WEBVTT - 10ish Worst Business Decisions Ever 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:10.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.040 Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know one of 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.040 our Really, it's been a while top ten editions where 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.799 we don't actually do top ten. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.840 Yeah. Some people out there are like, what in the 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.920 world are you talking about, And some people are like, 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.200 oh my gosh, this reminds me of the old days, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:41.400 back in the two thousand and oh, I don't know, tens, eights, nine, thirteens. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.360 Oh yeah, thirteen was lousy with top tens, I think. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:45.479 Yeah, we used to do all a lot of these 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:46.879 top well not a lot, but we used to do 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:48.720 top tens from the old House Stuff Works website, and 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:54.640 it seems like they never had ten great entries. So 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.080 we would just on the fly say oh, let's not 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.640 do this one. But we were better now we're professional. Yeah, 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.480 so we got together beforehand and said, well, let's just 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.520 do these eight and Yeah. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.039 It feels weird to know ahead of time what we're 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.679 not going to do rather than just saying it in 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.360 the middle of recording. But I do feel like it 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:14.360 is more professional. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:15.560 It's called growth, my friend. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.039 So we are not doing all ten. But there is 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.200 one that I think really kind of introduces this concept 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.200 out of the gate Chuck and it's concept. Oh oh yeah, 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.480 I forgot to talk about the concept. We're talking today 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.360 about bad business decisions. And you could call this the 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:37.640 shot and fraud hour, because if you are kind of 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.320 if you take a grim view of CEOs and captains 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.040 of industry and all that, this is like a chance 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:45.640 to really kind of poke fun at people have made 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.160 some really terrible decisions over the years. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.920 Not all great decisions over the years. Sometimes they're bad. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:53.520 We're here to talk about eight of them. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.200 But hey, the games you never won are the ones 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.360 you didn't start playing in that saying is that it? 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.320 I don't know if that's it, but that that totally 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.440 makes sense to me. So I'm saying, yes, okay, good, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.000 so you only missed the shots you don't take. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.600 Yeah, that's much better than mine, But I like yours. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.839 I undermined our professional spiel at the beginning just now. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:24.640 So there's a pretty well worn story about how Alexander 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.400 Graham Bell invented the telephone and went to Western Union 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:33.520 and said, hey, you captains of Communication, you guys rule 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.120 the world as far as long distance communication goes, I've 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.720 got this neat invention, why don't you buy it from 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.240 me for one hundred thousand dollars? And the heads at 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.119 Western Union said, that is ridiculous. Nobody's gonna want this thing. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.679 Hit the bricks, and Alexander Graham Bell just went off 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.480 and created his own phone company. And those patents that 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.600 he received turned out to be what are widely considered 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.760 the most valuable patents ever issued in the United States. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.760 And some pretty valuable patents have been issued like this 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.320 is not we're not talking about some also ran patent. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.440 This is the patent of patents, right, you beat up 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.600 the squatty potty oh by far, like by twice as 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.760 valuable even maybe but probably more so. But it just 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.480 kind of goes to show you, like it's easy to 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.520 say haha at Western Union. But it also is a 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.400 teachable moment, as Oprah would say, because if you dig 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.560 into the story, you find that when Alexander Graham Bell 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.200 invented the telephone, he didn't invent the telephone so you 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.920 and I could pick up a receiver and talk to 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.600 one another on either end. He basically invented it to 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.280 be the radio. Before radio, the intent was for you 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.720 to sit in a room and somebody on the other 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.920 end of the telephone line in a different city perform 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.800 a play or read a monologue, or play a symphony, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:55.520 and you were going to sit there and listen. You 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.200 weren't supposed to talk back. That was the idea. So 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.880 if you put it in that context, yestern Union doesn't 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.880 seem so dumb anyway. So I think it's a reminder 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.160 to keep in mind in most of these cases, hindsight 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.120 is twenty twenty, and that there is a lot of 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.320 exacerbating circumstances and that nothing's ever that one sided. But 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.039 it's still kind of fun to think about. 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:20.880 Yeah, And you know what a great example of that 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:22.760 hindsight being twenty twenty is. 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.359 I'm gonna go with this one is when. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.520 Excite did not buy Google just call it an audible. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:35.240 Everybody remembers Excite, or you may not, but if it 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.599 sounds familiar and you look up the Excite logo, that 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.360 you will immediately, probably if you were of a certain age, go, oh, yeah, 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.159 I remember Excite. They didn't really stand out to me 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.960 when I was researching this until I went and saw 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:50.559 it and I was like, oh, yeah, I remember those guys. 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.159 I did not ever use it. But Excite dot com, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.640 believe it or not, is still around and in one 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.200 of what will be two a bit of serendipity with 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:06.320 this episode releasing now, Excite is literally ending their email 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:07.480 program this month. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.560 I know that's what prompted this episode. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:11.359 Is it really? 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:11.560 No? 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:13.120 Oh? 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:14.200 I had no idea. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.839 Well, because what's funny is I made fun of Emily 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.160 up until about a year ago because she's still paid 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:20.159 for a MindSpring email. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:20.640 No. 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:22.760 Yes, because she's like, I've had. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.520 This email for twenty years and like everybody's got it 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.400 and I can't. Like she was locked in, she felt like, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.000 but she waited it out eventually because I think they 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:34.159 may have stopped supporting it as well. 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:34.680 I'm not sure. 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.880 Oh, but they still kept taking her money, right. 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.440 Maybe I don't know. Anyway, Excite. If you go to 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.400 Excite dot com today, you will laugh because you will 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.440 see what is a very old school looking internet site. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.640 It's like a list of it's a news scroll, like 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.360 a list of headlines. It's got these little icons that 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.760 I assume they pay to be on there because it's 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:04.920 like Amazon, eBay, State Farm and Casper Mattress like prominent 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.200 icons as if this website is the place to go 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:08.720 to get to. 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:09.720 Those other places. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.880 And then on the left rail you will see a 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.520 list of things like email, which of course is going defunct, 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.600 a bunch of redirects like weather it goes to acuweather 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.479 sports goes to ESPN, and then entertainment, travel, finance, and 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.800 games all goes to ask dot com. 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.279 Wow, apparently Excite was that's today. I thought Excite turned 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.040 into ask dot COMO. Apparently there's separate. 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.920 Oh okay, they clearly like each other because they link 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.559 four different things to ask dot com. 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.400 And do you know, of course ask dot com started 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:43.560 out as ask jeeves. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.479 Remember that I thought it was. I just couldn't remember 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:46.880 for sure. 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.039 So these are search engines. Some of them were Yahoo 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:56.039 apparently categorized the entire Internet by category strangely enough. But 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.360 Excite supposedly was a search engine. It just wasn't super good. 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.320 And there's a story out there, Chuck that the search 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.600 engine was purposefully not super good because these search engines 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.000 used to be called web portals. That was, you would 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.480 go to Excite first search what you're searching for, and 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.920 then hopefully while you were there taking a bunch of ads. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.200 So the longer you stayed on Excite before leaving and 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.560 going off into the Internet, the better it was for 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.280 Excite's bottom line. So their search wasn't that great. And 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.280 that is an explanation from one of the people who 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.560 who was part of this deal for why Excite passed 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:37.120 on Google. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:39.400 Yeah, and they weren't just a search engine. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.280 They were a they're like what they are today still, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.760 they were an aggregator. They had new scrolls and stuff 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.119 like that. It was almost like a a front page 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:49.760 of a newspaper that you would go to. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.840 Right, but a really like super low fi newspaper. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.960 Yeah. So Google comes around. This is nineteen ninety nine 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.680 Larry Page and Sarah Gibrinn said, all right, we got 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.720 this thing. It's basically like an algorithm essentially at this point, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.640 and we could sell it to you Excite for a 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.120 million bucks. And then they balked and they said, all right, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.800 how about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars And they said, no, well, 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.280 we're Excite. Why do we need you this weird search 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.760 engine that isn't even really a search engine yet? And 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.680 I think this is one clear example of hindsight being 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.240 twenty twenty because no one could have predicted what Google 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:34.800 would become. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.200 Absolutely not. And so the CEO of Excite, George Bell, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.680 is known as the guy who passed up on buying 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.840 Google for less than a million dollars. Right, But he's like, hey, hey, hey, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.880 I'm not some dummy like these guys wanted to gut 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:54.320 Excite search engine and put in the Google search algorithm instead, 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.360 And I was dedicated to my engineering team. They had 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.520 worked really hard to create the search engine that I 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.360 thought was perfectly fine, and I wasn't about to completely 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:07.839 poison our culture for Google. And Google's people said no, Actually, 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:09.800 what happened was we made a bake off between their 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.200 search engine and our search in it, and their stuff 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.280 came back with terrible stuff. Our stuff came back with 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.760 really good stuff, and they were like, this is too good. 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.720 People are going to immediately leave Excite, so we don't 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.959 want your your algorithm. Those are the two competing stories 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.920 for why this didn't happen. Amazing, It is amazing bad 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.520 business decisions still though, sure, absolutely all. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.160 Right, where should we go next? We might not even 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.800 get to eid everybody. That's how exciting these episodes are 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:40.800 I'm gonna go with Kodak. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.560 I was gonna go with Kodak too. 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:48.680 Everyone that grew up in the pre digital revolution remembers 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:53.120 Kodak as the photograph company, the film paper Company, the 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.080 film stock company. Founded in eighteen eighty out of New York, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.599 they controlled ninety percent of the film market into the 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.040 late seventies and about eighty five percent of the camera 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.760 market and employed about sixty thousand people. And in the 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:13.439 mid seventies there was a engineer there named Steve Sassin 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.800 who basically figured out digital photography. He was experimenting with 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.200 something called a charged couple device a CCD, and he 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.719 figured out how to translate an image into ones and 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.080 zeros and built the very first digital camera. It was 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.360 a one hundred thousand pixel image, which is pretty cute 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.000 this point zero one megapixels. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:35.880 It's a little grainy. 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.200 And went to the bosses and said, hey, like, this 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.400 is the future, guys, this is what we should do. 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.040 And Kodak said, oh, well, I'm not so sure about that. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.680 So yes, there were some people in Kodek that were like, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.360 this is dangerous man. We're like, our money is in 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.200 print photographs. Our money is in regular cameras, and there 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.000 was another group in Kodek that was like, this guy's right, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.560 Steve Sassin's right, this is the future. And they did 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:08.040 invest billions of dollars in developing a digital camera whole outfit, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.400 and those conservative forces managed to keep it back, keep 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.280 it back, and then finally, by the time Kodak joined 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.880 the digital camera revolution, they had been passed by. So 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.920 not only did they miss the digital camera revolution despite 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:25.120 having invented it, they also wasted billions of dollars on 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.280 their digital camera division that never got to really get 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.160 a good start, So it was just a complete waste, 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.360 Like this is this is a genuinely bad business decision, Chuck. 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:40.280 Yeah, but they had the disc camera, remember those. Yes, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.840 that was the big Kodak product that was. It wasn't digital, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.800 but it was a little film wheel. It was a 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.600 disc and it was a little flat camera. I remember 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:55.720 that was all the rage, so I wanted them. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:56.640 It was a very big deal. 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.240 I see that now. Yeah, that does kind of take 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.920 me back. Yeah, did you have one? No, Fisher Price 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.080 made one. Did you have that one? 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:05.800 No? 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:07.920 Yeah, I didn't have either either. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.280 Yeah, you and I had similar upbringings. We didn't get 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:12.200 the best toys. 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:18.079 No, but apparently those Then the early nineties, when digital 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.679 cameras came out, they were like one thousand dollars, but 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.080 they could only store like eight pictures at a time. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.240 Like you could take eight pictures and then you had 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:26.920 to plug it into your computer and up though those 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.680 eight pictures, format the disc and then start over again. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:31.320 Yeah. 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.760 God, bless you early adopters, but it usually pays, in 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.679 my experience, to wait a little bit on the tech 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.920 to figure itself out. For sure, like the first flat 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:42.719 screen TVs. Remember how expensive those were? 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.280 Oh my god. But it's the early adopters who drive 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.120 the prices down because sure they are buying these things, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:48.640 you know what I. 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.400 Mean, Hey, I mean they walk the righteous path. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.080 So, just to wrap it all up, Kodak ended up 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:01.120 laying off fifty thousand employees and in twenty twelve they 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.959 they filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy. And they're still around. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.560 But they basically make printer cartridges and motion picture film stock. 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.080 Yeah, which is also not used very often anymore. Nope, 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.880 poor Kodak, Poor Kodak. Time for break. 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:18.880 I was gonna say the same thing, man, we are 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.120 really sympatic of this episode. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:22.440 All right, we'll be right back. 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:35.640 I was going to say that too. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.320 Okay, Chuck, I'm going to pick one and I'm in 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:54.559 the big wheel. Okay, it landed on Western Union against 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.439 we're gonna have to go over that one break in. 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:57.680 Okay, okay, all right. 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.200 So Western Union now, we won't do that. Let me 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.920 just move at one space to this JC penny one. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:04.480 How about that? 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:05.760 Ooh all right, I. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.360 Like this one because it really kind of gets to 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.800 the bottom of some tricks that clothing retailers use. So 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.479 actually all retailers do, but some clothing retailers are particularly 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:17.280 guilty of it. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:22.240 That's right. We were talking about the clothier jcpenny, which 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.120 in twenty twelve hired a shiny new CEO named Ron Johnson, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.760 who had made quite the name for himself in business 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.680 in retail as Two things. First, the guy who hipped 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.440 up Target. Oh yes, okay, remember growing up Target was 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.720 like whatever Target was not, you know, it's kind of 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.280 like a kmart thing. And then all of a sudden 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.360 Tarja was like this cool, hip, awesome place is because 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.600 of Ron Johnson's efforts largely gotcha. Then he went to 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.640 work at Apple, and he is the guy he was 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.200 their VP of retail. He's the guy who basically oversaw, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.720 you could say, invented the Apple Store and the Genius 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:01.640 Bar and stuff like that. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.760 Right, Yeah, So I mean like he was legit. J. C. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.880 Penny was like, come save us, Like we're really flagging, 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.200 Like even compared to some of these other retailers that 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.960 do the same thing, like TJ. Max or Walmart or whatever, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.320 we're getting no love whatsoever. So Ron Johnson came in 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.119 and looked around and he's like, this industry is shameful. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.280 Like basically what he'd walked into was an industry of 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:32.640 clothing retailers that would sell items that were say a 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.200 ten dollars item for ten dollars, but on the price 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.160 tag would it would say that it originally started out 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.200 as like fifty dollars or something, right, And yes, at 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.560 one point they charged fifty dollars for it, but it 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.720 was so that they could later mark it down in 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.240 a sale that probably took place the day after that 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.760 thing arrived and was sold for fifty dollars. So that 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:55.840 means there were some suckers out there who actually paid 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.920 fifty dollars for that ten dollars shirt. But the way 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.800 that they got you was by not only marking it down, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.720 but having a reason to mark it down. They would 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.920 have sale after sale after sale, hundreds of sales, different 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.040 sales in a year, and it still wasn't working. And 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.280 Ron Johnson was like, this is desperate and we shouldn't 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:17.080 do this anymore. 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:22.400 Yeah, there were coupons even and people, you know, Americans 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.840 eat that stuff up. If you hear half off blowout 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.440 sale this weekend, your mouth starts water in a little 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.920 bit and you think, wait a minute, I can get 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.360 something that should cost twice as much for half as much, 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.240 or I can bring in this coupon and get two 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:39.200 things for one thing. 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.920 It's unbelievable, and we still fall. 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.960 For these tricks. We all do. So he said, no, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.880 here's what we'll do. We're gonna just basically out ourselves 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.200 and say, you know now we're gonna do is it's 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.080 called fair and square every day is our new pricing system. 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:58.640 It means you don't need a sale, you don't need 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.400 a coupon our stuff. It's just going to be inexpensive 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:06.159 all the time. And people hated it right away. People 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.560 started complaining they love their sales, they love their deals. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.240 He would call them on the phone personally. He wouldn't 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.960 do that and say, you dummy, don't you understand you're 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.120 paying the same price. It's just cheap all the time. Now, 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.760 people didn't understand that. They didn't want to hear that. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.720 I saw one person that said that he seemed to 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.800 almost have a disdain for his customer base because he 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.560 behind closed doors were saying, they're dumb and they need 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.639 to be educated, and like, how can these dumb dumbs 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.120 not understand that cheaper clothes every day is a better situation? 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.200 Yeah, because the studies have found that people will pay 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.919 more for a cheaper thing if they think it's more valuable. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.080 Then they would pay for the same thing if it 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.560 were marked. They would pass up something that was actually 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:52.960 the same thing at a lower price. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:53.600 Yeah. 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.760 And the reason why is because a ten dollars shirt 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.480 seems cheap and maybe cheaply made and probably just not 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.080 a good But a fifty dollars shirt that you can 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.199 buy for ten dollars was valuable to begin with. And 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.400 then yes, not only is it a deal, you could 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.639 make the case that it's a steal. And people love that. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.919 Like you said, there's a thread, a vein of America 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.960 that is crazy for that kind of stuff. And Ron 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.919 Johnson found out the hard way that when you go 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.359 up against that vein of Americans, you lose every time. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.119 And he lost pretty big in seventeen months. 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.000 Yeah, I got two words for you, my friend. Outlet mall. Yeah, 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.560 that really says it all about America. Yeah, but if 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.480 you don't even know how they operate. But it's got 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.240 to be something like this with outlet malls, right, very much. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.320 But also there's a lot of them that are like 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.760 crypto outlet malls. They're not outlet stores, they're just regular 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.440 stores in an outlet mall. It's b s If you're 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.639 a developer of an outlet mall and you're letting stores 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.040 in there that are actually not selling their outlet stuff 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.320 but there's just a regular store, you're at fault. It's 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.080 on your your hands. Blood is on your hands. 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.520 So what this got Ron Johnson was what is known 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.280 as the worst quarter in retail history, which was a 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.200 store to store thirty two percent drop. 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.240 Wow quarter over quarter. 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.359 That that's just a death nail for him. He only 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.560 made it, I believe seventeen months, and that was it 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.600 and they came back in and said, hey, we're gonna 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.919 go back to our fake pricing scheme, and people loved it. 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.640 I'm sure Ron Johnson was like, that's all right, thanks 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.160 for the multimillion dollar golden parachute at everybody. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.800 Yeah. Oh man, he made He supposedly made like four 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.160 or five hundred million dollars in Oh Michael Stock God. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.880 So he didn't even need this job. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:46.840 No, I'm sure he just wanted to show all this 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.239 loser Americans what the deal was. 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:50.480 He still got a job. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.679 He's doing something else like two years after this, like 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.119 why is this guy working? Go go retire on your 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:55.960 island or something. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.879 So there's a there was an ad that jac pennyc 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.760 came up with like that ran very It was very 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:09.320 short run intentionally, but it basically pleaded for their customers 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.440 to come back. They're like, we know we made mistakes, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.199 We're getting back to our roots. We love you, please 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.840 come back again. Like they were begging their customers to 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.679 come back. And apparently it worked because this is another 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:22.439 common theme that we'll see and I think this is 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.240 a good segue into the New Coke debacle. Ooh, when 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.680 you take away something that people love but have come 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.359 to take for granted. Yeah, they will not only fight 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:35.880 for it, they'll come back for it and droves when 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:37.399 you give it back to them. 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:43.200 New Coke the end, pretty much. Yeah, So of course 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.240 this has got to be in there. If you grew 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.240 up in the eighties like we did, you remember a 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.960 time where Pepsi threatened Coke a little bit, not literally, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:57.080 like doctor Pepsi didn't come up to mister Coke's door 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.080 and say, listen, I'm going to take you up back 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:00.080 and behind the. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:01.000 Witch had and take care of you. 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.280 Sure, the company threatened Coke because their sales were doing 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:04.800 pretty good. 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:06.359 It was a different taste. I think it was a 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:06.879 little sweeter. 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:08.879 I don't even drink Pepsi, so I'm not really sure, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.680 but I think it had a sweeter taste. They were 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.760 I don't know if they were winning the Coke Wars, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.040 but they are the Cold Wars, but they were. They 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:18.840 were edging in on Coke's dominance. 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:20.720 It was Chuck. It was that choice of a new 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.640 generation campaign. Yeah, that was what had done it. They 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.640 got Michael Jackson, they got Madonna, they got I think 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.560 Geraldine Ferraro did one of these commercials. 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:33.880 Like, that's advertising goal. 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.520 These were right, These were just internationally famous commercials, and 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.480 so PEPSI had kind of come out of nowhere and 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:41.560 was eating Coke's launch. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.520 All of a sudden, Coke had do caucus big. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:46.199 Mistake, yeah, dan Quayle. 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.760 So Coke was a little worried. 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.720 They saw their writing on the surpi riding on the wall, 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.920 and they said, all right, under the behind closed doors, 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:01.680 let's start rejiggering our our rest here that had been around, 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.639 you know, since it was you know, sold in that 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.920 very first pharmacy. Very very classic. That's a little hint 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.840 of what's to come. Very classic, classic taste. And for 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.840 a couple of years they're engineers, mixed up little batches. 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.359 They did taste tests, they let people taste them. People 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:20.320 are like, I like the taste of this better. And 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.680 so in nineteen eighty five and April of eighty five, 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.560 New Coke came out with a redesign, can redesign. You know, 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.080 they kept their colors and stuff, and the I'm not 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:33.960 sure if did the font completely change or was it 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.240 just sort of a modified version of the old script. 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.560 I think the new was slightly different, but the Coke 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:41.719 was the original. 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.479 Okay, but at any rate, they unveiled new coke and 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.439 it was a tremendous not only a tremendous flop, but 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.280 it costs a lot of anger and people hoarding their 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.119 old coats, and people were just like, how can you 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.360 change an American institution like this without even asking anybody? 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:03.000 Even though they had done testing. 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:06.240 They had done tons of testing, and the test came 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:10.320 back roundly in favor of this new formula for coke. 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.920 But Malcolm Gladwell and his book Blink apparently pointed out 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.200 that if you're doing it tastes tests, you're not sitting 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:19.960 there drinking a whole can. You're just taking a little 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.080 sip of something and comparing it to the sip of 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:26.760 something else. And so it's possible that that new coke 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:29.600 really tasted terrible if you drank the whole can. It 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:34.439 was too sweet. The explanations I saw were more that 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.160 it was psychological. People didn't like messing with their beloved 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:40.919 coke number one, And I saw that kind of wrapped 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:43.919 up in a quote from somebody that was that they 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:47.000 said the biggest mistake Coke made was telling the public 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.119 about the change to the recipe. Because people were like, 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:51.679 you can't mess with my stuff. I don't care what 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:54.040 it tastes like. And of course it's not going to 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.080 possibly taste good because you're messing with my original coke. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.960 So people just kind of turned on it from the outside. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:02.320 Well, like they think they should have just changed the 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:04.199 recipe and just left it and not said anything. 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:07.119 This guy was saying, if you're going to change the recipe, 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:11.360 they shouldn't have said anything, because that happens from time 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:15.639 to time. But then the bigger problem was that you 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.040 kind of touched on. They didn't stop and ask their customers, 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:22.760 do you want a new coke? They they just made 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:27.560 a terrible business decision based on fear of PEPSI getting 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.040 some of their market share. All of a sudden, they 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.880 went and completely rejiggered the formula. That was their response 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:34.199 to that. 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.399 Yeah, and it didn't last long. It was less than 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:40.840 three months later, a new coke was gone and they 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:45.359 added Classic Coca Cola Classic I remember, and I didn't 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:47.960 even drink a lot of soda back then, even but 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:52.400 I remember it being just almost like this nationwide relief 0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:56.199 setting in. It was really a big deal, and it 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.840 sounds so funny now if you're some kid who had 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:03.240 you know, didn't live through this. It really like it 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:06.080 was big, big news and sort of captured America's attention 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:08.760 for a little while. And Coke Classic coming back was 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:11.920 like an old, long lost friend reappearing at the front door. 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:14.639 And eventually, of course, the word classic was dropped and 0:25:14.640 --> 0:25:16.399 they were just like, can we just forget about all 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:18.080 of that and we're just Coke forever? 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:21.600 But they lasted for a while. There was many years 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.000 where you differentiated by saying Coke Classic. Even after New 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:27.920 Coke was long gone, you still referred to Coke as 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.120 Coke Classic for a while, and then it finally went 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:30.760 back to Coke. 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:32.159 I had to do it? 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:35.119 Uh, is it time for another message? Break? 0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:38.760 Sure? 0:25:39.359 --> 0:26:05.920 Okay? Chuck said, sure, all right, Chuck, you're up. What's next? 0:26:05.960 --> 0:26:07.200 What are we going to do next? 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:12.919 Well, my amigo, we are gonna go with the Blockbuster video. 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:16.040 Oh yeah, this is my favorite, I said, another boy. 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.000 The eighties was pretty rough on some companies that didn't 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:22.800 see the riding on the wall because Blockbuster. You grew 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:26.400 up in the seventies and eighties, well, you know, if 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:28.359 you're a teenager at least in the eighties by that time. 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:30.800 You spent a lot of time, We've talked about it before, 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:35.399 browsing your early Friday evenings with your friends at Blockbuster Video, 0:26:35.920 --> 0:26:40.680 looking over over those shelves, reading the back of those boxes, 0:26:40.720 --> 0:26:43.600 the backs of the boxes, and standing by the door 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:45.760 at that bin because you just could not get your 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:48.960 copy of Excalibur. And some nerd walks up and dumps 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:50.840 it through the slot and he grab it before it 0:26:50.880 --> 0:26:53.960 even hits that bin, and the employee says, you really 0:26:54.040 --> 0:26:55.920 not supposed to do that. 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:58.200 That was a great Blockbuster employee question. 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:02.080 You do it anyway, And block Buster ruled the video 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:05.600 market except for you know the which I still love 0:27:05.680 --> 0:27:08.040 that the charming mom and pops I had a Oh yeah, 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:10.320 this family at our church even ran their own little 0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:12.679 video store and that was a good business for a while, 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:14.960 but Blockbuster eventually would gobble most of those up. 0:27:15.040 --> 0:27:17.640 Yeah, to me, Blockbuster was the nineties thing. The eighties 0:27:17.640 --> 0:27:20.439 were mom and pop places where you'd actually rent the 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:23.440 VCR when you also rented Beverly Hills. 0:27:23.200 --> 0:27:28.040 Cop Yeah, video Shock, your video house, Yeah, video Barn. 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:30.880 And there's just asn't a side. I wonder I want 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:33.000 to know if anybody out there knows what the name 0:27:33.080 --> 0:27:37.119 of this phenomenon is. But whenever I walked into a Blockbuster, 0:27:37.800 --> 0:27:40.359 that whole mental list of movies that I wanted to 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:42.200 rent just vaporized. 0:27:42.640 --> 0:27:44.640 Yea, and I like the test taker syndrome. 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:46.679 It would be like I had just walked into a 0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:49.919 building for the first time, let alone, like a Blockbuster video, 0:27:50.040 --> 0:27:52.000 like I had no idea what I was doing, totally 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:54.840 in over my head, and I would invariably walk out 0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:57.680 with some movie that I just didn't really want to see, 0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:01.000 but I got to rent something, and I okay, yeah, 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:04.040 pretty much. I spared myself that one. But yes, that's 0:28:04.200 --> 0:28:05.160 generally correct. 0:28:05.200 --> 0:28:07.240 So you and then you get home and you're like, man, 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:09.320 I went in there for gleaming the Cube and I 0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:10.520 walk out with Turner and Hooche. 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:12.520 That's exactly right. That was kind of the wrap up 0:28:12.520 --> 0:28:15.119 of it, wasn't it that that you remember after you 0:28:15.160 --> 0:28:17.359 get back home. It's the worst or it was the worst. 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:19.679 It would be still the worst if Blockbuster were around, 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:22.760 But it's not because of bad business decisions. 0:28:22.440 --> 0:28:25.840 That's right. If you remember in the late nineties, that 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:28.480 was a company called Netflix that said, hey, we're going 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:30.840 to start mailing DVDs to people, so you don't have 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:33.760 to go to the store. You can get on this 0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:36.840 thing called the internet and you can look up the 0:28:36.880 --> 0:28:40.080 movie you want, and you can order that DBD to 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:42.320 be shipped to your house and then you can just 0:28:42.400 --> 0:28:45.360 drop it in the mail afterward. We failed to mention, 0:28:45.440 --> 0:28:47.760 by the way, I didn't know this Blockbuster was making 0:28:47.800 --> 0:28:50.400 about half a billion dollars a year in late fees. 0:28:50.480 --> 0:28:52.640 Man, they were that was unconsonable. 0:28:53.040 --> 0:28:54.440 That was a big part of their business. 0:28:54.880 --> 0:28:57.360 But Netflix is like in those late fees, like you 0:28:57.360 --> 0:29:00.959 can keep these things for a long time, and they 0:29:00.960 --> 0:29:03.840 would eventually say, but you know what, maybe we should 0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:07.640 try And I think there was a merger idea right 0:29:07.720 --> 0:29:09.080 unless of a sale. 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:12.160 What do you mean or oh? With with Netflix. 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:14.280 Were they trying to merge with Blockbuster and say, hey, 0:29:14.480 --> 0:29:16.800 why don't you let us take over and start doing 0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:18.240 mailing stuff for you as well? 0:29:18.360 --> 0:29:20.640 Yeah, that was the impression I had that Netflix wanted 0:29:20.680 --> 0:29:22.760 to kind of slide in and become part of Blockbuster 0:29:22.840 --> 0:29:26.160 and help Blockbuster do its own thing. And Blockbuster said 0:29:26.160 --> 0:29:27.040 no twice at. 0:29:27.000 --> 0:29:29.000 Least Yeah for fifty million bucks, by the way. 0:29:29.120 --> 0:29:31.960 Yeah, And Netflix, by the way, has valued at about 0:29:32.000 --> 0:29:36.040 two hundred billion today, so fifty million dollars was pretty 0:29:36.360 --> 0:29:39.560 pretty good price. And that's not just because Netflix was 0:29:39.560 --> 0:29:42.240 an unknown. Netflix had already shown that it was a 0:29:42.360 --> 0:29:45.560 proven success, but it hadn't been around long enough for 0:29:45.600 --> 0:29:48.600 Blockbuster to see the riding on the wall. They just thought. 0:29:48.960 --> 0:29:53.720 I think John any Coco Antioko, the CEO, considered not 0:29:53.800 --> 0:29:57.160 just Netflix niche, but the Internet was still niche in 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:00.680 two thousand to this ceo. So Netflix Ogden went on 0:30:00.720 --> 0:30:04.200 their merry way, and Blockbusters just started to fall further 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:06.520 and further and further behind. 0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:10.440 Yeah. I was actually a member of the Blockbuster DVD 0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:13.640 mailing program when they finally got around to copying Netflix. 0:30:13.680 --> 0:30:14.000 Really. 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:16.160 Yeah, I didn't jump on Netflix. I was like a 0:30:16.160 --> 0:30:18.800 Blockbuster loyalist. I was like, I'm gonna use their thing 0:30:18.840 --> 0:30:22.960 because it's the same basically, uh huh, And I don't 0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:25.840 I think maybe eventually when Blockbuster stopped, I did jump 0:30:25.880 --> 0:30:26.800 to Netflix DVD. 0:30:28.880 --> 0:30:29.920 Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. 0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:33.280 But I mentioned in the first one of the first 0:30:33.280 --> 0:30:35.400 segments that there was a bit of serendipity, two bits 0:30:35.400 --> 0:30:39.560 of serendipity that Excite finished their email program this month. 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:43.720 Netflix this week just announced the shutdown of their DVD side. 0:30:43.920 --> 0:30:46.560 I know that's what prompted this episode. 0:30:46.600 --> 0:30:50.440 Oh I'm not falling for that again. Twenty five years 0:30:50.520 --> 0:30:54.160 of those DVD mailings, they just shut it down. They said, 0:30:54.760 --> 0:30:56.600 they said that you can send them back up until 0:30:56.600 --> 0:30:58.720 September twenty eighth, and after that, we're not going to ask, 0:30:58.760 --> 0:31:00.960 which basically means keep what you got. 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:01.840 Oh yeah. 0:31:01.880 --> 0:31:04.200 And not only that, but to liquidate their DVDs, they 0:31:04.320 --> 0:31:06.880 were they're selecting random customers and they're just sending them 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:10.360 ten DVDs oh wow, and saying like, here have fun. 0:31:11.640 --> 0:31:14.600 Apparently er point five percent of their revenue these days, 0:31:15.840 --> 0:31:19.720 and just quickly to go over their moneys. They Netflix 0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:22.280 is a rough company to be invested in. I think 0:31:22.280 --> 0:31:24.480 I don't know much about this stuff, but they in 0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:27.200 November twenty one, they peaked at about three hundred and 0:31:27.240 --> 0:31:31.680 two billion. The next summer they crashed all the way 0:31:31.720 --> 0:31:36.800 down to like eighty something billion, I think three hundred 0:31:37.240 --> 0:31:39.200 and then now we're back up at like one eighty. 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:42.680 Yeah. I think that was when they they like basically 0:31:42.920 --> 0:31:47.360 doubled their their streaming fee, their monthly fee to stream. 0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.400 Everybody was like, forget to you. And then people come back, 0:31:50.880 --> 0:31:54.360 all right. So you were saying that Netflix was giving 0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:57.840 away their DVDs because they knew they need them, right, Great, 0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:01.000 that's such a wonderful thing to do. Blockbuster did the 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:03.640 opposite of that, and I saw that it was very 0:32:03.680 --> 0:32:08.080 famously described as failing at failing because as it was 0:32:08.240 --> 0:32:11.720 clear that Blockbuster was doomed, and it was clear for 0:32:11.880 --> 0:32:16.920 years before anybody, actually before the last Blockbuster closed, rather 0:32:16.960 --> 0:32:20.440 than basically pumping all the money out to shareholders, which 0:32:20.440 --> 0:32:24.320 apparently is what a sociopathic corporation's supposed to do, they 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:27.080 brought a succession of CEOs and to try to save 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:30.240 the place, and those CEOs just spent hand over fist 0:32:30.640 --> 0:32:33.640 money that they wasted on these schemes that did nothing 0:32:33.680 --> 0:32:36.920 but waste money for Blockbuster to try to resurrect the brand. 0:32:37.480 --> 0:32:40.480 And then finally, after I think bankruptcy in twenty ten, 0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:43.560 it was bought for a song I don't even think 0:32:43.560 --> 0:32:47.440 it was a good song by Dish and they're still 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:51.680 Blockbuster now. Dish is one of their on demand groups 0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:56.520 of channels is called Blockbuster at Home. So Blockbuster's still around, Chuck. 0:32:56.560 --> 0:32:59.480 If you're a Blockbuster loyalist, get yourself dish and you 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:02.240 can watch on demand movies through Blockbuster at home. 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:03.640 Amazing. 0:33:05.640 --> 0:33:08.960 It was was it the song Escape? 0:33:09.720 --> 0:33:10.440 That's a bad song? 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:11.320 What song is that? 0:33:12.440 --> 0:33:14.640 If you like aka the Pina Colada song. 0:33:14.840 --> 0:33:19.120 Oh, that song is not only bad, it's morally reprehensible. 0:33:19.600 --> 0:33:21.400 It's awful. And I just pointed this out to a 0:33:21.400 --> 0:33:24.120 group of friends this last summer who liked it, including Emily. 0:33:24.760 --> 0:33:26.320 I was like, you've never listened to the words of 0:33:26.400 --> 0:33:28.200 this song. Yeah, She's like, well, not really. I know 0:33:28.240 --> 0:33:31.120 the chorus. I said. It's about a guy that wants 0:33:31.160 --> 0:33:32.960 to cheat on his wife's so bad because he can't 0:33:33.000 --> 0:33:36.080 stand her that he puts a want ad to go 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:38.479 find some new lady and he hits it off with 0:33:38.520 --> 0:33:40.400 her and it turns out being his wife. 0:33:40.960 --> 0:33:43.800 Yeah, and they He's like, great things are fixed. 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:47.960 Yeah, exactly, man, because in the seventies that's all you needed. 0:33:48.000 --> 0:33:50.200 That in a little uh, you know, a bottle of 0:33:50.920 --> 0:33:52.520 I don't know, baccardy and some pills. 0:33:52.960 --> 0:33:56.280 That's right. The seventies were great, but the people in 0:33:56.320 --> 0:33:57.440 the seventies were the worst. 0:33:58.280 --> 0:34:00.680 All right, we got two more, which you're gonna pick? 0:34:02.840 --> 0:34:04.000 I know which one you're gonna pick. 0:34:04.160 --> 0:34:07.840 You do not. All right, yes you do, let's go 0:34:07.840 --> 0:34:08.799 ahead and pick it for me. 0:34:09.000 --> 0:34:10.839 We have well you're probably you're probably gonna say, Et, 0:34:11.360 --> 0:34:12.200 that's right, And. 0:34:12.200 --> 0:34:14.120 Technically we have three left if you want to go 0:34:14.200 --> 0:34:16.399 for it. But okay, do we have three? 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:18.080 M h what else are we missing? 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:19.960 I can't say it'll ruin the surprise. 0:34:20.400 --> 0:34:21.799 Well, we agree not to do that one though, you 0:34:21.800 --> 0:34:22.439 want to do it again? 0:34:22.600 --> 0:34:25.120 No, No, we didn't do the AOL time Warner one. 0:34:25.400 --> 0:34:28.040 Oh eh, okay, let's get that. 0:34:29.520 --> 0:34:31.160 There is one thing I wanted to say about that, 0:34:31.680 --> 0:34:35.160 all right. At the time, in nineteen ninety nine, AOL 0:34:35.400 --> 0:34:38.680 was worth two hundred billion dollars, and I was like, Wow, 0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:41.480 that's a lot. How much is Apple worth these days? 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.520 In twenty twenty three, Apple's worth two and three quarter 0:34:45.960 --> 0:34:50.720 trillion dollars? Wow, trillion dollars, that's how much that company 0:34:50.840 --> 0:34:56.440 is worth. More than one trillion dollars, almost three trillion dollars. 0:34:56.760 --> 0:34:57.280 It's amazing. 0:34:57.440 --> 0:35:01.120 And this is twenty four years later. That's that's how 0:35:01.239 --> 0:35:07.440 gobsmackingly much like just money has increased by then by now, 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:10.759 So I just wanted to point that out. It's just insane, 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:11.520 all right. 0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:13.680 Well, ET, the movie. 0:35:13.840 --> 0:35:17.520 Oh, one other thing. I want to go on record 0:35:17.560 --> 0:35:20.560 that we should do an episode on AOL and the 0:35:20.600 --> 0:35:23.000 beginning of the Internet because it is so interesting. 0:35:23.680 --> 0:35:28.280 I mean talking about Excite and AOL. And I remember 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:29.840 the first time I heard the word Google. 0:35:29.880 --> 0:35:31.759 I literally remember that very first time. 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:34.160 Yeah, you remember, I used to say, like I'm feeling lucky. 0:35:35.360 --> 0:35:37.600 It was a production manager named Kevin Edge. If anyone 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:39.960 knows kevinun til Kevin had said Hi. He in a 0:35:40.000 --> 0:35:42.000 production office on a TV commercial in LA in the 0:35:42.040 --> 0:35:44.239 early early two thousands. He said the word Google and 0:35:44.239 --> 0:35:46.640 I went what And he went, It's a search engine. 0:35:46.719 --> 0:35:50.120 And I went, excuse me, Kevin, Kevin was great. 0:35:50.120 --> 0:35:51.600 Did you say you mean a web portal? 0:35:52.360 --> 0:35:53.200 Uh? 0:35:53.239 --> 0:35:53.480 E T. 0:35:53.800 --> 0:35:58.959 Colon the Extra Terrestrial. Very popular movie, some might say 0:35:59.760 --> 0:36:02.400 some I'd say it's a classic. Some might say that 0:36:02.480 --> 0:36:06.520 they still love Reese's Pieces because of that classic movie. Yes, 0:36:07.000 --> 0:36:09.719 so I said Reese's Pieces, I think, but you know 0:36:09.760 --> 0:36:10.080 what I mean? 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:14.040 Yeah, to me, that might be the greatest mass produced 0:36:14.040 --> 0:36:18.560 candy of all time. Oh what, I love Reese's Pieces. 0:36:18.600 --> 0:36:21.080 I can eat them by the by the bucket full. 0:36:21.400 --> 0:36:24.520 Unfortunately of them too, and they've but they've only been 0:36:24.560 --> 0:36:26.600 around since nineteen seventy eight. Did you know that? 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:29.920 Yeah, I mean I remember when they came out, my friend. 0:36:29.760 --> 0:36:32.640 Okay, I was not quite aware. I was two years 0:36:32.640 --> 0:36:34.480 old at the time, give me a break, but I 0:36:34.520 --> 0:36:37.600 came seven. I was Candy Central, right, Yeah, exactly so. 0:36:37.880 --> 0:36:39.719 But yeah, by the time I was seven, I was like, 0:36:39.760 --> 0:36:43.640 give me these things. Yeah, in nineteen seventy eight when 0:36:43.640 --> 0:36:46.319 they came out, they actually did pretty good. Hershey's made them, 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:50.000 and then they crested and peaked and then started to 0:36:50.040 --> 0:36:54.640 decline really quickly, and so Reese's Pieces appeared to have 0:36:54.760 --> 0:36:59.560 run their course. And people say quite reasonably that it's 0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:02.560 possible Reese's Pieces wouldn't be around anymore were it not 0:37:02.680 --> 0:37:07.160 for Et eating Reese's Pieces on screen. And the irony 0:37:07.200 --> 0:37:10.560 of the whole thing is that it was originally supposed 0:37:10.560 --> 0:37:14.279 to be Eminem's, and Eminems wouldn't bite. They said, we 0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:16.319 don't know what this ET thing is. We're not going 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:17.440 to give you a dollar for it. 0:37:18.640 --> 0:37:20.160 ET was based on a book. 0:37:20.880 --> 0:37:24.600 There's either somebody describe it as a novelization. So it's 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:27.239 possible that they made a book version of it. 0:37:28.120 --> 0:37:28.840 Yeah, that's what it was. 0:37:29.040 --> 0:37:31.960 Okay, Well, in that apparently in the original novel that 0:37:32.200 --> 0:37:36.240 was made from the movie, it's Eminem's that et eats, 0:37:36.280 --> 0:37:37.320 not Reese's pieces. 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:40.360 Oh okay, that's a nice little nugget. I read the 0:37:40.400 --> 0:37:42.279 novelization of Raiders at the Lost Ark. 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:43.840 How was it? 0:37:43.840 --> 0:37:44.360 It was great? 0:37:44.560 --> 0:37:47.040 Did it differ from the movie at all? Or was 0:37:47.040 --> 0:37:48.840 it just basically the movie and book form? 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:51.880 It is the movie and book form. But there's novelizations. 0:37:51.960 --> 0:37:53.480 I read a couple of them back then. They're always 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:55.319 a little bit different, and they had extra details because 0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:58.359 it's a book, and it was kind of fun. I'm 0:37:58.360 --> 0:37:59.520 sure they still do that, don't they. 0:38:00.520 --> 0:38:04.520 I think so maybe probably. I'm sure Marvel does. If 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:06.319 you can make a dime off of it, Marvel does. 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:07.680 Yeah, that's a good point. 0:38:08.360 --> 0:38:11.360 So depending on who you talk to, there are different stories. 0:38:11.440 --> 0:38:13.799 I think this is one of those things where when 0:38:14.040 --> 0:38:17.960 something works out so well, everybody you interview later on 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:20.920 was like, it was really kind of my idea, because 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:24.440 Steven Spielberg is I saw the interview. The words came 0:38:24.480 --> 0:38:27.200 out of his mouth that he said, you know, my 0:38:27.280 --> 0:38:32.160 favorite candy was Eminem's, And so I thought when Eminem's passed, 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.680 I thought, well, what's my second favorite can candy. It's 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:40.600 Reese's Pieces. I saw other things say it was one 0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:43.799 of Spielberg's kids say that was his favorite. I saw 0:38:43.880 --> 0:38:48.080 others that said there was this guy named Steve Adler 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:52.560 who was the vice president of merchandising for a company 0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:57.719 called MCA, the Merchandising Corporation of America, which was a 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:00.600 subsidiary of Universal, And it was kind of like the 0:39:01.200 --> 0:39:03.920 early days of moving merchandising period, like Star Wars kind 0:39:03.920 --> 0:39:06.759 of busted it wide open a few years before. Oh yeah, 0:39:06.800 --> 0:39:08.680 so this is sort of a newish thing and like 0:39:08.800 --> 0:39:11.200 brand placement and getting money for that kind of thing. 0:39:11.680 --> 0:39:15.279 So Steve Adler was a merchandising VP at MCA, and 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:19.920 he says that it was his kid who said. 0:39:19.880 --> 0:39:24.799 I love Reese's Pieces, and that kid was me exactly. 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:29.200 So that's how it ended up. Like Hershey said no, sorry, 0:39:29.239 --> 0:39:31.919 Eminem Mar said no, we're not gonna We're not gonna 0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:35.160 spend a million dollars. That was the deal. Universal said 0:39:35.480 --> 0:39:38.439 this this alien that everybody's gonna love. We're just sure 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:41.440 of it is going to eat either Eminem's or Reese's pieces. 0:39:41.480 --> 0:39:44.080 It comes down to who wants to pay a million 0:39:44.120 --> 0:39:47.440 dollars in advertising, like spend a million dollars in marketing 0:39:48.320 --> 0:39:52.320 in return for basically being part of the ET marketing blitz. 0:39:53.960 --> 0:39:56.080 Who wants to do that? And Eminem said, no, we're 0:39:56.080 --> 0:39:58.600 not going to do that, and Reese's said, let's give 0:39:58.640 --> 0:40:02.040 this a try. There was There's a guy named Jack 0:40:02.120 --> 0:40:05.720 Dout who is a business development VP, who was basically 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:09.640 the person who decided to take that risk and spend 0:40:09.680 --> 0:40:12.000 a million dollars, which at the time there's a lot 0:40:12.000 --> 0:40:14.719 of money. We're talking about nineteen eighty eighty one eighty 0:40:14.760 --> 0:40:17.200 two dollars, so it's worth like two and a half 0:40:17.239 --> 0:40:23.399 million dollars today at least. And like ET is, this 0:40:23.440 --> 0:40:26.040 is where the hindsight is twenty twenty thing kicks in. 0:40:26.719 --> 0:40:30.360 Like they didn't see a script. Nobody knew what ET was. 0:40:30.640 --> 0:40:33.120 Aliens up to that point were not lovable or huggable. 0:40:33.120 --> 0:40:36.480 They were creepy and weird. So there really was a 0:40:36.560 --> 0:40:38.560 risk that Jack daw took and he can take a 0:40:38.640 --> 0:40:40.520 victory lap for making that decision. 0:40:41.680 --> 0:40:42.920 Yeah, and ET is. 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:45.759 You know, the rest is history, as they say, because 0:40:45.800 --> 0:40:51.120 ET is now a top thirty all time grocer domestically 0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:54.560 for the United States the Green Grocer. I went down 0:40:54.600 --> 0:40:57.800 the box office Mojo rabbit hole out of curiosity because 0:40:57.800 --> 0:41:03.360 it's just littered with avatars and Avengers and stuff like 0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:06.640 that and e t if you kind of dig in. 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:10.080 It is the number two all time movie that is 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:14.840 not a franchise movie. Nice, so not bad, second only 0:41:14.880 --> 0:41:19.719 to Titanic. Oh, okay, and guess what, Barbie's already at 0:41:19.760 --> 0:41:21.080 number fifteen all time. 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:23.759 I know that's pretty great and then amazing. I finally 0:41:23.800 --> 0:41:26.240 saw Oppenheimer too. My god, it's a good movie. 0:41:26.960 --> 0:41:28.040 Yeah, how are your ears? 0:41:28.360 --> 0:41:31.880 They're fine. I saw it in like RBX or RPX 0:41:31.960 --> 0:41:34.080 or DMX or something like that, where like it shakes 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:37.160 the seats and everything. I'm like, this is unnecessary. 0:41:37.880 --> 0:41:38.359 It's loud. 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:42.759 Yeah. Also, just for you movie trivia buffs, if someone 0:41:42.760 --> 0:41:46.680 asked you a trivia question about non franchise box office Titanic, 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:51.240 then et and the number three all time movie non franchise. 0:41:52.520 --> 0:41:53.480 Passion of the Christ. 0:41:54.320 --> 0:41:58.600 What Yeah, Wow, big movies like three hundred and something 0:41:58.640 --> 0:41:59.320 million bucks. 0:41:59.520 --> 0:42:02.440 But that's I mean, that's considering it even was boycotted 0:42:02.480 --> 0:42:05.160 by lots of churches around the world, and that still 0:42:05.160 --> 0:42:08.640 made that mon Well, maybe why no publicity. No, there's 0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:10.160 such a thing as bad publicity. 0:42:10.680 --> 0:42:11.080 That's right. 0:42:11.080 --> 0:42:12.920 The swings you don't take are the ones that you 0:42:12.960 --> 0:42:13.640 missed the most. 0:42:15.080 --> 0:42:17.720 All right, let's finish up here with a little quick 0:42:18.000 --> 0:42:21.960 we'll go through this quickly. Monday night football set the 0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:27.600 TV landscape for you. In the nineteen sixties, there were 0:42:27.840 --> 0:42:31.920 three main networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC. ABC was in 0:42:32.040 --> 0:42:36.800 last place. There was also a fledgling network from Howard Hughes, 0:42:36.840 --> 0:42:39.760 which I didn't realize called Hughes Sports Network. 0:42:39.480 --> 0:42:41.560 That was ahead of his time, very. 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:44.160 Much ahead of his time, and even though they showed 0:42:44.200 --> 0:42:47.560 like bully and stuff. But at one point the National 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:51.200 Football League decided, you know what, there's Pete Roseus, a 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:55.040 commissioner back then, very forward thinking guy. He said, I 0:42:55.040 --> 0:42:59.200 think we should have a prime time football game. How 0:42:59.200 --> 0:43:01.719 about Friday night? And they said, no, that'll mess up 0:43:01.800 --> 0:43:04.319 high school football. And he said Saturday night and they 0:43:04.320 --> 0:43:07.280 said no, there's actually a law against that because college football. 0:43:07.280 --> 0:43:08.040 I forgot about that. 0:43:08.640 --> 0:43:11.400 So he said, all right, we already played on Sunday. 0:43:11.480 --> 0:43:13.799 He said, how about Monday night and they said, no, 0:43:13.840 --> 0:43:17.239 one's going to care. They played the first Monday night 0:43:17.280 --> 0:43:20.959 game in nineteen sixty four, but it was not televised, 0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:27.000 and then they had I think CBS and NBC had 0:43:27.040 --> 0:43:31.280 because CBS had the NFL, NBC had the AFL before 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:34.560 the merger in nineteen seventy, and they each tried their 0:43:34.600 --> 0:43:39.839 hand at Monday night games a couple each during sixty eight, 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:43.360 sixty seven through sixty nine, but none of those are televised, 0:43:43.400 --> 0:43:46.879 and they finally got together and said, these things need 0:43:46.920 --> 0:43:47.520 to be on TV. 0:43:48.360 --> 0:43:51.560 Yeah, so they started putting them on TV. And apparently 0:43:51.600 --> 0:43:53.480 one of the reasons why is because you said, you know, 0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:56.600 some of those Monday night games, the early ones weren't televised, 0:43:57.040 --> 0:43:59.600 but people still went to them. They turned out like aces. 0:43:59.640 --> 0:44:02.320 So it was very obvious that there was a market 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:05.640 for this, so putting it on TV wasn't It was 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:08.360 not a no brainer. It was still very risky, but 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:11.279 there was there was reason to think it might take off. 0:44:11.360 --> 0:44:14.120 So I think CBS and NBC, since they already had 0:44:14.120 --> 0:44:18.640 a relationship with the NFL, they got first first refusal 0:44:19.120 --> 0:44:23.640 from Peter Roselle. Yeah, and NBC said that would mean 0:44:23.640 --> 0:44:26.439 we're preempting Carson and apparently we're too afraid to even 0:44:26.680 --> 0:44:29.000 bring it up. So no, we're passing on that. 0:44:29.320 --> 0:44:30.520 No, Carson, have you killed? 0:44:30.680 --> 0:44:33.960 CBS said, are you crazy? We're getting great ratings with 0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:37.560 the Doris Day Show and laughing, we can't, we can't 0:44:37.600 --> 0:44:39.760 get rid of those for some football game. And ABC 0:44:40.120 --> 0:44:43.640 just was like, you know that that nerdy kid in 0:44:43.680 --> 0:44:45.840 class that has their hand up so high it's about 0:44:45.840 --> 0:44:48.280 to be dislocated from their shoulder and they're just waggling 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:50.720 in their seat. That's what ABC was doing. And finally 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.759 Peter Roselle is like, guess ABC, you can have it. 0:44:54.600 --> 0:44:57.360 That's right, and uh, you know it turned out to 0:44:57.360 --> 0:44:58.160 be a very big deal. 0:44:58.320 --> 0:45:01.719 There's a guy named Rune Hardly there that kind of 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:07.800 spearheaded this project for ABC Sports flashio graphics, more cameras, 0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:10.960 more camera angles and slow mo and stuff like that, 0:45:11.719 --> 0:45:14.040 like using all this sort of newer technology more than 0:45:14.040 --> 0:45:14.640 they had before. 0:45:14.760 --> 0:45:15.560 You have to say, and. 0:45:19.280 --> 0:45:22.080 The biggest chain, man, if you could hold that for 0:45:22.120 --> 0:45:26.640 the next three minutes. The biggest change was they all 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:29.799 of a sudden had three a three person broadcasting team, 0:45:29.800 --> 0:45:32.080 which had never been done. It was always just a 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:35.160 color commentator and a play by play person, but in 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:37.759 this case they had the play by play guy and 0:45:37.840 --> 0:45:41.040 Keith Jackson only there for one year, then replaced by 0:45:41.040 --> 0:45:44.319 Frank Gifford, and then Dandy Don Meredith was the color guy. 0:45:45.600 --> 0:45:49.359 Very he was an actor, former Cowboys, QB. Handsome, just 0:45:49.760 --> 0:45:51.000 great in the color position. 0:45:51.600 --> 0:45:54.640 And then people who don't know what you're talking about, 0:45:54.640 --> 0:45:55.839 what the color position is? 0:45:56.280 --> 0:45:58.080 Oh, well, the play by play is the is the 0:45:58.120 --> 0:46:00.400 person that goes. And then he takes the ball on 0:46:00.440 --> 0:46:02.879 the four yard line and cuts it outside and runs 0:46:02.880 --> 0:46:05.319 it down to the three tackled hard by number eighty five. 0:46:05.480 --> 0:46:08.160 And then the color guy comes in and says, I 0:46:08.200 --> 0:46:11.120 gotta tell you, man, the way they're playing tonight, it 0:46:11.120 --> 0:46:13.200 looks like they're pretty inspired. I don't know if the 0:46:13.280 --> 0:46:15.000 cheerleaders are getting them all pumped up or what. 0:46:15.120 --> 0:46:17.680 Oh that's great. Okay, Then who was Cosel? 0:46:18.200 --> 0:46:22.280 Well, Cosell was Cosell. He was. We should do a 0:46:22.320 --> 0:46:24.920 full podcast on him. The guy is a is a legend, 0:46:25.120 --> 0:46:30.120 an amazing broadcaster. You know, was fired in disgrace at 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:32.720 one point. But yeah, quite quite a story. But Cosell 0:46:32.840 --> 0:46:36.319 was just he he was sort of a cerbic and 0:46:36.360 --> 0:46:39.200 he would make fun of players and people and teams and. 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:41.840 Oh he was the Dennis for mill Time. 0:46:42.440 --> 0:46:45.560 Well much better. 0:46:46.120 --> 0:46:48.600 But you know, Cossel was very famous for sort of 0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:51.120 verbally sparring with Ali and going toe to toe with 0:46:51.160 --> 0:46:55.319 Ali in interviews, and just a great broadcaster while he 0:46:55.400 --> 0:46:58.040 was doing his job, and he was the third sort 0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:00.680 of wild card, and he and Don Meredith would go 0:47:00.760 --> 0:47:03.600 at it and when when Gifford came in, that was 0:47:03.640 --> 0:47:07.160 really a solid team and they it was a huge hit. 0:47:07.200 --> 0:47:10.439 I think it's still one of the highest rated TV 0:47:10.680 --> 0:47:12.360 series period on television. 0:47:13.320 --> 0:47:16.680 Yes, and it's one of the longest running too, although 0:47:17.160 --> 0:47:19.320 it started in nineteen seventy, right. 0:47:21.200 --> 0:47:22.799 Yeah, did we even say what day was it was? 0:47:23.239 --> 0:47:25.680 Well, it was a Monday in nineteen seventy It was. 0:47:26.040 --> 0:47:28.960 The Browns Jets and the Browns won thirty one twenty one, 0:47:28.960 --> 0:47:29.279 I know that. 0:47:29.320 --> 0:47:31.399 And it's been going ever since then. So this thing's 0:47:31.440 --> 0:47:34.920 been on for fifty three years, but it's it's a 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:37.560 baby compared to some of the longest running TV shows 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:41.560 in America. General Hospital started in nineteen thirty six, Guiding 0:47:41.640 --> 0:47:45.160 Light came the year after. Sesame Street's been on even longer. 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:50.680 So it's old, but there's older just f yi, Yeah. 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:52.880 For sure, and it bears pointing out The reason they 0:47:52.920 --> 0:47:57.520 went with the Jets was because the guy from ABC 0:47:57.719 --> 0:48:02.160 was like, we have to get Joe Namath on TV 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:05.080 for this first game, because Joe Namath was a huge 0:48:06.080 --> 0:48:08.360 football star with the AFL and then when they merged 0:48:08.400 --> 0:48:11.840 in the NFL and just a huge presence. He was 0:48:11.840 --> 0:48:12.919 a sex symbol. 0:48:13.080 --> 0:48:14.480 And a Brady Bunch. 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:16.640 It was like he and Burt Reynolds were like the 0:48:16.680 --> 0:48:20.279 two hot guys of the moment and they had to 0:48:20.280 --> 0:48:21.040 get Namoth in there. 0:48:21.080 --> 0:48:22.280 So that's why they went with the Jets. 0:48:22.280 --> 0:48:26.120 Smart, Well, you got anything else, I got nothing else? 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:31.480 What's our episode on Monday Night football? Everybody? So if 0:48:31.480 --> 0:48:33.040 you want to know more about all this stuff, we 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:35.279 would say head on over to How Stuff Works. You 0:48:35.320 --> 0:48:38.160 can read the mystery one we left out. And by 0:48:38.200 --> 0:48:40.600 the way, this was written by our very own Dave Ruse, 0:48:40.960 --> 0:48:43.319 So hats off Troy Ruse for that. Thank you. 0:48:43.440 --> 0:48:45.919 We just have to email Dave separately and make fun 0:48:45.920 --> 0:48:48.880 of him for calling Reese's Pieces peanut butter and chocolate candies. 0:48:48.920 --> 0:48:50.400 Yeah that was or not? 0:48:50.520 --> 0:48:54.040 That was written by somebody who's clearly never had Reese's Pieces. 0:48:54.440 --> 0:48:57.120 I mean, technically you make and say that candy shell 0:48:57.280 --> 0:48:57.879 is Nope. 0:48:57.920 --> 0:49:00.920 Chocolate, Nope, not at all. There's not a drop of 0:49:00.960 --> 0:49:02.440 chocolate in Reese's pieces. 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:05.439 Well, I don't mean the ingredients, but is it? I mean, 0:49:05.719 --> 0:49:07.120 isn't it known as a chocolate jop? 0:49:07.200 --> 0:49:11.680 No, it's a candy coated peanut butter candy peanut butter confection. 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:14.319 What about M and MS? Is that a chocolate chow? 0:49:14.520 --> 0:49:14.800 Totally? 0:49:14.880 --> 0:49:18.160 No, it's a candy coated chocolate inside, and then sometimes 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:22.359 there's an additional inner nugget of peanutter. God knows what now. 0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:25.280 But originally all kinds of stuff, it was candy coated chocolate. 0:49:25.840 --> 0:49:28.560 This is a candy coated peanut butter candy. 0:49:29.719 --> 0:49:31.000 I mean, I know what it is. I just didn't 0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:35.279 know if that was the thinnest proximation of chocolate. Nope. 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:38.319 Well, I think we already kind of kicked it over 0:49:38.360 --> 0:49:40.160 to house to fork, So that means, of course, everybody, 0:49:40.239 --> 0:49:41.439 it's time for listener mail. 0:49:44.560 --> 0:49:47.359 Hey, guys, Love Love Love Love. The show started listening 0:49:47.400 --> 0:49:49.560 when I was working my very first job after graduation 0:49:49.680 --> 0:49:52.840 during the pandemic. Spotify kept prompting me to try to 0:49:52.840 --> 0:49:54.719 listen to stuff you should know, and I thought the 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:58.080 title was condescending. It first. I truly thought the podcast 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:00.759 would be telling me about the stuff I already should 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:02.719 know at this point in my life, like, oh, here's 0:50:02.760 --> 0:50:05.040 how to fold laundry, or here's how to do your taxes. 0:50:05.520 --> 0:50:07.279 The joke's on me, though, because I think one of 0:50:07.280 --> 0:50:10.360 the first episodes I listened to was about Satanism. 0:50:10.880 --> 0:50:12.279 Why don't you know about that? All? Right? 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:15.279 Exactly at this point wherever I started to get into something, 0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:17.680 i'd do a quick search on the podcast first to 0:50:17.719 --> 0:50:20.840 see if you've covered it before checking out Google. You 0:50:20.840 --> 0:50:23.200 two are great teachers to make every single topic of hoot. 0:50:23.280 --> 0:50:25.560 So imagine my dismay when I started getting back into 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:27.040 sailing and I saw you. 0:50:27.040 --> 0:50:28.280 I haven't even skimmed the surface. 0:50:28.719 --> 0:50:31.319 I think you should look into sailing guys, because it's 0:50:31.360 --> 0:50:35.560 really interesting. Sneak preview. The wind is technically pulling, not 0:50:35.600 --> 0:50:36.360 pushing your boat. 0:50:36.880 --> 0:50:40.080 Yeah, Buck pester Fuller said, the wind sucks instead of blows. 0:50:41.360 --> 0:50:44.240 See, you can't teach you anything. You know that stuff already. 0:50:44.400 --> 0:50:46.319 You may taught me that, so I got a head 0:50:46.360 --> 0:50:46.799 tip her. 0:50:47.280 --> 0:50:49.239 Yeah. Well, and he taught her, and he taught us 0:50:49.280 --> 0:50:50.319 all about the geodesicdom. 0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:52.440 That's right, and synergy Chuck. 0:50:52.440 --> 0:50:56.520 That's right. Oh all right, that's from Sam and Sam 0:50:56.680 --> 0:50:59.120 sailing reeks to me of one of those that we 0:50:59.160 --> 0:51:02.600 would flay a little bit at and just get crushed 0:51:02.600 --> 0:51:04.000 by sailing enthusiasts. 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:05.760 Yes, but maybe we'll do it anyway. 0:51:06.120 --> 0:51:10.040 Well, yeah, why spare sailors. We've done it for chess players, 0:51:10.719 --> 0:51:13.200 European football players, everybody. 0:51:12.719 --> 0:51:13.719 Soccer surfers. 0:51:13.960 --> 0:51:16.960 Right. If you want to get in touch with this 0:51:17.080 --> 0:51:19.880 like Sam did and suggest some topic that you know 0:51:19.960 --> 0:51:22.600 about that you'd like us to ruin for you, you 0:51:22.600 --> 0:51:25.400 can send it in an email to Stuff Podcasts at 0:51:25.440 --> 0:51:29.080 iHeartRadio dot com. 0:51:30.000 --> 0:51:32.880 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:51:32.960 --> 0:51:37.120 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:51:37.239 --> 0:51:39.080 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.