I Don't Know About That - History of Television

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

In this episode, the team discusses the history of television with historian, media executive, and author of "The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media", Tim Brooks. Go to TimBrooks.net to purchase his books and to learn more! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cuban Mark Which one is a sandwich And which one is my childhood friend You may find out today And I don't know about that with Jim Jefferies Hello everyone This is our last podcast in this studio

Wait, wait, wait Where did you get these words from? Mark Cuban Oh, you did Cuban Mark though No, because if I did it the right way around It would have sounded like the thing It was so funny because right before you started You go not in the room and then you go Cuban

And I was like, Luis is not Cuban But then I realized you were talking about that picture Jim only gets words from things inside the room Which but then I realized you were talking about that picture. Jim only gets words from things inside the room, which leads us into what you were saying. It's good we're moving. We're moving. We're moving to the improv to do the recordings,

which we're very excited about. Jack's very excited about moving all this stuff from in here. He's over the moon about that. We've been gigging. We've been in Chicago and New York and Indianapolis. The shows were fantastic. Thank you for all the people who came out. What shows have we got coming up, Jack? Friday, October 8th, Fort Myers, Florida. Saturday, October 9th, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And on Sunday, October 10th,

Jacksonville, Florida. I've got to ask you, you're from Florida, Forrest. Fort Lauderdale is just Miami in it, really. Yeah, I mean, those people would probably tell you they'd be upset. It's a different area code. But yeah, once you're in South Florida, from Palm Beach all the way to the southern end of Dade County where Miami is, it's just a city.

It's like going east in LA or something. It's like it just keeps going. It doesn't matter. I always like going to Florida with Forrest. It's one of my favorite things. You see these friends show up that he hasn't seen for years and you forget what he was like as a young boy. And I,

I, I like to drive around and I play a game. This is Forrest childhood. I point at different things. That's the gas station where he used to get lollies as a child. And I do a little. Yeah. We're in Fort Lauderdale.

We're always in Fort Lauderdale. And it's not, I'm not, I don't live anywhere nearale. We're always in Fort Lauderdale and I'm not going to live anywhere near there. I'm not going with you on those gigs. I'll still do the story. I'll tell other people. We also have other exciting news. We have in the works, we're going to start doing

live podcast shows. We are? Oh yeah. Yeah, so I think probably the first one we'll probably try for Mid-November Or like early Early December

And we also have What is a live podcast? What is this? So we're gonna be Doing things live So people will be able To participate But not in a theater

Not in a theater Yeah so Live streaming Yeah live streaming And we are also Working on merch So that should be Coming out soon.

Do we know what we're doing merch-wise? Yeah, we're going to start with, we're going to have some mugs, some sweatshirts, some shirts. I was just going to say, I don't know about that. Yeah, they might say that. Don't worry, I've sent in some ideas. We do some give them what they want t-shirts. You don't even say give them what they want.

Yeah, I just said it then. Yeah, and he said it our last podcast. Give them what they want. And then we can have some Jack Hackett t-shirts. A bunch of life packets on the back. I sent to our booker, I said, could you ask the graphic designer if he could maybe do a picture of a bunch of bees jizzing on another bee and then label it bee cocky?

She's like, I'm so excited to send this to the graphic designer. So I just want to see what they come up with there. So we may have a bee cocky shirt. Oh, good. I just want a see what they come up with there. So we may have a Bikaki shirt. Oh, good. I just want a picture of Jack's face on his shirt. And then just like one sleeve missing. Yeah. Because that's his hack at where he pulls his shirt off.

It's got the hole in the armpit. It's got the signature armpit hole. And then it should say, hello, my name is not Dave Grohl. Perfect. All right, Jack, what do you got for us today? So Kelly and I brainstormed on a new segment. Oh. Oh, okay. Like Kelly does. I didn't know there were enough hours in the day. Perfect. All right, Jack, what do you got for us today? So Kelly and I brainstormed on a new segment. Oh.

People like Kelly do this. I didn't know there were enough hours in the day. I know. Kelly's so busy. I had to really schedule it in. What is brainstorming with you and Kelly look like? It's usually me being high going, what if we did something like this? I said, sounds good. Wow. So she referenced some podcasts where they get questions to learn a little bit more about the host

Because it's fun to learn about people's personal lives So I pulled up some And we got a message in the podcast group Saying somebody wanted to know more about Luis Oh that's right Corner boy So I have some icebreaker questions I pulled from the internet Some are funny, some are good

So we'll see how it goes Wait so you're asking Jim Everybody I just realized you're asking Jim? Yep. All of it, everybody. Oh, okay. I've just realized you're wearing a Margaritaville t-shirt. I'm wearing the musical,

because of the musical. Oh, you went to the musical. Yeah, it's real. That was last week. Yeah, because of the last week. You've been wearing it for a week? It smells bad. First icebreaker question.

What's the strangest food you've tried and would you eat it again uh i ate a bull's testicle once uh because when i was a poor comedian i was coming home from a gig we went to like a kebab house that was a bit fancy in london and the other comic who i'm still friends with but i won't say his name because he comes off a bit of a jerk in this story. And he said, I was a starving comedian. I had no money to me name and I'd done an open spot. And he said, I'll buy you a kebab. I get to choose the kebab, right?

And I was like, I'll eat anything. And so it was a bull's testicle. They're about the size of a cricket ball. Bull's testicle kebab? Yeah. It was a kebab house. It had a whole lot of different meats in it. And they grilled it up. They cut it into chunks.

And I ate all that bull's testicle. I was starving. How was it? I was drunk. I don't know. Same as all the food I ate. Did you know it was a bull's testicle going in? Or did you find out afterwards?

No, no, no. I saw them cut the testicle up and grill it and all that type of stuff. Licking the me lips. Forrest? We all have to answer this? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. You don't know your strangest food?

I don't know. I've eaten a lot of strange foods. I don't know. Come back to me. I guess I have to think about it. Random men's cum. That's mine. That's not a food, though.

That's just an appetizer. Pretty strange when you guys had me eat in Hong Kong was the... The sea cucumber. The sea cucumber. It's got this gray, lumpy thing with some weird juice on it. Oh, that was rough. I say like my friend came off as a bit of a jerk, but this is me with Jack and Asia.

I'll give you 10 bucks to eat that. No, no. I'll give you an extra minute of stage time. I was like, okay. That's what it was. It was an extra minute at the East Theater. He started off with three minutes. He got up to about 15 minutes

with eating challenges. Oh yeah, I had to drink the leftover butter from a lobster dish. So you liked that one. Yeah, I got 50 bucks

from that one. That was a worthwhile. Yeah, I don't know if it's the strangest, but I mean, I've drank bong water before. By accident or on purpose? on purpose.

Oh God. Yeah, yeah, because we were at before. By accident or on purpose? On purpose. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. Because we were at weed and somebody told me to get high from that. Do you? I was fucked up. I don't know. I don't know if it was in a good way. I'll tell you this.

I went to the hospital. It was not a fun time. Kelly, do you have anything? I don't have anything super. Like when I was in India, I had mutton and stuff like that. We just learned mutton's no good. It was in the breakfast buffet

which was weird. I didn't know what it was. I tried it. I didn't like it so much, but I'm not super adventurous with food. That might be the grossest thing. Mutton bird. Yeah, mutton bird. We've talked about that. It's the bird that tastes like fish? Yeah.

In New Zealand? In New Zealand, I had mutton bird eggs benedict. And I thought, oh, a bit of a delicacy. I'll try something different. It's a fucking rancid fucking bird that tastes like fish. And it's like a black, tarry-looking fucking meat. And then they're like, so do you enjoy the mutton bird? Like that.

And I was like, no, it's horrible. And the waitress was like, yeah, no one likes it. What do you have it on the fucking menu for? This is a waste. But it's like, it's like, it's like, it's probably one of those things that old people in New Zealand claim they like. Like when you live in London, there's always, there was a dish called jellied eels, right? Which is what like sort of cockneys would eat, jellied eel. Actual eels? Yeah, jellied eel, right, and it's a cold, clunky thing

with like gelatine all over the eel in chunks and stuff like that. And whenever you meet like an old cockney bloke, they're always like this, oh, I fucking love me some jellied eel, oh, like this. And then whenever you're out with these comics and you're in a restaurant that has it on the menu, you go, oh, it's got the jelly deal here. You should have the jelly deal. Oh, no, I'll just have a BLT.

No, no, no, they have it. I wouldn't want you not to have it. Oh, God. It is gross. It's gross, yeah. Gross. I mean, things in jelly or gelatin are automatically not pleasant to look at. I don't like cold pork pies in Britain.

It's covered in gelatin. Yeah, it's just fucking. The picture in my head was gross, and then I Googled it, and it was way grosser. Give me a look at this jelly deals. Look at that. Yeah, it's shit. It's shit.

And it feels like something you would eat in China where they're like, oh, no, this is quite good and then in Britain where they're just like baked beans and eggs and fucking chips and then they're jellied eel

right because you can't blame like in like developing countries and stuff like that they eat things that typically we wouldn't because they're using

the full animal or whatever but in Britain you're like why are you doing this here they've had some times they've been at war have you ever had head cheese yeah or whatever, but in Britain, you're like, why are you doing this here? They've had some times. They've been at war. Have you ever had head cheese? Yeah.

That's that weird meat. It's the stuff at the end of a dick, right? It's like a cold cut that looks like I've had it, but I've never had it. It looks like Marvel, but it's like made of leftover pig gelatin. It looks like if all the meat that'd be on the floor, they'd be like smash it together and make one meat. And then you can see all the pieces in it.

Next question, Jack. You might as well feel sick. Okay, well. I do feel good. Were there any funny occupations you wanted to be when you grew up? First of all, you're a comedian. The funniest of them all. Car salesman.

You know what I mean. You know what I mean. I remember when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a doctor. That's funny. That's hilarious. When you know me, you go, that wouldn't have been a good fit. It was just because my mum was a hypochondriac, so we were always at the doctor's office,

and I thought my doctor was a really cool guy, and he seemed to be well-respected, and everyone, doctor, doctor. And I thought, oh, that'd be a good job. And then I realised I couldn't cut the skin or anything. I'll tell you what I found out this week, that I'm a bit like, I only thought this was in movies, and this is something Americans do that the rest of the world doesn't do, that blew my fucking mind. My kid comes home from school, and he's like, yeah,

I've got to dissect a sheep's eyeball. And then he goes, next year we've got to do a frog. And I only saw that on E.T. where they, like, try to knock the frog out. The frogs all started jumping. I've seen it in American movies and stuff like that. I didn't think you guys actually cut into animals in class. They dissected frogs in middle school, yeah.

That doesn't happen anywhere else. That's mental. My partner passed out. It happens other places. No. No, this is an American. They don't dissect animals in other countries? I've never dissected.

No, we dissect them, but not school kids. I never came into school and had a dead animal in front of me on a bit of paper and gone, learning. We did pregnant rats, lampreys. I did a baby pig. Yeah, a baby pig. Turtle. Yeah, yeah.

What? I thought it was just frogs. He goes, we went into the science room. He goes, it's really nice. There's animals everywhere. My wife's vegan. And she's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, fucking.

They're going to cut up some animals there, man. And he goes, there's rabbits. And like, fuck this. Don't test on animals. Stop giving kids animals to cut up. Yeah he goes, there's rabbits and... Like, fuck this. Don't test on animals. Stop giving kids animals to come. Yeah, we're like breeding serial killers. Yeah, I did. I thought that was a myth.

That was just something in movies. I didn't know that was a real thing. And they reek of formaldehyde. It's so bad. Well, they didn't use formaldehyde anymore. They used formalin because formaldehyde is a carcinogen. Do you remember learning anything?

Like cutting open an eyeball or something? Do you remember learning something? I mean, I eyeball or something? Do you remember learning something? I mean, I'm sure we looked at things. The partner that I had was very squeamish about doing it. And when he cut into the frog, like a little juice came out and then he ended up like passing out. And I had to do it myself. I think it's unnecessary.

I don't think it's needed. I don't think I liked it. It's disgusting. Like even a video, if you want to show a video of someone doing it or a diagram and a textbook, and this is where the organs are. That's enough. That's plenty.

I mean, yeah. Or at least wait till high school when it might be a specific course. Forrest is very indifferent about this. We don't need middle schoolers doing surgery. But I was a biology major. but the, no,

I, I mean, I remember when I was a kid though, it like, uh, it, it made you, it was, it was more like you learn stuff, but like you kind of understand.

I don't know. It just made me think about the natural world more like it was. Australia has a strict no scalpel for eight year olds program. Eight year old is pretty. I was trying to remember how young I did. Eight is very young. I was in middle school. I was in middle and high school. I was ninth grade. So I was I was 12. I was middle and high school. That's advanced. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You guys are a very good school. middle school. I was in middle and high school. I was ninth grade. So I was 12. I was middle and high school. That's advanced, I think. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

You guys are a very good school. Private school. You guys are a very good school. We pay the extra money so we can cut open animals. By the time he's 13, they give him cadavers. Yeah, let us know in the comments if you're- Cadavers. No, no, no, there's chocolates from Belgium.

Cadavers. You said cadavers. I was like, wow, this is a good school. Cadavers, cadavers. I knew I got the word wrong. I thought if I just said it with enough conviction, that's the word, right? I could get it through. Yeah. Let us know in the comments if you're not from America and you dissected it. I'm sure in Poland they were doing something.

Let's find out. But they don't in Australia. They don't do it in Australia. Australians pipe in. Maybe I went to a fucking shitty state school. I think they're phasing find out. But they don't in Australia. They don't do it in Australia. Let's see if Australians pipe in. Maybe I went to a fucking shitty state school. I think they're phasing it out. But also, by the way, Louise, it wasn't a baby pig. It was a fetal pig, probably.

It looked pretty developed. It was a pig abortion. That's what it was, usually. That's usually what they did, yeah. It had a massive cock. Made me really depressed. It tasted pretty good. By the way, aren't you supposed to be asking Louise questions, too,

since people want to know I had one ready for the last one but don't ask he cut up a pig at school everything Louise

eats is weird he cut up a pig at school but that was in recess he brought it to be marinating in Sprite

what's the strangest food you've had hold on I gotta okay Louise told us before the podcast that he rubbed

an egg on his car for fucking good luck. Tell us all about that. Wait a second. He said, Boris wasn't here for this. Yeah, repeat this story, please. Yeah, I mean,

because Mexicans believe if you think someone's wishing bad upon you, you're supposed to rub an egg on yourself while saying the Our Father in Spanish. Wait, wait,

a hard-boiled egg or a? No, a raw egg. And then you have to crack it in water and whatever you see in the water, it. Wait, wait, a hard-boiled egg? No, a raw egg. And then you have to crack it in water, and whatever you see in the water, it's like, ah, that means you're worried about something, or that means people are wishing harm. And my car broke down on the way home yesterday. I had to pull over on the side of the freeway.

So I was like, fucking, I'm running a nag on this car. Like, who knows? Maybe someone's wishing bad upon it. John Voight, probably. Yeah, he has a wooden LeBaron. It got repaired with a Stanley knife. car. Who knows? Maybe someone's wishing bad upon it. John Voight, probably. Yeah, he has a wooden LeBaron. It got repaired with a Stanley knife and a Phillips head screwdriver.

It looks cool in pictures, though. I don't even wash. I just spray it with Pledge. The inside of it's all Lego Technics. Yeah, it does look cool. I'll do... Cricket Taco.

Cricket Taco is what I eat. Cricket Taco. More Hawkins. You have to eat it over five days. I'll do one last icebreaker. Last icebreaker, and this was a real one on the website. Do you find Hugh Grant funny? I'm going to say last icebreaker and this was a real one on the website do you find Hugh Grant funny

yeah I'm going to say yes I don't think I do I can't think of him being he wouldn't surprise me he's in my

I was in I was in a bar once with him and Alan Rickman I wasn't with them Alan Rickman and him came into a bar and Alan Rickman

was what Snape right from Harry Potter yeah yeah I was just making sure I was actually Alan Rickman anyway so Alan Rickman and him came into a bar. And Alan Rickman was what, Snape, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Die Hard and Alan Rickman. I'm actually Alan Rickman. Anyway, so Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant came into a comedian's bar during the Edinburgh Festival, which was, you know, like you have to have special festival passes and all that type of stuff.

And I'd only never known him. Like I have a problem with Hugh Grant is that's not in the script. There's no way every script he reads goes, well, well, well. Yeah, that's my problem. I find you quite, quite, quite delightful. There's no two quites in there. Just do the fucking lines. Anyway, so, but I like Hugh Grant.

Anyway, so Hugh Grant was in there and there was a few girls with him and him and Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant was in there and there was a few girls with him and him and Alan Rickman. And Hugh Grant, and it's still not legalized in Britain, he lit up a joint. So I fucking think he's cool as fuck. And then this is before everyone had camera phones. And then he got kicked out and we all cheered and he sort of gave us a cheery old wave and fucking left. And I thought, that guy's all right, man.

I had a lot of time for him. I like About A Boy he's funny in that you don't think he's funny in any movie? I really hated the movie what's the Christmas one again? Love Actually

everyone hates that movie it's terrible not everybody hates that movie everybody loves that movie and I always there's two camps I'm always fighting with people it's terrible

it's a terrible movie everybody in the movie is a horrible person yes yeah look I've you know he's a romcom guy I like Richard Curtis I like everything Richard Curtis but I'm not a terrible movie. Everybody in the movie is a horrible person. Yeah. Look, I've, you know.

He's a rom-com guy. I like Richard Curtis. I like everything Richard Curtis, but I'm not. It's known in the inner circles of my world that I'm into chick flicks and you're saying rom-coms.

That's more of a chick flick and Love Actually is a pile of shit. Any of those, any of those ensemble movies, Mother's Day, New Year's Eve, I love Actually.

I mean, they're garbage because none of this, a lot of the stories just get left hanging. There's nothing going on. There's always like some moment that you're supposed to be like, oh, that was great.

But yeah, watch him in Notting Hill. That's a good one with him and Julia Roberts. That's a famous chick flick there. About a Boy is very funny. About a Boy is good. About a Boy is a funny movie. Notting Hill is a good movie. He's funny in the last Guy Ritchie film where he played the mobster. He's the best thing in that film. Four Weddings and a Funeral. It's a funny movie Notting Hill's a good movie he's funny in the last Guy Ritchie film where he played the mobster

he's the best thing in that film Four Weddings and a Funeral he's a good movie and he's also good in Bridget Jones Diary when he's kind of like the dickhead I would say

or whatever he's good in movies he's funny definitely about a boy one I didn't like music and lyrics so you asked an icebreaker to find out more about us and you asked for an opinion

on Hugh Grant I thought it was a funny icebreaker. Oh, I know about this person now. They think Hugh Grant's funny. Maha. Look, it was supposed to spark discussion and it worked. And it did. Good work, Jack.

It did, yeah. That's all your segments? I might have sold him up the river. He might not know that people here, you smoked a joint once. Which people do anyway. All right. Please welcome our guest today, Tim Brooks. G'day, Tim.

Now it's time to play. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. All right, Tim. Now I'm looking at where you're seated there.

I would go out on a limb and say that Tim's an academic type of a fella. He has a lot of- What gave it away? type of a fella. He has a lot of- What gave it away? Yeah, a lot of papers, a lot of- Or he's kept every receipt of all time. You can audit Tim all day. He'll fucking sort you out. He's got them all.

Tim, are you a professor, Tim? No. Do you work in the education field? No. Oh, okay. Have you written books? Yes. Okay.

Okay. Now you know what he does. He's narrowed it down. I'm looking to the left of you. You're a cap enthusiast. You've got about five of them. I'm the to the left of you. You're a cap enthusiast. You've got about five of them. I'm the same. Okay.

Is your specialty history? Yes. Yeah, all right, all right. Is what we're about to talk about today involve war? War? No. No, okay. Not particularly?

I'll tell you this. Our last episode was on musical theatre The one before that was barbecue You really hit a stride of stuff you like Yeah This is something you like a lot And you may consider one of the best inventions ever You invented porn, did you, Tim?

Oh, rush! Okay, so it's something that I like. One of the best inventions ever. You've said it. You said, I think you said that it's the best invention ever. Oh, sand. No, I'm a breakfast sandwich machine. Yeah, breakfast sandwich machine.

I'm a big fan of cars. I like cars. We've done cars. It's something that you always say, I won't have a bad word said about it. That's what you always follow. Oh, oh. Lisa Vanderpump. Iodine. You invented iodine? You talk about iodine? You use

this every day. Oh, Imodium. That's what I meant to say, Imodium. Tim Brooks is here to talk about the history of television. I love television. Oh, shit. I won't have a bad word said about bloody television. I'll tell you what about television. I won't have a bad word said about bloody television. I'll tell you what about television. I've never met a person who doesn't have a television

who isn't a complete dickhead. Yeah. You should have a TV. I don't even have a TV. It's okay now because you have the internet and you can have your iPad and your TV light. Yeah. Right?

But the people who back in the day in the 90s were like, I got to go home and read. Oh, go fuck off. What are you doing? Watch the telly, man. I had a friend who I had to call them about 9-11 because like two days later because I knew he was just sitting around his house. He was never going to find out if it wasn't for me.

All right. Well, Tim Brooks is here to talk about the history of television in the United States. Tim Brooks is a historian, author, and media executive specializing in media research and the history of media in the United States. He is regarded as one of the television's leading historians. He has a master's in TV and radio from Syracuse University, and he writes a lot of books, as he said. So I do read some books, too. His latest book is The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media, 20th Century Performances on Radio, Records, Film, and Television.

And then you do have a book called The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946 to the Present. Is that updated to now or does that go to? That's over my shoulder here. There's nine editions of it. And the last one was in 2008. Okay. When something called Wikipedia or IMDB took over, basically.

It was all the knowledge. Internet. But if you want more information on Tim or any of the books he's written, there's a whole long list of books that he's written. Go to timbrooks.net for all the information on Tim and any books that you want to buy. And tell us a little bit about, um, and tell us a little bit about, like, tell us how you got here. How are you, how did you get to a point where you

are an expert in the history of television and yeah. Uh, well, uh, I was a rock and roll kid back in the day. And so when I went to college, I made a beeline for the radio station. They had a very good radio station at my college, uh, I became the head of the record library and immersed in that kind of world. And that led me to want to go into broadcasting. I was going to go into radio, but I found that the people in radio tend to have careers stuck in little podunk towns and rarely seem to advance anywhere. So I got into television instead. And television fascinated me. And in addition to being eventually an executive in television, and by the way, I'm responsible for any show that you like. I had nothing to do with the shows that

you don't like. So please don't blame me for any of those those yeah when i was looking at your at your all the resume all the things you've done you it's like you've been everywhere in television basically network yeah one of the one of these caps is a sci-fi channel yeah because i had a lot to do a lot to do with the launch of the sci-fi channel uh which was an offshoot of usa network and i got a lot of caps from tv shows what's that other cap there what's Network. And I got a lot of caps from TV shows. What's that other cap there? What's that one? I got a lot of Jim Jefferies merchandise.

Jim Jefferies merchandise if you ever want it, mate. What's this one say? Northern Exposure. I used to love Northern Exposure. Picket Fences. Yeah, that was a popular one. Yeah. All right, cool.

Yeah. I love the telly, man. I love the telly. And you know what? It's been my mistress for years, the TV, and I've been hurt by it personally. I've had shows canceled and shows never picking up, but I always forgive it. I love your TV. What do you think of this one?

The Nelson ratings, they're a bunch of bullshit. They don't work. We're meant to think that we're all meant to be judged by someone who's getting 50 bucks a week to have a box on top of their thing and that represents all of us get the fuck out of here um so tim we're gonna i'm gonna ask jim a few questions about like the history of tv in general but we're gonna talk about some television shows too and then and we'll see how jim does and i'm sure jim's gonna have some of his own questions too because he loves TV so much. I love it.

And then you're going to rate him 0 through 10. 10 is the best score of him answering these questions on accuracy. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. We'll add them all together. If you get 21 through 30 points, you're TV. 11 through 20, TBD. 0 through 10, VD.

You don't want 0 through 10. You don't want that. Trust me. When was TV invented? Okay, it was invented by a guy with a second name, Logie. And I know that because the Australian awards, TV awards, are called the Logies, and that's because it was named after the bloke. I'm going to say it was the early 50s, and I'm only going on that

because Australia got TV for the first time. We got it rushed through. I think it was already in other countries, but we got it rushed through because we had the Olympics in Melbourne in the early 1950s, maybe 1954. I might be wrong, 52, 54, something like that. So I'm going to assume it was invented. Okay, so do you want it when it was invented or when we first got them? Say whatever you want.

All right, so I'll say it was invented in 1949 and then the world got them in 1952. All right, what is a mechanical television? Mechanical TV is where you go up and you've got to turn the knob to change the channel. I'll do the stand-up routine that everyone's heard. Ah, we didn't have remotes when I was a kid. I was the remote. that's a good one yeah when was the first electronic television invented that way that was a mechanical television so you're saying oh so you're saying all right so

so mechanical tv where it was like it still had like a a vertical hold and an antenna i don't even know what it is to be honest okay and it still had a TV screen that had to warm up like when it came and then the vertical hold could go

um I would say the first like LED television electronic television uh electronic television I'm gonna say

1994 and then when did you kind of touched on this when when did the first television stations start appearing in America? I guess maybe you can say. I'll say 1952.

And when was the public able to purchase television sets for the homes? You said 50? 52. 52. What about color TV? When did that happen? Color TV. Okay, so you got to start thinking with color TV,

because I remember watching like Gidget when I was a kid, not that I'm that old, but they used to show that in the morning and stuff like that. I watched the history of TV on CNN and I remember seeing the thing with Sally Field going, watch Gidget now in bright colour and there'd be episodes because there was TV shows that I watched that were black and white that morphed into colour. I'm going to say the colour television in its sort of just like where it became,

because we had a black and white TV in the 70s. I would say that very rich people could have had a color television in 1974. Okay. And then the laugh track. When did that start and how did that come about? The laugh track, oh, golly. I think that might have been there from the beginning because that might have come from radio plays,

and the radio plays probably had laugh tracks. And I'm trying to think back to, like, listening to The Goon Show or my dad's old records and where The Goon Show had a laugh track, and that was sort of in the 60s. So I'm going to say in the 1960s that came out, and it would have come from, from Radio Place. Okay. And did commercials always exist in television?

I bet you that commercials didn't already exist. I bet you it started with product placement because then it became the Colgate Comedy Hour and stuff like that. So they would, yeah. So they'd go, come and watch this thing brought to you by Brill Wives. Brill Wives. So I believe product placement was before commercials, and then commercials came in after that. And product placement would have been pretty quick. As with everything, it's like when you invent something, they go, oh, this will be good to give people news, and then a little bit of entertainment.

It always starts off as a news thing, a news thing, and entertainment, and then sport comes in, and then off you go. What are minstrel shows? Minstrel shows? Minstrel shows. You didn't invent them. You can say what they are. Yeah, it's where people, Al Jolson and stuff like that, they put on blackface and they sing things like Mammy and stuff like that.

It seems like an odd choice to do, but that was. We'll talk about it a little bit. That was Tim's latest book that he wrote. It was touched on that. Cable television cable television you know when that came around like you had your networks and well i'll tell you what cable tv didn't come around to australia until the 90s we're talking about the u.s mostly i just want to say this is a point so in australia we had the 90s before that and really even still now in australia's four main channels, you know, seven, nine, 10 and two. Right. And so, so we had these four channels and we used to hear about America and how they had 40 channels and stuff like that. And we thought that must be a fucking cracking place to live. And now that I have 300 and something channels, it doesn't help your life out at all. It doesn't

make any difference. It actually makes everything watered down ever so slightly but uh i would say cable tv came in in america in the late 80s i would i'll say 1987 came into america and then we didn't get it for another 10 years or maybe another six years in australia i'm trying to think too i want to guess it was like the early 80s because i remember my grandmother had it and she had that thing where you had the three switches. You had to switch top, middle, bottom, and then you'd press a button and then it had a sticker. I don't even know what that was. I saw the history of TV.

I can't quite remember, but I remember ESPN started off as a regional thing and the guy just had the biggest satellite and that's how it sort of spread across the country. And it was just doing stuff like fucking beer pong and stuff like that. What was considered the golden age of television? The golden age of television, I will say from 1965 to 1975. Okay. I Love Lucy ranked number one for how many of its first six seasons?

I don't believe it was a hit right away. Maybe it was. Maybe it right away. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Probably it was. I'm going to say it ranked number one for five of its six seasons. What is vaudio? Vaudio? V-A-U-D-I-O.

That would be visual audio. Okay. And so I'd say that that was like asking what's THX. It's like someone went, I can match up the sound to the thing. Who was the first president to appear on television? Okay, so the first presidential debate that was aired live was Nixon versus Kennedy. And a lot of people think that Nixon didn't win

because he had a bit of sweat on his upper lip, right? Because they were like, I can't vote for that person. That person's not presidential. Then we have a guy go, grab him by the pussy. And we're like, yeah. He's my man. He's just a guy. He's just a guy. And then it's like, fuck off, old sweaty lip. He was president eventually.

He made it. Yeah, so it would have been the president before Kennedy who was – Lyndon Johnson was after Kennedy. George Washington? No. Whoever the guy was before Kennedy, the one before Kennedy.

Okay. What is the FCC? I was both right and stupid at the same time. What is the FCC? The FCC is probably the standards and practicing people that people write letters and they say, Oh, that's not good.

And they intervene if we're all carrying on like pork chops on the, on the telly. All right. Name a popular show in each of these decades. Okay. We'll start easy. Nineties. Friends.

Eighties. In the 1980s, the A-Team was a very popular show in the 1980s. I can give you a thousand in the 70s. In the 1980s, The A-Team was a very popular show in the 1980s. I can give you a thousand in 1980s. 70s. In the 70s, The Brady Bunch was a popular show in the 1970s. Well, late 60s, early 70s. The 60s.

60s, I think I Love Lucy was still probably going strong there. What about the 50s? The 50s, all right, I'll move I Love Lucy to the 50s, and then into the 70s, I'll give you a bit of fucking Beverly Hills hillbillies for the 70s. The 60s, you mean? The 60s, yeah. The 60s of Beverly Hillbillies? Yeah.

All right. Because of the Munsters. There's loads. The Addams Family, the Munsters, and stuff like that. I'll tell you this. The Ed, wherever the Beatles were on, that guy, how the fuck did that can't host anything? It's like he was your most popular.

He had three channels and a guy was like, we got a really big show. And it was like, that's your top guy? Like just shop around a bit. A couple more questions. And you can feel free to ask any questions that you want. Sure, sure, sure. Have TV shows become more or less political? I would believe they've become substantially more political in the sense.

Wow. News has definitely become more like, I don't know if that includes news. I don't, I didn't write these questions. I don't know. There was always things where they dealt with class and, you know,

if you watch, okay, so, so the most popular sitcom in the seventies was mash, right? We'll put that in the seventies, right? Mash. I thought you were going to say, you know, if you watch, okay, so the most popular sitcom in the 70s was MASH, right? We'll put that in the 70s, right? That's what I thought you were going to say. I thought so too. Yeah, I was watching MASH yesterday.

I thought that MASH was the 80s though. No, MASH was 77. You're in about season six and then it just ducked into the 80s for the final episode, which was the most watched thing at the time on television. Yeah. But MASH was holding a mirror up. That's pretty political, MASH.

Holding a mirror up to the Vietnam War whilst being in the Korean War. So you could say that's pretty. And then you could say. Well, think about that. I haven't seen any TV shows about any worse. Yeah, yeah. So maybe you're right.

Because they also dealt with. So, okay. So you had white families on TV. Then you had like the Jeffersons. And then you had Good Times. That sort of then you had like the Jeffersons and then you had Good Times and all that sort of stuff. People like the Jeffersons because Norman Lear had the Black Panthers came and saw him and they said, we're sick and tired of seeing black families on TV who are only poor.

We want to see a family doing well. And that's why the Jeffersons were made. And then, you know, obviously the Cosby Show was another thing. Also, they never. But that's more, I guess, race is a political thing, I guess, you know, so. So we didn't answer that question. No, I'll say they were more societally driven back in the day

than they are now. This is a question from Tim. Have you ever heard of the television show The Latents? The Latents? It may not have gotten to Australia. I've never heard of The Latents. I don't mean that as a serious thing. It's okay if you haven't heard of it.

And this is a question for everybody listening too because Tim wants to know if people have heard of The Latents. So let us know if you have in the comments. No, but you have to understand that when you grew up in Australia, you have to understand it. When you grew up in Australia, it have to understand, when you grew up in Australia, it's not like growing up in Australia now where you go, we've got cable and all that type of stuff.

I didn't know what Saturday Night Live was, so I just saw Wayne's World as its own thing, right? We never got an HBO comedy special, so we only ever had our local comedians. The first long special I saw was Eddie Murphy bringing out a Betamax video of Delirious, right? So there's things that we just culturally missed out on. You know, I never saw a late night Tonight Show or anything like that.

You're reading into that question wrong. I think Tim just wants to know if we've heard of it. We'll get to it. I've never heard of the latencies, but it may not have gotten to Australia. I don't think anyone's heard of it here, so we'll get to it. All right. How did Jim do in his knowledge of the history of television? I think't think anyone's heard of it here. So we'll get to it. All right. How did Jim do in his knowledge of history

of television? I think I got some years wrong. You want a rating from one to ten? Ten's the best. Yep. Well, I want to be generous. So I would say two. All right. Wow. That was a total misdirect.

I was like, no, don't be generous. That's a Nielsen writing of one. Holy shit. He was very good on the shows by decade. Yeah, that was pretty good. Pretty much everything else is off by 10 years, 30 years. You know, you were there. And I understand you grew up on a different continent.

Yeah. You missed two of the three inventors of television but you kept the Scotsman yeah, Logie Logie how'd he do in confidence? probably four wow, six

I thought he was really confident I could tell that he was like just saying things I'm going to appreciate it tell you TV it's like I like cars I don't build the fucking things Tim I don't want you to have VD so I'm going to give you a 6

habits company alright so then when was TV invented and by who I guess because Jim said Logie in the early 50s. It's usually credited to three people. It was different pieces of it were developed by different scientists, basically. They all competed with each other, too.

Vladimir Zworkin, who was a Russian immigrant to the United States, got the first patent in 1923 for essentially the TV camera. But there was this farm boy from the Midwest who was only a teenager at the time, named Philo Farnsworth, who was his great rival. And over the years, it used to be, Zorkin up here is the great inventor, and Philo is kind of the little dog nipping at his heels. It's kind of reversed over the years because we like the little guy, you know, who takes down the big guy.

So Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Sworkin, and the third one is usually your boy, John Logie Baird. I like what you just invented. Make it into a box. Well, two of them have really cool names. I mean, Philo Farnsworth, John Logie Baird. I mean, come on. Did you know the awards in Australia were called the Logies? Yes.

That's the only way I know. It's a very piss-weak award show, but I hope to win one one day. So I'm saying. Wait, it's John Logie Baird? Baird, B-A-I-R-D. Oh, do you think Yogi bear was named after Logie bed? I think Yogi bear or headboard.

Oh yeah. There's too many people with that name. It seems a bit stupid. Too many. You think you're being original. I've got a good name here. No one will ever have this one. Logie Bearer.

And so they invented it. They came up with the actual television, right? Well, there were antecedents back in the 1800s. But, yeah, it really started to come together in the 1920s, basically. But the TVs at that time, like, transmitted a shadow. You know, one of them just transmitted a straight line across the middle of the screen. Can you imagine sitting at home, turning on your TV, and all you get is a straight line across the middle of the screen? Did you get audio or anything, or was it just a straight line and people that blew their minds?

Probably, yeah. No, it was radio with pictures, because they knew about radio then. In the 30s, there was a lot in the press about TV's coming, TV's coming. Well, the Depression came instead. And so not much happened during the 30s until the very end of the decade. The first president on TV, incumbent president, was Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 at the World's Fair. So we're a little bit off there. You were very confident on that one. You're like, I got that one right.

Very confident with the guy before Kennedy. He's saying, I'm saying to the masses, right? Roosevelt was on one TV where they all went, ooh. They all had to shop and buy tickets to fucking see him on TV. Like, no, no, no. Regular telly.

It was about to take off, actually, in 1939. That's when you had the first regular broadcast. But then we got occupied in something else, go World War II. So that post stopped everything for a while. Were there people who pushed against the television, like, oh, we don't need this technology, it's stupid? There were always people like that, always people like that.

But there was a lot of enthusiasm because it was seen as an extension of radio and they all knew what radio was. And were people worried it would rot the children's minds? Because I have a child now and I remember when I was young, you're watching too much TV, you're watching too much TV. I reprimand my son now, you don't need to have three devices on. Two is plenty. Let me switch his iPad.

Let me watch his iPad switch and his own show up there. And I'm like, and then I get him down to just watching telly. I'm like, oh, good parenting. And people wonder, like they're always like, and now everybody has ADHD, this is a scam. It's like, well, we've all been like, I'm sure tv and internet and all that stuff had a lot to do with that concentration but they would have pushed back against the radio you listen to that rubbish it'll rot your mind why listen when you can read yeah i used to like it back in the day when you when you were listening

to the baseball there's just that bit of ticker tape that came through. You go, oh, that was good. There was more pushback against radio, actually, when it started in the early 1920s as being it's got to rot minds and things like that. But TV was like, by the time TV came along, they'd already accepted radio, so it was going to be the better form of radio. And they thought it was going to be educational and stuff. That didn't turn out to be true.

I pushed back against the curved TV. Remember that eight years ago when we were all getting these TVs that came out of your wall and curved and we were told it was better. Yeah, because you could see it from any angle. It looks the same. Fuck off curved TV. We had to go. Same with 3D TV.

We don't want you in our home. What is, okay, so the 30s, the television, and then what is a mechanical television? The very first TV sets had mechanical parts. They had like a spinning disc inside the TV set, going around real fast. And the disc had little pinholes in it. And because of the way it spun, and I can't, and I don't want to be overly technical on this,

it would pick up different parts of the picture. It had to be synchronized perfectly with another spinning disc in your TV set, 50 miles away, spinning too. That obviously didn't work too well. And so electronic TV, which is all electronic, came along just a few years later in the late 20s. Oh, I used to love it. We used to have the antenna on top of the television.

We used to have to adjust it. The rabbit ears, yeah. And then you'd have one, but don't move! It was the fucking shit, man. You had to fight for your viewing. You had to really want it. At the end of it, you felt like you earned it. So mechanical TV, electronic TV came in in the 20s is what you're saying.

That's when that's right. That's right. That's right. Did you have to wind it up or anything? Or like, I'm serious. Was it like a record? That was a record player. She had not the TVs, but still it had to be synchronized with a master TV. The mechanical one you're saying, is that what you're saying? Is that like, yeah, the, the, the broadcasting disc and the receiving disc all had to be, you know, didn't work too well. They actually made those up until the 40s.

CBS stayed out of network broadcasting because they were trying to push mechanical TV as late as 1948. And RCA, NBC, was pushing the electronic version of it. NBC did something very smart. They said, okay, we've got this competing system. CBS is a big company. They're pushing their system. What can we do to make people flock over to ours? I know.

We'll put the World Series on television. Oh, yeah. In 1947, it was the first World Series, and it was on NBC. Everybody rushed out to their dealers. They wanted to get a set. And CBS said, uh-oh, game over. You know what job doesn't exist anymore? TV repair guy.

When I was a kid, there was a bloke that used to come over once a month and put a new bulb or some shit in there and open up the back. And as a kid, I was fascinated because he'd open it up and all the wires and stuff. But I don't think there's anyone who does that anymore. They still have those shops in random strip malls that it's like vacuum repair or VCR repair. And I'm like, are these money laundering companies?

Because I don't understand. They also change watch batteries. It doesn't seem like there'd be a lot of business there. I've always thought that's a weird job. It's like the guy who cuts keys also fixes shoes and changes watch batteries? It doesn't seem like there'd be a lot of business there. I've always thought that's a weird job. It's like the guy who cuts keys also fixes shoes and changes watch batteries. They're the Yamaha of small stores. He probably just kept having to expand. There's a whole world of people who fix old TVs or collectors of old TVs. And they largely use

original tubes which haven't been used yet. So over time it's getting harder and harder to, to fix old TVs because they're running out of tubes. Yeah. I have a, I just got the biggest TV I've ever owned and it's, I can carry it by myself. No problem.

It's a huge TV. And I used to have a 32 inch tube TV. And the pick that up was like, you needed a friend to get that. You pick it up. It was just like a fork laid so much. That's why I never had one of those. And it costs a lot too.

So I imagine those first TVs cost a lot in the forties. And Oh yeah. And you know what the first big screen TV was? How big the screen was? 20, 20 inches. No, about 10 actually.

10 inches. That's huge. Big screen. Big screen. That's about 10, actually. That's huge! Big screen! Big screen! That's like a movie theater. It's like you're in there. Whoa, the sound! Wow.

When did the first television stations start appearing in America? Jim said 1952. Well, he's off by a couple generations there. There were experimental stations starting in the early 30s and commercial stations starting in 1941 okay so

I heard that Australia was one of the first countries to get it because of the Olympics in the 50s did I just hear that wrong or is Australia like the last place to get it more toward the latter, I think. The BBC in England was like 1936 and they were broadcasting before World War II.

That's what they told you in Australia. Australia just thought they were first. We couldn't find out. We had no TV. No internet. You guys are the first ones. We didn't know airplane travel wasn't even happening for the masses. We had to get on a boat for two weeks to find out, what the fuck?

We can fly? You got on a boat, you went to go, we got TV. Yeah, we've had that for 40 years. We used to have told New Zealand about TV. That's funny. And so the public was able to purchase television sets for their homes. Jim said 52, so he was off on that as well, right? Yeah, 1938 was that first Dumont set.

Do you ever hear of the Dumont Television Network? No. That was the fourth network in the 1940s and 50s. CBS, NBC, ABC, which was struggling, and Dumont. And so what was one of these 10-inch screens, these big mega TVs, what did they cost in today's money ballpark? Oh, probably $1,000 maybe. Oh, I thought they were going to be more expensive

because I remember TVs have come down so much in price now, but I remember the first time I got a big flat screen type of TV, it cost me in today's money, maybe 15 grand. You know what I mean? When I got my first on-the-wall plasma. Like a big Pioneer or something? No, the reason people didn't buy them was because there was nothing to watch. I mean, the stations weren't up yet. It was a lie.

Regular series like your series weren't on yet. I mean, they got away for you, right? Yeah, that's why it legit got no ratings. Just ahead of its time. It was on 1939. And it was in color. People couldn't see it. Now it was meant to be seen.

Widescreen. Half of me wasn't on the screen at all. And then color television, Jim, so 1974 what was that well actually uh your your friend john logee baird introduced color television in 1928 i believe but but again it didn't work too well uh and it it went to the masses uh in the early 50s and then built up until the mid-60s when it became universal. But were there many TV shows that were in colour in the early 50s? Oh, anybody who grew up in America in those years remembers Bonanza,

the Western, which would always open with this peacock saying, the following programme is brought to you in living color by NBC. And the peacock would open with all the colors on it. In living color. Yeah. So then some state, so you'd be watching TV and then your one show would be in color and the next one would be in black and white.

It's funny. It's like, I always think like, how did that blow anyone's mind? Of course that was the progression. Eventually it would be in color. We watch like that, but I'll tell you what I saw mobile phones for years after leaving school and before becoming a comedian that

was my part-time job i always went back to and i worked with this bloke and he sold mobile phones and we had siemens brought out a phone that had color right it wasn't it was just color font you could change it to pink your font or whatever. Everything before that was green type of font or gray. In the 1950s, they would sell you a little transparent screen you could put over your screen. It would turn everything green or blue and say, color TV. The guy said to me, he goes, eventually we'll just be watching our televisions on our phone.

And I thought this guy's out of his fucking mind. And that guy was Steve Jobs. No, a fella called Udi. Udi. He was all right. Yeah. He created Quibi. Yeah. He's Quibi.

He's a little joke, but his name was Udi. And I used to listen to him on the phone next to me all the time. And he used to go, when you come into the store, my name's Udi, spelled Yu-d-y right and i used to look at him and go why yudi why that was a bit of fun he didn't get it the the laugh track uh jim said that might have been there from the beginning because it came from radio possibly in the 60s like how did that come about when was it one of your predecessors uh as a comic was a guy named hank mccune that you've never heard of him but in the early are you still geeking in the i don't i doubt it in the early 50s he had a show called naturally the hank mccune show uh and it a laugh track, meaning a pre-recorded track of the audience laughing, 1950, the year 1950.

Right. We had, on the Jim Jefferies show, we had people laughing. There was an actual studio audience. We always got accused constantly of adding a laugh track. All those laughs were 100% genuine. They were sitting in the crowd. And so when did they start bringing in live audiences to watch TV shows, or was that from day one?

From day one, basically. And the problem was that the audiences would get so into the show and so loud that people would think it was being amplified or something like that. I think Norman Lear actually had his microphones above the audience on some kind of a boom so he could raise it further away from the audience as the show went on so you know it would be further away from these people who are in hysterics at the show he was putting on

i've met norman lee i've had lunch with norman lee before he's a very nice man and like obviously a a Mount Rushmore of television. You know, he's an amazing guy. But, like, a lot of his shows were just – okay, so when you go – so you've got the British office, the American office, right? Did you, as Americans, know that you were often getting given shows that were just remakes?

Like, so Stanford and Son versus Step So and Son, Till Death Do Us Part, Archie Bunker. Did you know that these were shows that were brought across? Because with the internet now, everyone knows sitcoms from other countries. Or was that just sold to the American public as this is a new idea? The public has no idea. Critics know, people into television know in the inside, but no, the public neither knows nor cares. Now, this is the thing with TV networks, right? So TV networks all throughout time, they're very unoriginal people.

So if there's one idea, they do another idea. So you have the Addams Family, then you go, well, you have to have the Munsters, right? You have Petticoat Junction, we'll have the Beverly Hillbillies. Right up until the 80s when they had different strokes and they had a small African-American child who couldn't grow anymore and then some TV executive goes, find me one of those and we get Webster. Like, fuck me. Like the most unoriginal people in the world, TV executives.

Webster's still alive, though. He lasted. He's getting the test of time, Emanuel Lewis, TV executives. Webster's still alive, though. He lasted. He's getting the test of time. Emmanuel Lewis. Someone give fucking Webster a new show. That guy, everyone likes a comeback. Yeah. Hashtag Webster new show.

Don't make it Webster, because they just put out a Punky Brewster show, and it's like, well, people don't remember Punky Brewster as much. No, Jim gets a 10 on that one. That's exactly how it works inside the networks. This is working duplicated a million times but that one the webster gary coleman one that's like wow you're not even trying to hide it wow did commercials always exist uh jim says started with product placement colgate comedy hour and stuff so you're saying they did always exist or did they always exist in television? No, the first commercial station that is with commercials on it was 1941.

It's a special license. And they had commercials. They were done live usually on the shows. And sometimes, you know, Arthur Godfrey and his Lipton tea or something, he'd go on for two or three minutes about how wonderful this tea was. And that wasn't a very efficient use of time. So eventually they started filming commercials and making them shorter. It did seem like, especially on American TV, when you watch the old footage, like Captain Kangaroo brought to you by,

and they did all that type of stuff. But I remember being a kid in Australia and the adverts were like this, Marlborough cigarettes. Want to look cool as fuck. Yeah. Yeah. The ad agency is actually produced on the shows. My favorite was the gas company playhouse.

I'd like to watch that. What was that? What's that smell? Why is mom and dad passed out? They, uh, yeah. I've mentioned this before. What's that smell? Why has mom and dad passed out? I've mentioned this before. I reckon that the biggest failure on TV, and I've mentioned this on other things,

and if you want to Google it when you get home, and you may not have seen this, mate, but check this out. It's on the internet. It was on after Dad's Army, the BBC commissioned this. It had one episode and then it was pulled from the air. It was a multi-cam sitcom called Heil Honey, I'm Home. Oh, yeah. You told me to look that up. Yeah, and it was a sitcom about Hitler living next door

to a Jewish family. It's The Honeymooners, basically. And he came in this door and he went, Heil Honey, I'm Home, like that, right? And then Ava Brown was like this, oh, Hitler, you'll be the death of me, like this, right? Oh, Ava Brown was like this, oh, Hitler, you'll be the death of me. Like this, right? Oh, the Rubenstein's next door.

Why are you on her? Like that. It's worth a watch. It's the only... Okay, it's one of those TV things where you go, and my sitcom couldn't get made. I couldn't get the Jeffrey show on the fucking air. It couldn't get made.

You were born in the wrong time. Someone made Heil Honey, I'm home. Watching it, you know, it's like it's... They know know exactly what to do it's a very self-aware show we're like yeah i don't think this is this this works have you ever seen harl honey i'm home yeah i did actually i think i think i had nothing to do with it um and the the ad thing is funny too because I mean just literally

a couple days ago somebody wrote to me like too many too many fucking ads they wrote for our podcast we're the easiest thing to fast forward

and I also was like how do you want us to pay for this thing this costs a lot of money for us to put on we break even

on this podcast those ad reads are just a bit of fun. We've been doing this for a year and a half. We've paid about a couple thousand dollars. I put my best effort in to make them entertaining. I know that that discount's the right discount. I'm being silly.

What are minstrel shows? Yeah, you can talk about that. Did I not get that right? No, I think you did, where people put on blackface and sing things like Mammy, Al Jolson. Yeah, the Mitzvah show actually started in the 1840s on stage. And what it was was a group of actors on the stage, maybe 10 later on. That could be 40 or 50, all on the stage at once, all sitting in little seats, all holding tambourines and laughing.

And people would come up out of that group and sing a song, sit down, usually an upbeat song, or tell jokes. And the principal joke tellers were the two that were sitting on the ends of this line of actors. They were called the end men. And they're the ones that usually wore blackface. They were called the N-Men, and they're the ones that usually wore blackface, white actors with black makeup on, imitating African-Americans and portraying them pretty negatively. Although it was never a political show. It's interesting about that. Why did they do that? Was it just seen as that was entertaining, or you said there's no political basis behind it so i'm trying to put my mind into the 1940s or the 1920s or whatever like it's okay so what was the impetus

for doing the black base they just thought it was funny put your mind in the 1840s okay all right the 1840s most most people most most white people had never met a black man. They lived in the North or something like that, or they were the other. They were either slaves or they were in their own communities and things like that. So they were kind of an exotic other, so to speak. And some of them were well-educated, but a lot of them weren't because they couldn't go to school. If they were slaves, they couldn't read or write or that kind of thing. So it was like taking an other.

It could be a Chinese person or it could be an Italian, almost any immigrant group, but they, blackface had been something used on stage before. I mean, Othello, I mean, Shakespeare used blackface in his plays. So it was this exotic person basically telling the jokes, a comic exotic person. And I don't mean that it wasn't racist. It was, obviously. It was of its time and they didn't see. Yeah, in fact... Halloween must have been a doozy back then.

There's a book about this written about 20 years ago called Love and Theft. Not my book. It's somebody else wrote it. And I remember somebody picking it up and saying, I get the theft. What's the love in a menstrual show? that these were the first people, these actors and producers, were the first people to actually go out and listen to African-American music and import that onto the stage in front of a big audience. Before that, you'd never see a Black on stage. There was no career for them.

There was no chance for them to do anything. So what happened? Blacks started putting on their own minstrel shows. And there was a whole wave of shows put on by authentic african-americans using this format that had been uh by them and that led to bessie smith and all the jazz people of the 20s and 30s and it feels like up until recently that was still kind of the case where um any minority group that was portrayed on TV or movies was portrayed as this caricature of what white people assumed they would be like. And so I think we were talking yesterday about representation and why it matters so much to get those minority groups into the writer's room and creating and doing all that stuff,

because their stories are so much more full than this one role that they've played throughout history. Oh, sorry. I was going to go. The Irish, Jews, I mean, any minority group was lampooned mercilessly. Right. Back in the 1800s. Was that because the Irish is stupid? That's what they thought.

But then they all became policemen and you got to be better respectful do you have to um back then yeah cable television uh jim said late 80s 1987 okay a quick question before that what's the difference between cable tv and satellite tv because we i'll bring up australia again i assume the reason that we didn't get TV programs is because they were all on film and we had to get the film delivered to us before you could put it onto the actual television, you know. But, you know, so you've got like Elvis Presley does Hawaii and that was like the first thing where it was satellite

and you're going to stream it. You're all going to see it in real time all at once and all that all at once. So is satellite just direct and cable and actually involves cables? And then answer the Forrest question as well. Yes, yes. Basically, cable is a physical cable that comes into your home. This little thing that comes through the wall, you plug your TV into that and voila, you get all these channels. Satellite means you've got to have a dish on top of your home,

point it up to the sky at the right place, and you're getting a signal from there. So how did people get Elvis then back then? They didn't have satellites on their TV. So some bigger satellite got it, then it went through the cable and then it got to us? Yeah. All right.

Technology. It went over NBC, I think, on their traditional network and other networks in other countries, probably even Australia. Did it on, what, seven is your big network? Seven, nine, and ten are the big ones, yeah. I'm trying to do a deal with one of them right now. Why wouldn't it just be one, two, three? We don't need your kind coming over to Australia

and saying stupid things like that. Yeah. Now, cable TV started as community antenna TV in the 50s because people put their rabbit ears up or their antenna on their roof and they couldn't get a signal. They were too far away from the city. So people started, businessmen, local TV dealers sometimes started running cables from an antenna on the top of the mountain or the nearest hill down into the town and selling that so it's just a way to get a signal basically people have always wanted to see other cultures and talk to us i had a cousin and

he's still alive and um i have my my cousin paul and he had a CB radio in his bedroom, and I thought, that guy's fucking connected, man. And he's like 16. He'd go back to his room and go, hey, breaker, breaker, and talk to some trucker for 20 minutes. And I thought, that guy's living. What was considered the golden age of television, Jim, said 65 to 75.

Oh, perfect. I think you should go back and give me an extra point, mate. I'll tell you what. He's been wrong on everything. He's got a theory on the golden age. I got Logie. I got Golden Age. I got all the TVs in the decade.

Logie wasn't even the third most important. I was a solid three. Fair. We'll give you the three. I'll give you another point. There you go. No, you tell me somebody's age, and I'll tell you when they think the golden age was. It's whenever they were young, whenever they were growing up.

So if you were becoming of age in the 90s, then Friends and Home Improvement, those are your golden age shows. If you grew up in the 60s, it's the Beverly Hillbillies, Smothers Brothers, or whatever you were growing up to there. It's very much linked to when your youth was. That's everybody's golden age. So there's no general consensus in the industry that like, because I saw something somewhere saying the 50s was the golden age, and maybe that was because, you know, I Love Lucy and those types,

like things like that were starting to develop more seriously there's but basically you're saying right now everybody's golden age is different right yeah exactly and uh there are people who feel that today is the golden age because there's so much choice i think i think the drama is definitely now is the golden age well there was i think i don't think for sitcoms though i think sitcoms peaked in the 80s and the 90s really for quality or even back further. But I remember my big show was The A-Team as a kid and then I thought to myself, I thought, I'll show my son because The A-Team's on Peacock,

right, it's just sitting there. So I started watching The A-Team by myself. And then I said, come and check this out. And he's like, Dad, this show's very boring. And I'm like, no, it's good. They've fucking escaped to the L.A. Underground, you fucking idiot. Look, Hannibal has to get into his disguise to meet this guy.

And I go, look, they've locked them up in a prison cell with a welder and a car and all these different metals. Why would they do that? What about Knight Rider with a car? I like Knight Rider, but then I had an incident with David Hasselhoff, so I'm not as – David Hasselhoff threatened me out the front of a trailer once because I bloody said something stupid. What is it?

Is he six and a half feet tall? He's a nice enough bloke. No, he's all right, David. Oh, he's all right. I Love Lucy ranked number one for how many of its first six seasons? Jim said five. Close. It's four. Its first season, it was number three or something. Then it was number one. But then it got knocked off in the 55 season by a show called the 64 000 uh question which was a huge sensation at the time was that like the first game show uh first big money game show first big money game show where they could uh well 64 000 was an enormous amount of money, that kind of thing, until they found out they were all rigged.

They all went away. But for about four or five years there in the late 50s, these big money quiz shows were big, and it actually knocked off I Love Lucy for one year. I love game shows, me. I'll watch any game shows. I'll watch game shows like an old person. I've been loving The Hustler lately.

Oh, I love The Hustler. Love The Hustler. I always think I know who it is. I'm dumb as fuck. old person. I've been loving The Hustler lately. Oh, I love The Hustler. Love The Hustler. I always think I know who it is. I'm dumb as fuck. Me too. I never know. I love The Hustler. I like The Chase.

I love The Chase, yeah. I watch The Australian Chase, The British Chase, and The American Chase, and I sit there with my wife, and I act like she enjoys it as well. I'm like, go on, try to beat me. Like that, right? And I do the quiz really fast, and she's like, okay. I think she's appeasing me when when did wait i have a question about i love lucy because i was listening to i think npr or someone day and they said that desi arnaz invented a lot

of different things in television where it was like the the uh syndication or reruns and then something like like he he came up with that idea to do that? I don't know. They said that he was responsible for a lot of things. First of all, let's just give credit for an interracial marriage at that stage on TV. It was pretty fucking wild. Yeah. No, it was.

That's one of the things. I mean, a Hispanic husband on television in 1951, that was revolutionary at the time. And she's a very good comic. I mean, a Hispanic husband on television in 1951. That was revolutionary at the time. And she's a very good comic. I mean, go on. Yeah. And the other actors that were with him, William Frawley. I mean, they were character actors, but they were very good, too.

So it was a very well-cast show. But it was filmed where most sitcoms were live at the time, including the infamous Layton's, which I'll get to. And because it was filmed, then they could syndicate it afterwards. I mean, that was new at the time. So the fact that he insisted on it being filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood in 1951, where everybody else was live, and they wanted him to be live too on the show was quite forward looking

did they film I Love Lucy on our own? yeah they did on the lot it was called Hollywood Center Studios and now it's like Sunset Las Palmas but there's plaque there I Love Lucy, Mr. Ed, The Cosby Show our sound stage was Mr. Ed

Mr. Ed was shot where Jim's Comedy Central was shot. It also wasn't called Hollywood Center when they were doing it. It went through like five name changes, that place. But it was cool. There was a ton of history there, yeah. Fresh Prince was there. Was it? Oh, I didn't know that.

La La Land for one scene. Was there anything left from Mr. Ed? Any centers? Well, I had the same dressing room as Bill Cosby did and one time I just lifted up one of the vents and all these quaaludes fell down. That's why he was always sleeping in his office.

And I was like, that's where I put him. On the outside of our soundstage there was a big poster of Wilbur and Mr. Ed. Yeah. They'd had the posters of the stuff there. There was a plaque for I Love Lucy. I know that.

That's what they did at midnight. It was that same one. Like I said, I Love Lucy shot there. So that was pretty cool. If you watch I Love Lucy now, though, it holds up. It definitely does. It holds up. She's a great physical comedian.

Just put her just put her in a factory line having to do a job that can mess up yeah and just roll the camera all right these eggs keep coming she has to put them in boxes yeah i remember really loving i haven't watched in a while but i think it would hold up golden girls holds up still golden girl still holds up that's an 80s thing the golden girls still holds up although it's one of those thing. The Golden Girls still holds up. Although it's one of those ones where you look at the age of all the actors and you're like, so

Rue McCallaghan was 50? Fuck me. Alright, she's done with life. Aging looks different now. Jax, I mean, I'm a big fan of Cheers. I love Cheers. I watch Cheers on the road. At least one or two episodes a week I watch Cheers. It's arguably one

of the best pilots of all time. Fantastic TV show and it rated terribly, terribly, terribly for a few years and then it just hit and then people caught onto it and they don't give TV time to breathe like that anymore. They just cancel you straight away. But Jack sent me a thing of the original cast members

or the cast members of Cheers on the pilot episode, what age they were it's horrifying they're all in their 30s norman fucking norman fucking they're all like like coach was like 42 i thought he was like 70 no he's like 60 or something like that but everyone's like very young where you're like, oh, my God. Was the sun worse back then? Yeah, because like I'm 35. Okay, so Rhea Perlman was 34.

Oh, no. Ted Danson was 34. Shelley Long was 33. Norm was 34 and Cliff was 35. They're all my age. I'm a decade too old to be a cast member in Cheers Wow

That's what drinking does to you kids You don't want to drink in a pub every single day Just when you look at it 58 coach Coach was 58 but holy fuck that was a hard It was also like Ted Danceon was an old ball player.

He was 34. You still got a big contract ahead of you. He had an injury. No, no. He stopped. It was the boot. It was because he was an alcoholic and he used to fuck up. But he wasn't boozing anymore.

Get back in the game. I know Tom Brady is 40, whatever. Tom Brady just said today he's going to play until he's 50. He said, I live in Florida. I'll play until I'm 50 because I'll slip into retirement very easily. That's what he said. What is vaudeo? He said visual audio.

Is that correct? Yeah, I should have gotten a point for that, surely. Actually, that's a mix of vaudeville and video. Vaudeville and video. Vaudeville was, you probably never saw a vaudeville show, but vaudeville was a succession of acts. We talked about vaudeville on our last podcast. We did musical theater.

Vaudeville has been coming up a lot for us. And that's really what the Milton Berle show was, the Mexico Star Theater, even Ed Sullivan, for that matter. It was just disconnected acts, one after the other after the other. And by the way, the, even Ed Sullivan, for that matter. It was just disconnected acts, one after the other after the other. And by the way, the reason that Ed Sullivan did so well was he was so stiff that you had to believe he had some ability to get these big acts on, you know, because it obviously wasn't him that we were watching for. It was the Beatles or Elvis or whoever he was able to put on. And he was very broad and he would have Elvis or whoever was controversial at

the time too. So he had a great Rolodex as I used to say. Yeah, but it wasn't him. It would have been, been his bookers, right? Wow.

No, it was him. He was, he was originally a Broadway columnist. So he knew everybody in the business. Oh, it was back then. They probably didn't have as big a staff back then.

It was probably like, I don't think they had special bookers. Back then, they probably didn't have as big a staff back then. It was probably like, yeah, I know some guys. I don't think they had special bookers. No, and if they didn't answer his call, he'd trash them in his column in the New York newspapers, you see. So they all answered his call. Brilliant. Wow. Blackmail.

I always read a statistic, and I hope it's true, but when the Beatles were on the Ed Sutherland show, that amount of time the show was on was the lowest rate of crime in American history for that hour. It was the lowest rate because even the criminals were at home watching the telly, and also everyone was home, so no one was going to rob anyone in their house. It was the lowest reported crime was that hour.

Have you ever heard of the flushometer index? I have not. That's an alternative to Nielsen. It's a way to measure audiences because when the water pressure goes down in a city, that means everybody is flushing, right? That's what you did during the commercials. So you can actually trace. They did this during I Love Lucy. You can actually trace the maximum audience where the water pressure is normal and then it plunges

oh that's going to be the commercial and then it goes back up again. That's not that accurate though because I only flash after my second shit because I'm an environmentalist yeah first president you already said was Roosevelt and then

FCC Jim said handles censorship, et cetera. I got that right, at least. Yeah. That's one of your points. Well, that's the Federal Communications Commission that assigns frequencies. I have a bit of an issue with like, okay, so now we've got cancel culture and there's been some TV shows that were canceled for saying certain words

or certain looks that they had on the screen. This is not acceptable or whatever. And a lot of the networks came out with like, oh, no, we can't believe that blah, blah, blah. This doesn't represent us. Well, it does because every joke you see on TV, whenever we got complaints on any of our shows about jokes, it had to get through so many fucking people yeah before

we could tell that joke right it had to get through lawyers it had to get through the head of the network it had to get through everything standards and practices standards and practices and we had to we did a thing on the jeffrey show which i'm sure a lot of people do we did i definitely did it on legit where you'd put in if you had a real racy joke in there, you put three other racy jokes in so you can negotiate to get the joke that you wanted. You go, all right, if you give me this one, I'll get rid of the other three. And so it was a game that you played with each episode. Yeah.

Popular show in each of the decades. So Jim got this right. I could think I could do more in each decade. Well, I mean, let's say in the 90s maybe, you know, and I'm sure Tim would know some more obscure ones that we wouldn't remember, but Friends you said for the 90s. Yeah. Yeah, but then you've got Frasier for the 90s as well.

You've got Seinfeld was a bigger show than Friends in the 90s because Friends trickled over into the 2000s because you always remember, like, in those early episodes, they did the skyline shots that had 9-11, the Twin Towers in there all the time, and then they just didn't mention it. There was never that episode. The one where the Twin Towers came down. Yeah, yeah.

Well covered in soot. Yeah, the one where Chandler had to get out of his office really quick. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they just didn't mention it because it's a sitcom and all that stuff. But Seinfeld was arguably a bigger sitcom and had a bigger – what was bigger, Seinfeld or Friends? Friends. Friends?

Friends was bigger. Yeah, it took – well, Seinfeld was number one for a season at some point. It took a while to get off the ground. Yeah. It was so different from everything. But it eventually – but Friends was a hit from the beginning. What about ER, all those dreamboat doctors.

Oh yeah. Roseanne was a big show of the nineties. That was a very popular sitcom. I don't remember. I don't think I watched a lot of TV then as much as I did in the eighties. I watched more TV in the eighties when I was a kid than the nineties. Cause the facts of life, facts of life,

different strokes. I remember a silver spoons, silver spoons, greatest American hero. That's an eighties guy. So remember Silver Spoons. Greatest American Hero. That's an 80s, Greatest American Hero. Whatever happened to Small Wonder, which was just a robot kid.

They had a robot in the family. What? How the fuck did Jeffrey's not get made? It does my head in every bloody day. Or like Alf. Alf was great. Alf was great. That's Scott's favorite show from childhood. Didn't everyone hate each other in ALF, Tim? Wasn't that the famous thing, Tim, where everybody...

Those weren't the biggest hits of the 80s, though. Dallas and Dynasty. Oh, yeah. Dallas was very big. Did we always have soap operas in the middle of the day? Was that always a thing? Or did that happen in the 70s? Because I feel like

that's been forever. It goes back to the 50s yeah some might consider forever and it was on radio before then during the during the day if you watch like in britain they have coronation street and eastenders and these are the two soap operas that everyone watches and at christmas you're all going to talk about the big finale i used to find them bloody boring whenever i heard the the coronation theme song my body would just shut down like ah fuck like that right but that show's so fucking old that there's an actor on that show who was like a five-year-old when it started he's like a 60-year-old man he's just never he's just never gone off to do another fucking job he's just like nah i'm good here on Corrie.

Here's a question. So the Addams Family and the Munsters, what decade was that? And then... Why haven't they remade those? You would think that Munsters... They tried to remake the Munsters with Eddie Izzard playing Grandpa and all that type of stuff. They tried to remake it and then the network balked on it and they just brought

out a two-hour special of the episodes that they did do just as like a Christmas or Halloween Those were out at the same time in the 60s Tim? The Munsters? Yes, yeah they were simultaneously. That was one network copying the other network literally and they only ran for two years those two shows. Oh really? And those were like big social commentaries too right because that was essentially basically saying like, instead of using a black family to move in, they kind of dehumanize it and made it these monsters

so that people could see like the humanization of these people that are different than us or something like that. I mean, so that's why I put in the question, has TV gotten more or less political? Because a lot of people now are like, every TV show has some little angle that they're trying to push or some message that they're trying to push.

But really, it's been happening since the beginning of time. Well, the Smothers Brothers were pretty political in the late 60s. They got kicked off the air for it, as a matter of fact. They knee deep in the big muddy, their criticisms of the Vietnam War at the time. But there's more of it today. But I find that sometimes, okay, so I hate to harp on about myself, but I enjoy it. But like with the making of Legit,

we used probably more disabled actors than have ever been used in any show ever. In fact, I was told that by the agency I employed them from. But we did it to serve the story because we had a disabled character who was one of the main characters and you had to populate the world, et cetera, et cetera. But then after that, it became every interview I did about the show was about, did you do that to bring awareness to whatever?

And sometimes I'd say, I did. And then sometimes I'd go. Do I want the credit or not? It was a happy accident. I'm very glad I did it. I'm very proud of what we did there, but it was for no political purpose. No, but you took the disabled character to get laid for the first time in the first episode. In the first episode. Oh no, we had a lot of disabled people fucking in that show. We had one where Rodney was just having sex over a toilet with a prostitute.

It was out there. Have we talked about the Lytons yet? That's the last question. Yeah, right here. That's what I want to know, and I've been asking this question. Okay, just before we do this, just your top five sitcoms. I'll give you my top. Everyone throw in their top five or if they have different ones.

Number one, Quark. What? Quark. What's Quark? Quark. Richard Benjamin on a garbage scowl in the outer space. It's a takeoff on Star Trek, basically. And they're going where too many have gone before,

collecting all the garbage and stuff that all the enterprises and so forth have left behind. It was hilarious. It lasted for about six months. 98% of Google users liked this TV show. Wow, I've never heard of it. There you go. Is it streaming anywhere? I'm going to look that up later. I'm watching Quark. It was on NBC. You might be able

to see it on Peacock. I'm going to check that out. They had Betty 1 and Betty 2, the two identical robot women on it. Yeah, and this to see it on Peacock. They had Betty 1 and Betty 2, the two identical robot women on it. Yeah, and this bikini, that's nice. Sounds hilarious. Yeah, that's number one. After that, it would be more traditional, probably.

Maybe MASH, maybe... You know, I think the Rockford Files was a sitcom in some ways. I used to watch it with my grandmother, but I didn't think it was funny when I was a kid. I used to be like, man, Rockford finals are on. He had such a laid-back sense of humor about things.

She would be laughing, actually. I remember my grandmother would be laughing. Then I would watch Barney... What was the name of that show? Barney Miller. Barney Miller. Barney Miller. The big purple dinosaur. I would say Seinfeld, MASH, Cheese, Barney Miller. Barney the big purple dinosaur. Yeah. Clean up.

I would say Seinfeld, MASH, Cheers. Let me think. Arrested Development. Arrested Development is a very good sitcom. How about Frasier? I like Frasier. I like Frasier. I always be playing Frasier.

Another great pilot. I have a book of scripts of Frasier scripts. And if you just read them, they're funny. Yeah. But it might be because, you know, the actors playing the characters, but it doesn't matter. The writing is so funny. I'll tell you, I know a little bit about sitcoms

because I've done work in sitcoms. It all comes down to fucking casting. You know what I mean? Like that Friends cast was fucking off the hook. It's like I Love Lucy. You said at the beginning, like Tim was was saying the casting was so perfect for it. You can have a great script. It'll be fucked up in casting in a second

with one split decision. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the Golden Girls too. I mean, the casting was immaculate. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's funny too,

that somebody put, I think it's on my Twitter. So somebody did a thread of all the guest appearances in Miami Vice. Did you see anyone see that? It was like all these huge actors had these roles in Miami Vice. And I remember Miami Vice, because I'm from Miami. I remember we had a real pride in that show because it was all shot in Miami. But it was a pretty dark show, the first three or four seasons.

And then I think at the end, they kind of got like really popular and they made it different. But that was a very popular show. Well, even the Golden Girls, there's some guests on there. I was watching an episode the other day, George Clooney, just hanging out. There's the one where Quentin Tarantino shows up as an Elvis impersonator. On the Golden Girls? On the Golden Girls, yeah. That was like his first, Tarantino wanted to be an actor and that was like his first

gig and then he like couldn't get any work. He was like, okay, I'll direct. You've seen the Golden Girls. I'll tell you another one that has a lot. I would put this sitcom, and if you watch it now, it could never get made. Never get made. Married With Children.

Oh, yeah. Married With Children is fucking funny, man. Just Google Psycho Dad, right? Married with children. That's a hell of a fun song that would never be allowed on TV right now. All right, so now it's the Leightons. We have to hear about the Leightons. Yes, okay.

I didn't know if anyone wanted to throw anything in there. Is there any sitcom that you want to throw? Cody Rock's my favorite. I like M.A.S.H. very much. I watch M.A.S watch MASH all the time, but I could get rid of one third of the episodes where it's just like, we're going to do

the black and white one where he writes a letter to his fucking dad. I'm like, God, do something where Klinger's trying to eat a Jeep. Like the heartfelt ones

you don't want. I don't like sincerity. Don't watch Ted Lasso. You're a third rock from the sun. 30 Rock. Oh, 30 Rock. 30 Rock. But Third Rock from the Sun was fantastic as well. Third Rock from the sun. 30 Rock. Oh, 30 Rock. 30 Rock.

But Third Rock from the Sun was fantastic as well. Third Rock from the Sun, yeah. Yeah, I found 30 Rock to be a little bit too goofy for me. I needed a little bit more heart in there. But it's a generational thing, I'm sure. I guess I... Well, I worked in that building, and it's perfect. Believe me, that show.

Oh, really? 30 Rock, yeah. That's what it's really like. Jim touched on it. Like dramas now, like there was a, there was a turning point where drama on TV was like, ah,

this is okay. And then it was like the movie actors moved to the TV screen and then that's a TV. And then, uh, and now it's like some of the best things I've ever seen. You would never have a movie star on TV. There was TV stars and there was movie stars.

When did that happen? When was that transition, Tim? 1955, the mid-50s. Because at the beginning, the movie studios wrote into their contracts that if you work for us as a movie actor, you can't appear on TV. They were afraid that TV was going to drive them out of business. No, but that's when it actually started happening. But when did it socially become like

where actors say, so George Pappard, who was on Breakfast in Tiffany's, he was always angry that he was on the A team because he felt like a failed movie star. But I think it started becoming movies to television. I'll tell you the moment in our life. 24, Keith Sutherland doing 24 was the moment where a movie star slipped over into a big blockbuster TV show. Because George Clooney was in ER before he became a movie star, and I don't think he's ever come back to television. But there's only now, there's probably 10 people you can count that are just movie stars

that will not do television. Yeah. It didn't become really cool until the 90s probably. There were separate awards called the Cable Ace Awards for the best cable original shows because the Emmys would not recognize cable. They would not give an award to somebody for cable programming until about 1990, I think. So it wasn't the cool thing to do.

But you started to have people love boat. I mean, shows like that. I love boat. Guest star list is fucking off the hook. Fantasy Island. That was the same thing. Oh, nonstop. Those shows were just like, I felt like vessels.

Well, no pun intended. But I felt like those were just like Fantasy Island and love boat. You're just like, all right, who famous is going to be on this? Just like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. The Latents. Well, The Latents was a half-hour sitcom in 1948. So seen only in the New York area, maybe Washington, a couple of other cities. But it's notable because it was the first show

starring black actors, African-American actors. But that's all I know about it. And for 30 years, I've been trying to find out more about it, articles about it. Somebody who actually saw it, they're dying off by now, I guess.

And like you, nobody's ever heard of it. How did you hear about it? You're just trying to get information from us. I thought you had the answer. Why would I know about that? I lost the point for that.

No, that wasn't in the point. How did you hear about it initially? It was reviewed in Variety. I went through all the old TV guides and Variety and Billboard and people who were writing about television back then. And so I know who was in it, and I know when it ran, and I know that it was, for a while, a network show. A network being like three stations at that time but that's all and in terms of what actually went on or what they did for a living that kind of stuff any of our east coast listeners comment if you have seen or heard of the latents all right

so this is part of the show called dinner party facts uh tim where we ask our guests to give our listeners something obscure or interesting that they probably don't know that they can use to impress people about this subject well let's see we've already used the laugh track one right what else can we talk about that's obscure oh when you mentioned that yesterday

did you want me to save that for that oops what about episode 6 of the Latins where John had two dates at the same time and he had the shop to a party he ran across the road you know if you don't know if you don't know what history was you make it up so yeah we can do that we could we could create our own latins i suppose mr ed was really talking just say that peanut butter they put peanut butter in his mouth if you've got a real horse in that studio i think

the horse on occasion might do something you don't want the horse to do right so i'm asking if you could smell anything in that studio and you used it we brought a camel we had a camel and set that just pissed itself or shit or something it didn't piss itself just pissed on the floor i didn't write character. I kept going. I wonder if the ghost of Mr. Ed made that happen. Every animal we had on Jim show and that same thing, shit or piss or both on the, including the employees,

dogs that were in the, Oh my God. There was a goat that shit. Yeah. Who was the character named Elvis on Miami vice? Oh, he would have been Elvis would have been an informant that they

went and saw every now and again. Wait, I didn't know Elvis. Oh, he was a huge rock star. No, no, no, come on. I don't remember. Was it just a pen? No, that was

one of the other cops. Was it an animal or a human? Oh, yeah. It was an animal. It's an animal. It was the alligator. The alligator. That's right. Just remember now, it was Don Johnson, a.k.a. Sonny Crockett.

And Tobbs. He lived on a sailboat, and he just had an alligator on the front of a sailboat. It wasn't even that big of a sailboat. It was like a 30-foot sailboat. He goes, yeah, I got an alligator that lives on the front of his sailboat. It wasn't even that big of a sailboat. It was like a 30-foot sailboat. He goes, yeah, I got an alligator that lives in the front of the sailboat. It just hangs out there. Hey, cool. What a weird thing.

I never really thought about how weird it was that he had a pet alligator on a sailboat until just now. All right. Well, thank you for being on the show, mate. Really appreciate it. Well, thank you for being on the show, mate. Really appreciate it. Yeah. If you want to find out anything more about television or read any of Tim's books,

go to timbrooks.net for all your information. All right. Thank you, Tim, for being on the podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever at a party and someone walks up to you and goes, I've watched an episode of The Laytons. Go, I don't know about that, and walk away. Good night, Australia.