends. Al
Speaker 1: made for great television. At one point he called another
Speaker 1: guest a punk F word in a moment of rage.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was Al's friendship with Morton Downy Jr.
Speaker 1: That would prove to be the downfall of the Morton
Speaker 1: Downey Junior Show. From the Chicago Tribune quote, it all
Speaker 1: came to a head when the show began focusing on
Speaker 1: the case of Tajuana Brawley, a fifteen year old African
Speaker 1: American girl who claimed to have been raped by six
Speaker 1: white men, including a police officer, and had KKK and
Speaker 1: other vile words scrawled on her body. Show after show
Speaker 1: was devoted to this case, many featuring the Brawley adviser
Speaker 1: and then relatively unknown Al Sharpton. Downey beat that story
Speaker 1: to death, and his ratings began to plummet, especially after
Speaker 1: Brawley's accusations were deemed false by a grand jury. So
Speaker 1: it does seem to be a case where Brawley was lying.
Speaker 1: I think it's because she had like stayed out late
Speaker 1: and had to come up with an excuse, and it
Speaker 1: just was like a kid doing a um thing, and
Speaker 1: then it blew up and became national news. It's it's
Speaker 1: a very sad story. I think she's still like for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life, will oh money to one
Speaker 1: of the people she accused to suit her. It's like
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up tail and Moreton Danny Jr. Jumped on
Speaker 1: it and took it as a crusade, not because he
Speaker 1: cared about this woman and thought that it was true, um,
Speaker 1: but because you know it was TV and he's more
Speaker 1: Danny Jr. The day. It's exact same mentality behind the
Speaker 1: debate we just listened to. Yep, yep, exactly now. The
Speaker 1: Tawana Brawley case led to one of the most infamous
Speaker 1: moments of nineteen eighties television, when Mort had al sharpened
Speaker 1: on with a black, white right wing activist named Roy Inness.
Speaker 1: The stated goal of the episode was to determine who
Speaker 1: was the leader of Black America both in it's so
Speaker 1: but um um, it's a little more complex than is
Speaker 1: it Sharpen or Inness? But that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: inference that like, yeah, um, both Inness and Sharpen received
Speaker 1: a chorus of booze when they're introduced, because that's the
Speaker 1: kind of show this is. Mort starts the interview by
Speaker 1: bringing up comments Sharpton made criticizing en Us. Sharpton goes
Speaker 1: on a rant, calling us a sellout and then this happens,
Speaker 1: and it's in a speaking at the start of this,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the few, none bigger than black leaders. Run.
Speaker 1: I will say, let me stay now, let's deal with
Speaker 1: the facts. Let's go to the record tonight. We want
Speaker 1: to deal with the records and the facts. Please do
Speaker 1: it on this program, your program. You heard me. You
Speaker 1: have me in tape defending this man recently, even after
Speaker 1: the shenanigans with him and the other is a lot
Speaker 1: of crap. Let brother, you have your time, brother ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just pushed out, He just he just shoved his
Speaker 1: ass down onto the stage and a bunch of dudes
Speaker 1: rush up to start shoving ship balls. Yeah. He kissed
Speaker 1: him right off the stage. He pushed him right off
Speaker 1: the day him stage. Yeah yeah, And it went fucking viral.
Speaker 1: This moment was huge. Every TV show, like every news
Speaker 1: show had the clips of this fucking weeks, like in
Speaker 1: a way that like no genocide today goes as viral.
Speaker 1: Is this clip of ol Sharpton getting shoved off a
Speaker 1: stage went um, which is not a great because yeah
Speaker 1: because yeah, yeah, yeah, I bet yeah, but we all
Speaker 1: do um. Yeah. After the Tawanna Brawley case fell apart.
Speaker 1: Nothing could abait the downward slide of Morton's ratings. The
Speaker 1: next year, in nine nine, he made a desperate stab
Speaker 1: at regaining his relevance. He filed a police report claiming
Speaker 1: three skinheads had jumped him, beaten him up, and drawn
Speaker 1: a swastika on his forehead and an airplane bat and
Speaker 1: an airport bathroom. The police almost immediately came forward and
Speaker 1: said that the facts of the case as he had
Speaker 1: reported it to them, or is he he is he
Speaker 1: reported to the media did not align with like what
Speaker 1: he had said. Basically said like he's fucking lying. We
Speaker 1: have no evidence that any of this is true. Um
Speaker 1: that we can't substantiate any of his claims. And it
Speaker 1: came out later one of his friends testified, like he
Speaker 1: faked it. He like drew a swatstika, Like the photos
Speaker 1: that he gave the cops are different from like the
Speaker 1: photos that he put up on TV of like the
Speaker 1: swastika on his forehead. Like he just like faked getting
Speaker 1: jumped by skinheads to try to drum up like a
Speaker 1: media controversy. He's just a desperate scum bought bag. He
Speaker 1: made several comeback Yeah, and Android created to be a scumback,
Speaker 1: just a ship droid full of just spewing poop. So
Speaker 1: he made a few different comeback attempts, and he tried
Speaker 1: to make a living doing talk radio, and he maintained
Speaker 1: actually surprisingly robust career in movies. You've already mentioned He's
Speaker 1: nine Bills and Predator to He was in Revenge of
Speaker 1: the Nerds three, which is really quite a film. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was in The Silencer. He was in Tales of
Speaker 1: the crypt to name but a few episodes, although Wally
Speaker 1: George really should have been the one in Tales from
Speaker 1: the Crops. Yeah. Yeah. In six he was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: lung cancer, which was embarrassing. Yeah, how dare you really?
Speaker 1: We have we we have to thank Comrades Cigarettes for
Speaker 1: getting two thirds of these guys out of the planet
Speaker 1: critical support to chain smoking. Um, this was embarrassing. By
Speaker 1: the sword, you die by the sword. And he had
Speaker 1: he made a big deal about being a smoker on
Speaker 1: the air, kind of like the way kind of Bill
Speaker 1: Hicks did. If you listen to some of like those
Speaker 1: routines um a cigarette and like every clip we've yeah,
Speaker 1: he would talk about like these aren't bad for me?
Speaker 1: I look better than you. You know, we read that
Speaker 1: clip a little bit earlier, and he does. He does,
Speaker 1: mother looks. He doesn't look good. He doesn't look good. Um,
Speaker 1: he's all teeth. Yeah. He had, he had, He had
Speaker 1: made so much hay out of like being a smoker.
Speaker 1: He had autographed cigarettes. Seed promised never to quit. But
Speaker 1: then he gets lung cancer and so he immediately comes
Speaker 1: an anti smoking activist, begging people to stop. He told
Speaker 1: one interviewer, I used a cigarette as a combat weapon,
Speaker 1: and I never gave much thought to the chance that
Speaker 1: this cigarette would most likely kill me, which is very
Speaker 1: funny or Yeah. Morton died in two thousand one, but
Speaker 1: his influence lives on. When his show was canceled in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, a TV reviewer with the Chicago Tribune
Speaker 1: wrote that the cancelation quote removes from our lives one
Speaker 1: of the most abrasive people ever to appear on television.
Speaker 1: But do not think that this represents a move towards
Speaker 1: a calmer climb Downey wetted people's appetites for confrontational TV.
Speaker 1: There will be someone to take his place. That's a
Speaker 1: that's prescient. Yeah. In an opinion column for CNN. Michael
Speaker 1: Smerconish makes this point quote. When Fox News launched in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, it adopted the talk radio playbook, and
Speaker 1: NBC briefly gained viewers by giving Keith Olberman a Downey
Speaker 1: like platform for his diet tribes against President George W. Bush.
Speaker 1: The model for each was a toned down version of
Speaker 1: that which Downey had established. Entertainment masked his news constant conflict,
Speaker 1: good guys versus bad guys, and preordained outcomes. But Downey's
Speaker 1: influence extended beyond media outlets and should be appreciated, is
Speaker 1: more than just another contributing factor to the decline of
Speaker 1: America's cultural health. The media paradigm he fathered has taken
Speaker 1: a toll on the way in which we are governed.
Speaker 1: There has been a noticeable uptick and incivility and polarization
Speaker 1: among our leaders in the exact same period in which
Speaker 1: the media has moved to the extremes, in part because
Speaker 1: of the power that Downey's successors exert over primary voters.
Speaker 1: Now In this columns Mrconish sites Brian Rosenwald, a fellow
Speaker 1: at the University of Pennsylvania who did his doctoral dissertation
Speaker 1: on talk radio. Rosenwald rights Downey's heirs have fostered polarization
Speaker 1: through their influence in primary elections. Republican members of Congress
Speaker 1: must fear infuriating talk radio and cable news hosts because
Speaker 1: media personalities can use their platforms to offset several major advantages,
Speaker 1: including significantly greater fundraising and name recognition, held by incumbents
Speaker 1: in primary all actions, hosts demand purity from elected officials,
Speaker 1: label compromises treason, and glorify Congress Congress's rhetorical bomb throwers
Speaker 1: such as Senator Ted Gruz. Yeah, um, it's pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1: There's some quotes in this that are talking about like
Speaker 1: polarization in Washington that notes that like as late as
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, the typical member of one party voted
Speaker 1: with his colleagues his party members just over sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the time, and that those numbers have raised every decade,
Speaker 1: and two Democrats voted together of the time Republicans of
Speaker 1: the time. Unfortunately, uh, those able to reverse those trends
Speaker 1: have ceded the debate to the loudest voices. A Gallop
Speaker 1: survey released in January you found that more Republicans regard
Speaker 1: themselves as independent forty three. Uh, there's more Americans regard
Speaker 1: themselves as independent forty three than Democrat thirty or Republican.
Speaker 1: But any ground gained by the nonpartisan ranks continues to
Speaker 1: be offset by higher political interest resting at the political extremes.
Speaker 1: It's all about passion. As documented by Pew Research Center
Speaker 1: this past this past spring, liberals and conservatives exceed moderates
Speaker 1: and independence and their levels of political interest, which translates
Speaker 1: into voter participation. So it's it's got Most people have
Speaker 1: been turned off by this, this hyperpartisanization, but those who
Speaker 1: stay in the game just get angrier and angrier at
Speaker 1: each other, and it it just makes for an angrier
Speaker 1: country and moren Downey Jr. Was certainly the most successful
Speaker 1: person on TV doing it before our modern media era
Speaker 1: because moly George was kind of a marginal figure. He
Speaker 1: was he was influential and o c and influential to
Speaker 1: other media figures. But MORETN Danny Junior had a national
Speaker 1: show right like because he was everywhere. Um, I knew
Speaker 1: who he was, and I was a little kid. I
Speaker 1: didn't even really know why I knew who he was
Speaker 1: what people knew. Morton Downey Jr. Um, he was kind
Speaker 1: of this perfect synthesis, and that's what it took to
Speaker 1: really get like this kind of specific kind of right
Speaker 1: wing media off the ground was a synthesis of Joe
Speaker 1: Pine and Wally George Morton Downey Jr. Was the first
Speaker 1: guy to do that. And you know he eventually he
Speaker 1: flew too close to the sun and drew a swastika
Speaker 1: on his own forehead. But you know, like the Tale
Speaker 1: of It, just this in the Tale of It, it
Speaker 1: did happen in an air force tom So that's true. Um,
Speaker 1: what a dope, What a dope. Yeah, three people I
Speaker 1: didn't I don't like very much. Um well, if it's
Speaker 1: any consolation, they're all super dead. They are very dead,
Speaker 1: two thirds of them because they smoked too much. Bam.
Speaker 1: But it's a it's a good thing they didn't do
Speaker 1: like irreparable damage to the country. Thankfully. We're sailing right
Speaker 1: along and that's a good thing. Like the beginning, Like
Speaker 1: the seeds they planted haven't grown at a terrifying fucking
Speaker 1: forests of racist Oh yeah no, that never happened. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which, I'm gonna open my news app for the
Speaker 1: first time since nineteen see what's been happening? Oh, dear Tom,
Speaker 1: I have some bad news about the Twin Towers. You
Speaker 1: may want to sit down for this one. Damn it?
Speaker 1: Did they smoke too many cigarettes too? In a way?
Speaker 1: Tom in away, Tom, that that brings us to the
Speaker 1: end of our long journey. Thanks, thanks, thanks for sitting
Speaker 1: through this with me and a lot of clips. I
Speaker 1: now know I have a fuller picture of Morton Downey's Jr.
Speaker 1: In my mind. Glad that It's the only goal I've
Speaker 1: ever had for this show, which is why this is
Speaker 1: our final episode. All right, Tom, what do you gotta
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just just exhausted. Now, I'm just sad.
Speaker 1: Now I'm exhausted, and I'm sad. I'm gonna get it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a Flaxen Wally George Wig. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a Wally George Wig. I need to I need
Speaker 1: to do something to recharge after this. Maybe I'll watch
Speaker 1: hot Rod again or or uh watch Predator to watch
Speaker 1: Predator too. You're right with Gary Busey. Thank god. By
Speaker 1: the way, Lover punches Morton Downey right in the face.
Speaker 1: The best thing about Gary Busey's rolling that is that
Speaker 1: Wally George could absolutely have played Gary Busey's character in
Speaker 1: that movie. He's playing George in that movie, and fucking
Speaker 1: Morton Downey Jr. Is in it too. My god, what
Speaker 1: a film. I'm gonna get this Predator because he's on
Speaker 1: a merry. I kind of want to rewatch Revenge of
Speaker 1: the Nerds three and see what the Danny jan Your
Speaker 1: was doing in that ship. I wouldn't. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't really enjoy watching it the first time. At least
Speaker 1: Predator to has I think the beach if I'm remembering right,
Speaker 1: it was on it was in like the Bahamas or something.
Speaker 1: I think it's Nerds in Para, Nerds in Paradise, that's right.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the samples. At least Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ Revenge of the Nerds. That whole movie is a bastard.
Speaker 1: That's it's the Morton Downey of film series could do
Speaker 1: what you could do an episode on just the Revenge
Speaker 1: of the Nerds Jesus Christ. All right, Well you gotta
Speaker 1: plug anything, tom oh? Sure? Um, I have a podcast
Speaker 1: network game an employed that I do with my partner,
Speaker 1: my podcasting partner, David Bell, also from Cracked, um from Cracked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all used to work there, we did. Um. You
Speaker 1: can check it out gamely not game dot com, Patreon
Speaker 1: dot com, slash gamefully Unemployed, where you can check out
Speaker 1: our patreon. We got all kinds of cool stuff on their,
Speaker 1: like exclusive podcasts and other things that we do with
Speaker 1: our patrons. It's it's a lot of funny to check
Speaker 1: it out. Else to do, right Aget Colleider and I
Speaker 1: write for some more news with your friends Cody and
Speaker 1: Katie Robert. Yeah yeah, I mean friends, enemies friend me yeah,
Speaker 1: frien ofmies uh, eternal eternal opponents um and also right
Speaker 1: for dog um. It's all kinds of that. You find me,
Speaker 1: just google me, Google tom Ryman. Find him at his home,
Speaker 1: you know, please do Yeah, no, docs me on attack
Speaker 1: him in an airport bathroom and draw swastika on his
Speaker 1: forehead to improve his career. And for unclear reason, I
Speaker 1: really do wonder what was the what was the game
Speaker 1: plan there? Morton? How is this going to help? He
Speaker 1: was gonna he was gonna make that in like three
Speaker 1: months of shows, hunting down the Nazis who beat him up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a whole plan. Yeah, he had a whole
Speaker 1: pitch dick. God, I wish we'd all just agreed to, like,
Speaker 1: see what he was going to do first before I
Speaker 1: do want to kind of see where he's going with us.
Speaker 1: It's obviously this is all bullshit, but let's see how
Speaker 1: long he rides this. Yeah, very funny. All right, Well
Speaker 1: that's the episode