Speaker 1: Here we go. There's nothing more comforting than hearing the
Speaker 1: soft crackle of a needle on a record. The more
Speaker 1: we get together again, the more we get together your
Speaker 1: life friends and my friends, sorry, your friends, the more
Speaker 1: we get together. When I started listening to Raffie, I
Speaker 1: ordered his first kid's album on vinyl, single Moore Songs
Speaker 1: for the Very Young and Sorry, Raffie. I got it
Speaker 1: on eBay, so you won't be seeing any of this money.
Speaker 1: But as soon as I got it, I went all in,
Speaker 1: maybe a little too much. Love of bis and children's
Speaker 1: songs are just kind of weird and halfway terrifying, Like,
Speaker 1: what is this song even about it? I can imagine
Speaker 1: it on a Beatles album. Also, so why the kids
Speaker 1: love Whistle so much? I wonder? Is this strategy me
Speaker 1: into madness. I have these wild, almost conspiracy theories about
Speaker 1: how he's naming his albums. I'm not actually sure what
Speaker 1: that means, but it sounds fun, that little burbling keyboard sound.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and call it a club banger.
Speaker 1: Dear Raffi, I like your hat. Do you write lots
Speaker 1: of songs? Because I like them a lot. I appreciate
Speaker 1: his attention to detail on putting this very comfortable song
Speaker 1: after that kind of scary, weird song, I started to
Speaker 1: see just how carefully crafted it was. Starting with the cover.
Speaker 1: It's a portrait of Raffi in crayon, drawn by a
Speaker 1: seven year old fan, and it really captures Raffi, the beard,
Speaker 1: the guitar, he's even sitting on a stool as if
Speaker 1: he's performing at some coffee house in the village. And
Speaker 1: at the bottom he added his personal flare with the
Speaker 1: words great with a peanut butter sandwich. The cover loan
Speaker 1: speaks to Raphie's commitment to his audience and do his
Speaker 1: great attention to detail. Looking back, it feels like it
Speaker 1: was like pulling teeth, but it wasn't quite. But even
Speaker 1: something like that crayon border, I tried it in four
Speaker 1: or five different colors, and I cut the paper out
Speaker 1: and put it on the rest of the cover and
Speaker 1: stood on a chair looking down. Well, it's so well
Speaker 1: put together. Just the artwork alone is so well composed
Speaker 1: and so thoughtful and so intentional. What do you think
Speaker 1: of yourself as a perfectionist I was back then, but
Speaker 1: I mean even without that, you you strive for excellence
Speaker 1: you know, if I did a good job, I'm proud
Speaker 1: of it. Where do you think this came from? This
Speaker 1: drive to do something excellent, because it's not within everybody
Speaker 1: to be completely excellent at all times. I was a
Speaker 1: very good student when I was younger. I was always
Speaker 1: near the top of my class. There was a push
Speaker 1: to excel that came from my parents, and there was
Speaker 1: also the model of my father's photography, where he was
Speaker 1: immaculate and what he did he had high standards, and
Speaker 1: I think I I soaked up a lot of that,
Speaker 1: you know, so I gave it my best certainty. Raphael's father, Arto,
Speaker 1: was a master portrait artist. So was Arto's father. These
Speaker 1: men had confidence in their trade and worked constantly. When
Speaker 1: Arto presented his clients with a finished product, he'd only
Speaker 1: give them one proof, just one proof that met his
Speaker 1: standards of perfection. I know something about having a perfectionist father.
Speaker 1: My dad, Andres was an aerospace machinist, a trade where
Speaker 1: there's no room for error. He drove two hours to
Speaker 1: and from work each day, coming home smelling like metal.
Speaker 1: I think about that every time I don't want to
Speaker 1: go out and do a set, or when a joke
Speaker 1: doesn't land just right. His dedication to his craft set
Speaker 1: the bar for me, leading to my own perfectionism, something
Speaker 1: Raffi has struggled with. Two In his book, he writes
Speaker 1: that he used to take things too seriously. It was
Speaker 1: always a push and pull between following joy and meeting
Speaker 1: the standards set by generations of Cabukians, especially when it
Speaker 1: came to sweating the small stuff. And you can see
Speaker 1: it in the liner notes of single bowl Songs for
Speaker 1: the very Young, where no detail has missed and no
Speaker 1: opportunity for a little more playfulness is left on the table.
Speaker 1: You credit Santa for playing the sleigh bells, Well, you
Speaker 1: got credit Santa. Nothing Raffie did was by accident. I'm
Speaker 1: Chris Garcia and This is Fighting Raffie, a ten part
Speaker 1: series from My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with
Speaker 1: Rococo Punch, about the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie,
Speaker 1: the man behind the music. Raphi was seven in nine.
Speaker 1: At night, he was playing gigs and smokey bars, loud
Speaker 1: clubs and coffee houses around Toronto to make some extra cash.
Speaker 1: He started playing for a new crowd in Toronto. There
Speaker 1: was a program that used to pay folk singers to
Speaker 1: come into the classroom sing songs with kids like Michael
Speaker 1: Roll the Boat, Ashore, Swing Low, Sweet Area, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, you know, and that was fun. He'd
Speaker 1: also reunited with his high school sweetheart, Deborah Pike also
Speaker 1: known as deb Or Debbie, who was a primary school teacher.
Speaker 1: Deb taught Raphy the words to these songs he hadn't
Speaker 1: grown up with. So I had to learn Bah bah
Speaker 1: black sheep word for word, and I went wow. Raphy
Speaker 1: didn't really know any kids. He'd never really even thought
Speaker 1: about them until they became his audience. I'm marvel that
Speaker 1: what I was learning about kids, the kind of people.
Speaker 1: They are there spontaneous for sure, and they're learning all
Speaker 1: the time. Everything is fresh and new for them. They're
Speaker 1: learning what it feels like to be human. Something happened
Speaker 1: when he showed up with a guitar and sat down
Speaker 1: on a rug surrounded by eager, white eyed kids. He
Speaker 1: held their attention. He was a natural. That's when Deb's mom, Daphne,
Speaker 1: made a suggestion, maybe Ralph he should make an album
Speaker 1: for kids, and I thought, well, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 1: After all, RAPI wouldn't be the first folk singer to
Speaker 1: make an album for kids. One of his heroes, Pete Seeger,
Speaker 1: did it, maybe he could too. He and Deb decided
Speaker 1: to do some field research. She and I visited a
Speaker 1: couple of records stores as we called them in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and we noticed that most, if not all,
Speaker 1: the children's recordings were stuck in some lowly been at
Speaker 1: the back of the store, and there was a sign
Speaker 1: that said to nine nine or something like it was.
Speaker 1: It was like they were just pieces of extraneous trash
Speaker 1: or something. This is what Raffi was up against. He
Speaker 1: needed to persuade the music industry to take children's music seriously,
Speaker 1: to invest in it. And to do that he had
Speaker 1: to make something of quality, an album that demonstrated what
Speaker 1: kids deserve. The language in most children's albums at the
Speaker 1: time didn't reflect anything, I mean just it just talked
Speaker 1: down to children, as if they were all babies and idiots.
Speaker 1: That's Burt Simpson, Ralphie's longtime friend, collaborator and now senior
Speaker 1: associate at Troubadour Raphy's record company. Bert, along with his
Speaker 1: wife Bonnie and Deb, became Raffie's official educational advisors. What
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Debbie and I had was a lot of
Speaker 1: experience with very young children and a lot of educational theory.
Speaker 1: But on the most practical level, we knew what kids like,
Speaker 1: We knew what they would sing. Ralphie called them the Committee. Bert,
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Debb were well versed in what young kids
Speaker 1: needed to thrive. They were teachers who believed that children
Speaker 1: should be active participants in their education. They subscribed to
Speaker 1: the progressive educational models that were gaining popularity in the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, like Monessori and the free school movement.
Speaker 1: Raphie immersed himself in these ideas. It felt like he
Speaker 1: and the Committee were getting down to something essential. Children
Speaker 1: are people like you and me, their whole people. Just
Speaker 1: because they're younger doesn't mean they're lesser people, And that
Speaker 1: the way to be with children is to treat them
Speaker 1: with respect for the people that they are, keeping in
Speaker 1: mind where they are beginning stage of life. You see there,
Speaker 1: your compassion comes up here. These kids are learning all
Speaker 1: about what it's like to be who we are as adults.
Speaker 1: Only it's like they're in their adults and training kind
Speaker 1: of thing, right, And how can you not have compassion
Speaker 1: for a child who's basically doing their best, you know,
Speaker 1: and learning from there, Raffie and the committee came up
Speaker 1: with a basic album philosophy. It was simple. One the
Speaker 1: songs had to be fun for kids to sing to.
Speaker 1: The album had to be enjoyable for adults, and three,
Speaker 1: the album would respect children as listeners. So Ralphie had
Speaker 1: his experts, he had his album philosophy. He knew what
Speaker 1: he wanted the album to sound like. Now he needed musicians.
Speaker 1: So I enlisted the help of my good friend and
Speaker 1: multi instrumentalists, Ken Whitely. And that was the smartest thing
Speaker 1: I did, because Ken said, yeah, man, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So I played banjo and mandolin and you know different
Speaker 1: kinds oft and keyboards, you know, piano, accordion. This is
Speaker 1: Ken Whiteley. And when Ralphie says he's a multi instrumentalist,
Speaker 1: well that's an understatement, because woo's all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Cannon Raffie met in their twenties through the Toronto folk
Speaker 1: scene and reconnected after both had started to make contacts
Speaker 1: in the industry. That's how kennew about a studio nearby
Speaker 1: where they could record Ralphie's album. In n I had
Speaker 1: recorded a couple of albums at this studio that was
Speaker 1: ten dollars an hour in the basement of these two
Speaker 1: brothers where they lived in the suburbs of the city
Speaker 1: called Hamilton, Ontario. There's the Landwa Brothers, Bob Lanjue, his
Speaker 1: brother Daniel Lanoix Danny for all you music nerds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Daniel Lenois, producer of you Two's Octung Baby, Dylan's
Speaker 1: Time out of Mind. He produced Brian Know, Willie Nelson,
Speaker 1: I Mean, Lou Harris, Neil Young, the man Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: called the most important record producer to emerge in the eighties,
Speaker 1: started with Raffie No Wonder. I love this album so much.
Speaker 1: Dan Lenois is a legend and I am not cuckoo
Speaker 1: bananas for noticing this album's exquisite production value. It was
Speaker 1: Daniel Lenoi's mother's home in the basement studio ad egg
Speaker 1: Carton's on the ceiling. It occupied the whole basement. There
Speaker 1: was a control room and they could move baffles around
Speaker 1: to sort of create an isolated space. I said to myself,
Speaker 1: I'm getting my money's worth here. Everything was starting to
Speaker 1: come together. The idea was to create an album for
Speaker 1: kids that would be tonally and lyrically appropriate, but also
Speaker 1: musically dynamic and interactive. It would have beautiful, pristine, high
Speaker 1: quality production, and it would embrace the fact that kids
Speaker 1: were a real audience, just like their parents. So with
Speaker 1: beginner's luck, we proceeded to record in that setting. After
Speaker 1: months of planning, it was go time for Raffi's first
Speaker 1: children's album. Bob and Dan landwas sat behind the board.
Speaker 1: Raffi and his musicians were tuned up and ready to go.
Speaker 1: Ken was, you know, doing his multi instrumentalist magic. He'd
Speaker 1: play guitar here, he'd played banjo there, he'd play something else.
Speaker 1: And his brother Chris Whitelee, very talented musician, played trumpet
Speaker 1: and he played harmonica. He played trumpet on Robbing in
Speaker 1: the Rain. That turned out to be a great horn
Speaker 1: section that that he did. Robbing in the ring. What
Speaker 1: a saucy fellow, robbing in the ring on your socks
Speaker 1: of yellow, running in the garden on your nimbo feet,
Speaker 1: digging for your dinner with your long, strong beating. I
Speaker 1: do remember bumping up and down in my little red
Speaker 1: wagon because you know, it's basically Raphy singing and playing
Speaker 1: guitar and me overdubbing half a dozen other instruments on
Speaker 1: bumping up and down in my little red wagon, Bumping
Speaker 1: up and down in my little red wagon, bumping up
Speaker 1: and down in my little red wagon. Won't you be
Speaker 1: in my dark? So these songs. The more we get
Speaker 1: together with mandolin and down by the bay Willoughby Wallaby
Speaker 1: who had trumpet in it, one track after another, this
Speaker 1: little album that could started to gain form. You know,
Speaker 1: Peanut butter sandwich made with jam, one for me and
Speaker 1: one for David m Rama. Peanut butter sandwich made with
Speaker 1: jim sticks stick sticky stick stick. I love to picture it.
Speaker 1: Ken Whiteley playing every instrument he can get his hands on,
Speaker 1: Dan Lenois and his mom's basement, telling RAFFI, hey, Raffy,
Speaker 1: because who was coming in a little flat on peanut
Speaker 1: butter sandwich. Let's go ahead and take it from the top.
Speaker 1: We literally, quote unquote didn't know what we were doing,
Speaker 1: which is a delightful way to be when you're making
Speaker 1: music because you're not self conscious about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you listen to Willoby Wallaby woo and listen to
Speaker 1: the what could I even call it? It's like a
Speaker 1: vocal instrumental in the middle that dude that that yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is totally unself conscious do and it ends
Speaker 1: with bah bah blah blah blah blah. But I'm and
Speaker 1: sometimes I listen to now and I go, did I
Speaker 1: really do that? The timing of it is perfect. It
Speaker 1: just fell into the groove, you know, it just became
Speaker 1: a groove thing. It was great. That's what I mean
Speaker 1: about the un self consciousness of that beginner effort. I
Speaker 1: made it out. They even included to holiday songs my
Speaker 1: dradal and must be Santa, Who's got a beard that's
Speaker 1: long and white comes around. We weren't going by any
Speaker 1: you know, market research or anything. We were kind of
Speaker 1: winging it, you know, having fun, including songs that we
Speaker 1: thought kids would enjoy singing. And that's what we did.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember, you know, driving to a blues
Speaker 1: gig with a harmonica player and say, hey, you got
Speaker 1: to hear this project I'm working on. You know, it
Speaker 1: had that sort of enthusiasm attached to it, you know,
Speaker 1: where you're wanting to share it as broadly as possible,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of had a feeling, Wow, this
Speaker 1: could really be successful. You know. In those early days,
Speaker 1: this group of adults was somehow able to tap into
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be a kid. They captured
Speaker 1: the wonder and the insecurity that's most evident to me
Speaker 1: listening to the lyrics of I Wonder if I'm Growing.
Speaker 1: I Wonder if I'm growing. I wonder if I'm growing.
Speaker 1: My mom says, yes, I'm growing, but it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to see. My mom says, I remember playing nylon
Speaker 1: string guitar on that song, not my steel string acoustic.
Speaker 1: You can just feel that it's coming from a vulnerable
Speaker 1: place that Raphael is singing I Wonder if I'm growing
Speaker 1: in a genuine way, if I'm growing. I wonder if
Speaker 1: I'm growing. My mom seemed to touch people who hear it,
Speaker 1: you know, because the song goes from wondering if I'm
Speaker 1: growing too. Hey, I can reach the tap now for
Speaker 1: the very first time today. So the song goes somewhere.
Speaker 1: It takes you somewhere, and if you're a young child listening,
Speaker 1: I think it probably adds to the child's wonderment of growing.
Speaker 1: I Wonder if I'm Growing was the basic album Philosophy
Speaker 1: in Action, a beautiful song that both kids and parents
Speaker 1: would love that also respects children as they are, and
Speaker 1: I think I must be growing if he only knew
Speaker 1: how much he was about to grow in terms of
Speaker 1: his career, in terms of what he was going to
Speaker 1: be allowed to do as a person, speaking not just
Speaker 1: to thirty five people at a coffeehouse, but you know,
Speaker 1: to thirty people in an auditorium, or selling millions of records.
Speaker 1: It was November m Robbie Robertson in the Band held
Speaker 1: their farewell concert. Jimmy Carter won the presidency over Gerald Ford.
Speaker 1: The first Mega mouse Shark was discovered off the coast
Speaker 1: of Oahu, and Raffie released his first kids album single
Speaker 1: Bowre Songs for the Very Young Well Mr Son Son,
Speaker 1: Mr Golden Sun, We Shine down on Me, Mr Sun.
Speaker 1: Raffie was a one man record company. There was no
Speaker 1: released team behind him. He really did it all d
Speaker 1: I y, He licensed songs, he made the press, get
Speaker 1: himself designed promotional posters. He had one thousand albums pressed
Speaker 1: for its initial run. Well in time, I could afford
Speaker 1: some help, some stuff, so that was great. But while
Speaker 1: I was doing it, I had an adventure of play
Speaker 1: actually about it. Here I was I was pretending I
Speaker 1: was the delivery guy getting in my car and delivering albums,
Speaker 1: going to the train station and sending him by train
Speaker 1: across the country to a children's bookstore. Who was going
Speaker 1: to sell my albums? Wow? I was a delivery man.
Speaker 1: Wea you know, everyone on the committee chipped in to
Speaker 1: get their beloved album out into the world. Bonnie and
Speaker 1: Bert Simpson would even bring small record players two stores
Speaker 1: so they could play the album. Everyone loved that because
Speaker 1: nobody thought of that before. People would say, oh, who's
Speaker 1: what's that? Who's that? And they showed in the record
Speaker 1: and they sold really well. Right from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Ralphie's bet paid off single Bore Songs for the Very
Speaker 1: Young was a hit right from the start. And then
Speaker 1: when the album was released, I was singing in nursery
Speaker 1: schools around Toronto and I'd take the album with me
Speaker 1: and copies of it for sale, and people were buying
Speaker 1: it in threes and fours to give his gifts. I
Speaker 1: couldn't leave it. I mean, the word was getting out.
Speaker 1: You know that this was a special album that you
Speaker 1: can have some with you because I shared with you.
Speaker 1: You have to to look back now and decipher why
Speaker 1: Singapore Songs was so successful. It's hard to point to
Speaker 1: one thing. Everything seemed to line up. The quality, production,
Speaker 1: the research, the beginner spirit. These were key ingredients. But
Speaker 1: there's also something to be said for Raphie and Ken's
Speaker 1: history with folk music in a lot of ways that
Speaker 1: set them up to make good music for kids in
Speaker 1: the mood, in the mood, and the folk element is
Speaker 1: there even in many of his own selections on these
Speaker 1: marvelous recordings that work very well with children. This is
Speaker 1: Dr Patricia she Hand Campbell. She's an ethno musicologist who
Speaker 1: studies children's music. Patricia says ralphie songs tell stories and
Speaker 1: a sound chill element of folk, and Raphie's music, just
Speaker 1: like the songs of his heroes Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie,
Speaker 1: are also especially easy for kids to sing along to.
Speaker 1: And they don't reach a full octave, generally speaking, until
Speaker 1: they're about eight or nine. So many of the songs
Speaker 1: are within that smaller pitch range, within an octave, maybe
Speaker 1: only five pitches in distance from one another. And that
Speaker 1: was the place where were children's voices landed comfortably. Little
Speaker 1: upon the name there was in the mood, in the
Speaker 1: mood there was, and his name was with the overwhelming
Speaker 1: success of Singable Songs, Raffi and his team started working
Speaker 1: on the follow up album, More Singable Songs, came out
Speaker 1: in ninety seven, and it slapped two. It was time
Speaker 1: to take the show on the road. Hello, Hi, boys
Speaker 1: and girls. And I'll never forget the very first concert
Speaker 1: I had where we charged admission were buck when the
Speaker 1: very song I said, the more we get together, and
Speaker 1: by the time we got to the work together, the
Speaker 1: whole place was singing. I couldn't believe it, dep cried.
Speaker 1: I mean she was at the back of the hall,
Speaker 1: she cried, hearing everyone sing. And that was it. That's
Speaker 1: how it was gonna be from then on. Here's something
Speaker 1: that amazes me about Raffie, how easily he can hold
Speaker 1: the attention of an auditorium full of kids. I know
Speaker 1: firsthand how difficult that is, because I used to be
Speaker 1: a children's entertainer myself. At you see Berkeley's Public Science Center.
Speaker 1: I dress up like a wizard and teach kids about
Speaker 1: electricity or do improv about the human brain. It was
Speaker 1: so hard that I made the switch to stand up
Speaker 1: comedy and entertaining drunk adults. Instead bumping up and down
Speaker 1: in the little red Wagon bumping up and down. I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about this one Raffy concert video, in particular,
Speaker 1: whoa Dot to be My guard? Raffy is physically jumping
Speaker 1: up and down in his seat. The camera pans up
Speaker 1: to the balcony to show a pair of kids mimicking
Speaker 1: his movements. In fact, the entire concert hall of kids
Speaker 1: is bumping up and down in Unison's Hey, this wagon
Speaker 1: is still busted. The stick of the song is that
Speaker 1: the wagon keeps breaking down. By this point, the kids
Speaker 1: are losing their minds yelling out the names of tools
Speaker 1: Raffy could use to fix the wagon. Listen to those ideas.
Speaker 1: This place is full of mechanics today. And just when
Speaker 1: you think a riot is about to break out, if
Speaker 1: Raffy stalls one more minute, he comes in with a
Speaker 1: punch line. I wonder what I do is to fix
Speaker 1: the wagon? Raff He's gonna fix it with those sandwich
Speaker 1: Raffy's gonna fix it with this man's got time so
Speaker 1: that he can eat it up and down in my
Speaker 1: little red wagon. We had fun singing any songs together,
Speaker 1: and then I would meet the audience after the show,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of neat because kids with their
Speaker 1: parents would come up and the child would be trying
Speaker 1: to say something to me, and maybe it was taking
Speaker 1: their time, and the parents would be trying to hurry
Speaker 1: them along. Sometimes I'd say wait, let's just listen, please,
Speaker 1: and then the child would have time to say something.
Speaker 1: And kids would ask wonderful questions of me. In those
Speaker 1: days of cassettes, Raffie, how did you get out of
Speaker 1: my tape? They would say, well, it wasn't me who
Speaker 1: was in there in the first place. It was just
Speaker 1: my voice. That's what you're hearing. Oh that's Raffi reflects
Speaker 1: on these early days of success in his autobiography. They
Speaker 1: were thrilling, but they were also stressful. He recalls getting
Speaker 1: upset when dab, Bonnie and Bert were having too much
Speaker 1: fun in the process. Back then, he thought they had
Speaker 1: serious work to do. You know, I've had periods of
Speaker 1: my life where it's you know, I've had challenges to
Speaker 1: go through. You know, I'm no different than anybody else,
Speaker 1: personal challenges, professional challenges. At one point I said to myself,
Speaker 1: I keep falling up hill. Here's Burt. Rafi will spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time on the tiniest details of things,
Speaker 1: getting them exactly the way he wants them to be,
Speaker 1: and that's just the way he is. The perfectionism could
Speaker 1: be tiring sometimes sometimes I just go on and say, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's just pick one show, you know, and get
Speaker 1: on with that. But it's not like that. So if
Speaker 1: that's what he meant by taking himself seriously, you know
Speaker 1: he did. Ralphie's attention to detail and commitment to excellence
Speaker 1: to the point of perfection sometimes put work ahead of fun.
Speaker 1: He writes that he could be controlling and moody if
Speaker 1: things didn't go his way, and that he often put
Speaker 1: too much pressure on others, but especially on himself. The
Speaker 1: friends in our lives can be a huge support to us.
Speaker 1: A prayerful attitude can often help in many ways. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful to always return to a place of
Speaker 1: love and joy. Meanwhile, as Ralphie's family audiences kept growing,
Speaker 1: his dream of becoming a folk singer for adults started
Speaker 1: to fade. He kept some of his night gigs, but
Speaker 1: the dream started to feel too distant, so he decided
Speaker 1: to fully commit to his children's music career. Soon he
Speaker 1: would start selling out thousand seat venues and festivals from
Speaker 1: coast to coast. He'd make hit album after hit album.
Speaker 1: He'd be offered movie deals and endorsements. The path to
Speaker 1: superstardom was knocking on his door, but Raffie said no,
Speaker 1: No toys, no fast food deals, no corporate endorsements, no
Speaker 1: to the industry standard. Rafie was determined to forge his
Speaker 1: own path, and he was going to make it happen
Speaker 1: his way next time. On Finding Raffie, the primary goal
Speaker 1: of advertising and marketing is to train kids to become consumers.
Speaker 1: If I love my audience and if I respect for
Speaker 1: the people that they are, my young audience, how can
Speaker 1: I explain them? Why would I ever want to do
Speaker 1: commercial indorsements or you know, sell things to them based
Speaker 1: on my popularity? That would be right with it. Finding
Speaker 1: Raffie is a production in My Heart Radio and Fatherly
Speaker 1: in partnership with Rococo Punch. It's produced by Catherine Fendalosa,
Speaker 1: Meredith Hannig, and James Trout. Production assistance from Charlotte Livingston.
Speaker 1: Alex French is our story consultant. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Andrea Swahee. Emily Foreman is our editor. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez Crusado. Raphae's music is courtesy of Troubadour Music
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour. Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Jessica Albert and John Parotti at Rococo, punch, Ty Trimble,
Speaker 1: Mike Rothman and Jeff I's a Minute, Fatherly and Me
Speaker 1: Chris Garcia, thank you for listening. Okay, wonder if I'm growing.
Speaker 1: I'm wonder if I'm growing. You got me tearing up
Speaker 1: over here, ken, I can't believe it.