September 23, 2025 • 43 mins
The 1990s were a time of chaos, aspiration, and, above all, ridiculous things. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max welcome returning guest Ross Benes, the author of 1999, for an in-depth exploration of talk shows, crime, transformative media and pop culture forensics. (Ben here: of course we get to films, video games and Juggalos.)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear if our super producer,
mister Max nineteen nineties Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Max, he loves the nineties, Williams. We all love it.
We lived the nineties. Yeah, mixed feelings about the nineties now.
I don't know, mainly good, mainly positive.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm still processing it. It's true, still too soon, still
take time. I beg, bullet, you're Noel Brown, and we
have we have long been mystified by the nineteen nineties
because it's something that is surprisingly long ago, but I
think still very present in culture today, like in cultural memory.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It left a mark, no question, it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Left a mark. It left some jinkos, it left there.
But they're expensive.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
They were expensive then. I mean, we can always round
the inflation calculator. But they were always a bit of
a luxury good. But yeah, the big floppy pants with
like built in chains and rings and stuff are like
hugely back with the Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, because they share that same cultural fascination with the
ridiculous history of.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
The nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's it's sort of the way I think maybe we
feel about the sixties or the seventies, where we're like
nostalgic for an era that we never lived through. And
that is, you know, with the Internet and with all
the information out there and the ability to deep dive
into all this stuff and the algorithms of music, et cetera,
it's like you can feel like you were there in
a way, and there is this built in nostalgia for
(01:59):
a time that these kids.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Had no participation in.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And that is an excellent setup for today's episode. We
are exploring the nineteen nineties, especially what people call low culture,
and we're not doing this alone, Noel, we have a
returning guest, the legendary author and journalist and researcher Ross Benish.
(02:28):
You have heard him on our earlier episode, Ridiculous History
of Sex.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Man so bun that I miss that I still don't
know anything about sex. I don't even know how it works.
That would have been mega educational for her. It's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You've You've read Ross's work in Entertainment weekly Esquire, You've
read him in Mental Floss, a personal favorite of Hours.
Pretty much any magazine or publication you can imagine. Ross
is also the author of nineteen ninety nine, The Year
Low Culture Conquered America and kick started our bizarre times. Ross,
(03:03):
welcome back to the show Man. Thanks for the second date.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Hey, it's good to be back. And uh, I wish
I was wearing Jinkos for this one. You guys got
me thinking about how much denim are in those pants.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I owned a Jinko, just one, just one Jinko, just
a single Jinko, and it was not even particularly floppy.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It was just like a gene really with a slightly
wide leg.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
With the tariffs though, in the amount of denim, I
could see the price rising.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh yeah, no, nostalgia tacks.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, that's a college.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah. The uh it's funny that we're mentioning owning one
pair of Jinkos or one Jinko, because I think for
a lot of children in the nineties that was a
that was a heady and heavy negotiation with the parentals.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You know what a creational Jinkos man it still is. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Uh, and Ross, we had such a We had such
a great time with you and our fellow ridiculous historians
getting into a very PG thirteen episode about sex history,
and you came to us and said, guys, what do
you think about the nineties, And we immediately again went
down the rabbit hole of nostalgia. We want to talk
(04:13):
about so much stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Nineties was all about sex, y'all.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Maybe we started this way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Ross.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
In your latest book, which was published just earlier this year,
you specifically call out the year nineteen ninety nine. Could
you tell us why and how you landed on that
date in particular?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Well, ninety nine is just sillier and more ridiculous than
the years around it, And part of that's because of
like Y two k P paranoia and all the silly
stunts that were done around the turn of the century.
But I feel like that era in general has been
really influential, Like the pop culture that was there has
influenced our society in a lot of strange ways that
(04:56):
we're going to dive into. But like, if you want
to write about something being over the top, ninety nine
is certainly more over the top than ninety eight or
oh one is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
It was the year of limp biscuit, it was the
year of voice Shock. Ninety nine. I mean, how much
more ridiculous than that does it gree now?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
This song about it?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Dude? Right? He was looking ahead for sure.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
So about the Prince song when it was New Year's
Day in nineteen ninety nine, like nineteen ninety eight, going
to nineteen ninety nine, MTV had Limp Biscuit playing that
song at midnight, you know, and they're not gonna have prints.
But like what's the sign of the times for nineteen
ninety nine, it's New Metal Baby.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Which is also back in a big way for better
or worse, largely worse. And I'm not quite sure if
people really like it or like it ironically. It's it's unclear.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
It doesn't matter as long as they're getting attention at
the spot.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And I say, whether or not you like something ironically,
at the end of the day, you'll just like it.
And something ironic eventually just becomes a thing that you dig,
you know, like you and Hobo Johnson a million for nine.
I never liked him ironically. I disliked him very genuinely.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I liked the insane clown posse, and I know a
lot of people who follow them have an ironic appreciation.
But like when I know, like you know all the
words to the songs on the entire Great Malinco album.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I know, yeah, I guys went to oz Fest ninety nine.
I was there, Like, I mean, that's like that. They
should have written that into business.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Sounds come out of a thirteen foot tall toilet at
that one.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I was aft.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That was later because this they didn't play. Yeah, it
was I think it was a Black Sabbath headlines. I
remember like Slayer played I'm trying like Slipknot. That was
before they were big and I saw them they were
on the small stage. But boy, if you look at
a pictures of kids at those shows in those days,
what an incredible time capsule for this stuff we're talking about.
Oh absolutely, And part of what we're dancing around here
(06:59):
is a call concept that you introduced this to off
air Ross, which is the idea of low culture. Could
you tell us a little bit about what what we
mean by low culture and what makes it ridiculous history.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So it's mostly just trashy entertainment, but the way like
I see it as it's the pop culture that is
the most mocked and ridiculed of its era. So like
when Biscuit, you know, would be on there, like Jerry
Springer was rated as having the worst show of all
time on TV Guide, so many people were trying to
cancel that show. Yeah, totally, the viewership was was through
(07:39):
the roof.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But like so much for Fraternity Test.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
For the Praternity Test, okay, Springer was about the chair
combat though, right, maybe that was.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And the like you know, weird sexual triangles with family
members and the eccentric characters adults and diapers.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, like k KK guy, not to get too into
it already, but like he was really just a product
of a lot of the daytime stuff that came before him,
like the Sally Jesse, Raphael's and Phil Dona Hughes of
the world. He just sort of elevated it to dare
I say, kind of like a perfectly packaged art form.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, yeah, let's get let's get into it. Yeah,
daytime talk shows very much a genre of their time
and definitely fits your definition of low culture. Ross were
without dating, without putting you on the spot or dating
you too hard? Were you watching those?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
I was?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
But I was way too young from you know, the
suggested age. But so I was nine years old in
nineteen ninety nine, well actually ten for most of so
I was ten years old, and I've watched Jerry Springer
with my parents at night with Yeah, with my parents,
we thought it was funny as hell. You know, my
parents were old when they had me. My siblings are
you know, a lot older, and they had just given up.
(08:59):
So like, we're gonna, you know, nine thirty, Jerry Springer
comes on Fox forty two.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Uh, you know, we're gonna what part of the country.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Isn't the rule Nebraska cool.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
To the flavor of the story.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah, we just had fun with it. Like it was
just like, you know, like we didn't take it seriously.
We're just laughing our ass off the whole time.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, this is interesting because Springer especially has a bit
of a narrative tie in with the format of wrestling
right in that it very much purports to be true,
and everybody kind of has a k fab nod and
wink about whether or not this is indeed reality. When
(09:44):
you were a kid watching these shows with your parents,
did you think these were real people?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
I doubted they were real people. I actually believe more
in them being real people now than I did as
a kid.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Like that's what That's what I'm saying. They weren't they
were real people though, right, it was just like jujh.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I think for most of them, you know, I'm sure,
like you know, they they had thousands of episodes of
all these shows like Sally Jerry Ricky, they all had
thousands of episodes. So I'm sure there are plants, like
you know, staged almost actors. Yeah, I'm sure that actors.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeahs or like how court shows will have uh frankly
comedians and working actors come on as characters with a face.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
They got to fill some airtime. Yeah, but there are
some genuine people in there, and you know that because
there are court cases that happen with some of these
guests that like the stuff that's involved in the case
is from their real life what they discussed on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So they and people who got book deals, you know,
because maybe there was like I mean, this is almost
like mimetic content. Before that was a thing where you
would have these characters that would just penetrate the zeitguys
in that same before there really were like image macro memes.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yeah, like I think of cash me outside a Million
and now she's a big rapper, bad baby. Yeah. That
that was a little bit later than early two thousands,
but same concept. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah. This is also, uh, this is funny because since
it's before podcasting, in a way, daytime talk shows were
like unhinged podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
They were long form, They were a single kind of
or maybe just segmented narrative structure.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
They weren't SoundBite based.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
The idea was that you were witnessing a thing happening
in real time that was supposedly you know, quote unquote authentic.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah. The producers were the the hidden hand, right, They
were the ones who were off to the left of
cameras and saying, okay, chant this, chant this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well to that point, though, Russ, would you argue perhaps
that these daytime shows were like a precursor to reality TV,
because there's.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Certainly that same So what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Cadre of producers sort of manipulating things from behind the scenes,
but it just gets way more overt and don't give
a f about like maintaining any semblance of true reality
when we start seeing reality TV where everything's episodic and
edit it.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah. Well, so they're very similar in a few ways.
You know. One of them is that they're they're ways
cheaper than scripted content to produce. So like the reason
why things like talk shows were sought after, or why
so many TV networks made reality shows in the late
nineties and or two thousands is because they were low
Like they were low grade production costs, like just bare bones.
(12:37):
You're filming people reacting to engineered situations, and the way
you would create a character like those, like whether it's
Jerry or Morey, they're playing like almost fictionalized versions of
themselves and they're aware of it. You see that same
thing when reality TV starts to mature, like someone goes
on the Real World season five, they know like what
(12:57):
the you know, stock type of characters are and how
they can play up to it to get more camera time.
So I think you know, when you if you watch
the Real Housewives and you see like the fights that
they have, you know, a lot of that is really
copied from the Jerry Springer playbook.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I actually a long time ago with a buddy friend
of the show, Paul Decant.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I think this is before he was working with us Ben.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
He had a buddy who made these like sizzle kind
of pilots or trying to sell reality concepts, and I
worked on one as like a sound guy holding the boom,
and it was I mean that the name is just
the most tone deaf thing ever. It was about these
like wealthy white ladies living out in Buckhead, which is
like a bougie part of Atlanta, and it was called
they had a fashion line in their basement and the show,
(13:42):
I shit you not was called the Underground Runway.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Oh my god, well not everything's going to be a winner, right,
And they had a fiery Eastern European woman who they manufactured,
like getting a sex.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Toy sent in the mail to the house from an
admirer and opening it and everyone was a gast and
just like totally this trash you know, all that it
was absolutely made up. And the way they coach those confessionals,
it's pure fiction.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
They are line reading. It is wild.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I've been on some pilots or sizzle things like you're
describing their null for a couple of shows we've done
in the past, and encountered the producer Sweetening firsthand. And
it isn't art. I would say it is a sith art.
It is a dark art, but an art nonetheless and
frank and biting, is it?
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, you want to define that for anybody who doesn't know.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just cut up, like you know, use piecing together
lines where you cut away so you don't see the
person's mouth moving, and you can basically just combine different
takes or different things to make a sentence so that
suits your narrative.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, so you have you have raw audio of someone saying, actually,
I like green tea, and then you have another clip
of them say, you know, I hate the Welsh, and
then you or something it would be more likely to
manufacture that I hate the Well, you know, you would
(15:14):
say I I love green tea, but I hate coffee,
and you would frank in bite that like you're saying
nol by splicing in things, so it sounds like I
love the British, but I hate the Welsh.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Boom game on, let's listen, get into a soccer hooligan
throw down. Yeah, I mean, can you talk a little
bit more about that, because I mean, I guess for
you the daytime trash TV is sort of a bridge into.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
The absolute takeover of reality TV.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
After I guess we're talking about Ozzy again, shows like
The Osbourne's.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah So well, in the late nineties you start to
see a lot more reality TV on broadcast TV, like
you have Big Brother Survivors in two thousand. You know,
you have the reality game shows like Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire? Uh, those a lot of those happen
(16:11):
because there's a deregulation of the financial syndication interest rules
that allow TV networks to produce their own primetime series.
They don't. They no longer have to go and syndicate
them from elsewhere, and so that totally changes the incentive.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So I'm just sorry, I don't know about this at all.
Can you explain a little more about that law change.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yes, So, from the seventies until the mid nineties, there
were these laws that prevented broadcast TV networks from owning
most of their primetime programming. They couldn't produce it themselves.
There was an anti monopoly law, so they would have
to go out and get their content from elsewhere. Once
they could produce it themselves, they wanted to make it
as cheaply as possible, and they just followed the same
(16:53):
playbook that the daytime shows already were doing, because the
daytime shows were all by syndicators. Yeah, Jerry Springer wasn't
on one TV network and dependent on where you live,
what Jerry Springer would be on, Like it could.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Be on as Fox thirteen, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
If you lived in you know, like the West Coast,
it could be CBS. If you lived in this sound,
that could be NBC. You might even have it on
two or three stations, just depending on what, like who
wants to license it. So you know, in the nineties
that deregulation, other deregulations happened that basically encourage these huge
media corporations to produce content as cheaply as possible, to
(17:32):
reach as many people as possible, to just go like
shallow and broad, and that encourages a reality TV boom,
and then later you get another boom because the writers
strike in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Right, yeah, And that's a that's a great tie in
where we're where we're on the nineties. And we have
to admit for anybody who even if you hate daytime
talk TV, that genre and that.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I proved what was successful though, like what exactly what's
sort of thele of the conversation is successful?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Right right? Few people, few studios have ever lost money
pandering to the lowest common denominator, you know what I mean? Unfortunately,
that is part of what these genres proved, and they
also they also, as you point out, they also made
this tremendous cultural impact way beyond media. Right, we always
(18:26):
know that in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands,
a cultural hallmark was being big enough to be mentioned
on The Simpsons, Right, that's when you knew you made
it in media. Can you tell us a little bit
more about how daytime talk shows as a genre, how
they impacted the culture beyond just the world of television.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Well, you would see them like all over the place.
I'll just use Jerry Springer as an example. He would
be making cameos in like every movie at a time,
like the Austin Power sequel Spy Shagmy. The first scene
is Jerry Springer, like doctor Evil's on Jerry Springer and
he then he beats up like some KKK guys And.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Then this isn't that when it's there's like a pattern,
like his son comes out and then they get into
a fight and stuff, and he's all, like.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Anymore really ridiculous than an actual Jerry Springer.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Absolutely, it was just really.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Something you would see on their show. But you know
they would be mentioned on teaching Miss Tingle like every
like so many movies from the late nineties early two
thousands mentioned them. Jerry Springer had a spring Break tour
Springer Break. He had merchandise all over the place. He
had a movie made about him. There was a book
that had the same name as the movie. He thought
about running for Congress, but he didn't because he they
(19:44):
said that he had too much baggage, which is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Didn't he have a background in politics?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
He did. He was Cincinnati mayor and city councilman. We
can get into that as well. But you know, Springer
was just really he had a mail ordered vhs too
out for TV that like set Records, Oh.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Gosh, yes, do I remember that, of course, And it
was it came out around the same time as those
other really trashy like Girls of spring Break, Girl's Gone Wild,
Thank You, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Got Wild tot for TV.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
You definitely was in that same genre.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yes, you're up after eleven o'clock watching cable. You would
see an infomercial for.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
All the phone number get it. You know, I knew
some I knew some.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
People like, oh my gosh, yeah, you mentioned the exact
time of the commercial. Were you at my house.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
It was just it was all of us, man, we
were there.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
These were franchises. They weren't just like on TV shows.
They were almost like intellectual property that would branch out
into its own universe. And then you know, I think
you would eventually see that style of I don't even
call it conversation. It's more like combat or just you know,
being ridiculous. It makes its way into other forms of television,
other movies, and then it's eventually seeps into politics when reality.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Read in circuses.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Man. I mean, it's totally like gladiator backt and that's
the lowest form of entertainment, you know, in ancient Rome
for example. But the funny thing is, you know who
else likes gladiator battles, rich people, smart people.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's not It doesn't mean you're dumb. If you like
trash TV.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
A lot of people genuinely dig it and they have PhDs.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's what broad means. It means it reaches like everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, it's a universal appeal because it appeals to things
that people love seeing, which is messy trouble at a
distance experienced vicariously.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
It makes you feel a little bit better about you,
how well you've got your stuff together.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, well, I know who my kid is, so that
that kind of thing. I think it really speaks to
what you're describing as a shock and awe approach to
the zeitgeist. Right, it doesn't have to be great. It
just needs to be ubiquitous. It just needs to be everywhere.
And we'd love to go back to the point you
(21:55):
noted about interaction with politics, because I would because I
read it there, guys, I would posit we are.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
In peak that thing. This is the culmination only.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Because I would posit only because I read Ross's book
that this is where we start to see a big, weird,
muddy vin diagram of celebrities and politicians becoming increasingly similar.
You know, nineteen nineties was a heyday for current US
President Donald Trump as a media figure.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We had Jesse the body Ventura as well. We started
yeah please.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah, Jesse Ventura became governor in ninety nine. Trump actually
announced his first presidential run in nineteen ninety nine on
the Larry King Show. A talk show. Wasn't daytime talk,
but you know, it gives you a sense of what
that format was like. So he felt that was a
good time.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
To just a lot high not high journalism, Larry King.
I mean, that's that is entertainment journalism. No shade on
Larry King, but the way that show was positioned, and
it was a meme kind of clip generating show that
was all about like entertainment, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, I don't want to I'm very against body shaming,
but Larry King looked kind of weird, right.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Odd neck. That's just maybe.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's the head proportions.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Anyway, I like Larry B. King from the B movie.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Jeez, I forgot about that. You're killing it with the references?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Was that nineteen ninety nine too, Now that was two
thousand I don't know, it was way after Seinfeld ended,
probably two thousand seven.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And just putting a pin in this, I do want
to get into some movies from nineteen ninety Oh yeah,
well we must. I think I've got a good one
that'll be a bridge from this topic. But yeah, please,
let's do talk about that political intersection.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah. Is it true that originally in the first run
for I believe the Reform Party in nineteen ninety nine,
is it true that Donald Trump approached Oprah Winfrey about
being his possible VP.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Well, he don't know if he really approached her personally,
but he said he wanted her to be the VP.
Like I don't know how far that went, but he
is on record saying like he that was his dream VP.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, so talk about low culture. Instead of approaching the
person directly, you just go on interviews talk about Oprah.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Maybe Yeah, I didn't find any evidence that Oprah ever
seriously entertained it.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
Yes, she was like delete this message.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So I love the setup we got here, going into
the halcyon nineteen nineties movies. You also note that a
couple of social critics called nineteen ninety nine the.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Best movie year ever?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Why is that?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And is that ironic?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So, you know, just the recap of nineteen ninety nine.
So for those who haven't watched those movies for a while,
you have you know, sixth Sense, Yeah, Fight Club, like
you have.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Virgin Suicides, Magnolia, Talented, mister Ripley, like it just.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Goes on on Green Mile, Iron Giant, like so many
great moves.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Holland Drive.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean, just to name a favorite and rip David
Lynch if I may really quickly, I just want to
drop one on you, just as a transition from the
reality show stuff and the way it just kind of
permeated the culture to film.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I mean because.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Obviously that was the first and probably most iconic. I'm
sure there are other examples of a truly handheld, meant
to be found footage slash documentary style thing that people,
myself included, genuinely believe might be real.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
I mean, they made those may made it seem like
those kids are actually murdered. They wouldn't let them appear
in public, and like the whole market campaign was so innovative.
But you know, what I've read on the ninety nine
movies is that it's a confluence of things in the
movie entertainment industry that happened right then that made that
(26:14):
production possible. Like you had the indie studios still had
free reign to do what they wanted to do, and
they had theatrical exposure and people were going to the
theaters to actually see movies that not just blockbusters. So
you had a lot of like I don't know what
you would call them, like mid budget movies that could
thrive in a way that they can't today. And then
(26:36):
you also had, you know, the huge studios making blockbusters
that were doing pretty well. You know, Toy Story too
did very well that year.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And not to mention that studios big and small were
willing to take a lot more big swings because DVDs
were still a hell of profitable.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Yeah, you had other revenue streams. DVD's a hell a profitable.
It was also like syndication on TV was still very profitable.
So like even if you could take a big swing,
do a risky movie, and like, well HBO and T
and T are gonna you know, air it and pay
a big licensing fee because they still get you know,
millions of viewers every night, not like they do tonight.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So all of that is gone gone, Like truly, these
blu rays absolutely niche for like exclusively for the nerdiest
of collectors.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
And like the licensing fees from streaming services are not
what they were.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The right excutive Spotify rates as a just an example,
you know, it's not that low, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Even even streaming services now are encountering an issue. I
do want to take a stand for all the fellow
physical media nerds in the crowd. We gotta have it
if you can, you know, get it, get it on
the physical media because this era in the in the nineties,
which is still very physical media driven. As we've established it,
(27:54):
it creates. It was still part of what we call
it ownership society. You bought a thing and then it
was yours instead of streaming, which is basically kind of
a micro license to yourself to watch something until the
big dogs say you can no longer.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Even buying something on Amazon is is you're still just
streaming it off of their servers. And there is something
in the terms. I'm certain that you know caveats that.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
They can still a move it if you buy it
on Amazon. That's happened to people. They could still remove
the movie from the library.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And I bet, I bet you can guess this bit
of trivia Ross. We talk about it on a couple
of different shows in the past. Do you know the
first book that was unceremoniously pulled from Amazon's Kindle service?
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Oh man, no, I do not.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It is nineteen eighty four by Jorge my Gosh. After
people paid for it. It was pulled in with great
you know, uh to do an opprobrium. Eventually Amazon put
it back.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
It was an accident, right, wasn't it? Some sort of
glitch that's what they.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Okay, that's pretty on the note though.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sure is.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, I'm fortunate at very least.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I just want to make one point about the physical
media though we talk about ninety nine. That's actually ninety
nine is part of the most pivotal year and transitioning
to digital consumption of media because Napster and Tvo both
come out that year.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
They revolutionize on demand viewing, revolutionized file sharing, you know,
like creating your own library rather than what is just
coming in at you from like a you know, a
big radio station or a big TV network.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So yeah, and I think created some of the problems
that led to the lockdown of streaming and all of
the sort of like you know, applification of every network
because piracy, that's probably one of the most pivotal years
in piracy as well.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You wouldn't download a car if I could. If I would,
is this economy?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah? I could be saving five hundred dollars a month
on that payment.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And this brings us to another point we'd love to
explore with you, Russ. After research on this book and
all of the work you have done, how do you
think the future will regard the nineteen nineties, oh, man,
just because you know, you're yeah, I don't want to
(30:22):
put you on the spot too much, but you're a
new father. You got to be thinking about the future.
Your kid is going to eventually look back at a
picture of you from the nineties. I go, Dad, Oh.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
My god, don't think about it too hard, man, And
I'm I.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Think the nineties for a while were assessed as like
peaceful prosperity times, like, you know, we had a surplus
in the economy, we were you know, the US was
involved in skirmishes certainly, but nothing to the degree of
the wars that they had before or after. I think, like,
(30:57):
if we're going to like do you know, revision as
history down the line, I think the nineties are actually
gonna be viewed as more contentious time because of the
birth of the Internet and the way it disrupted media
and all of the like, you know, we think of
the nineties peaceful, but when when I like go back
into this research, I mean, man, when the Internet's come
in there are some heavy, like fiery debates in Congress
(31:18):
about regulating it. I think people forget that, you know,
Columbine happened, you know, in ninety nine, and there's a
big push to censor media. And you know, before that,
you know, you had all these other tragedies like Oklahoma City.
So you know, I think there's a dark undercurrent with
the nineties that's being more appreciated now than probably was
ten years ago. And I think, you know, if you
(31:39):
look back twenty years from now, the nineties, will you know,
really look seem as like this is what put us
on the path to where we are today. A lot
of it due to the digitization of communication and media.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, nineteen ninety nine, it's such a bell Weather year,
just for like all the just I think of a
thing and then I look it up and then it
was in nineteen ninety nine. So David Bowie in a
nineteen ninety nine interview with the BBC with Jeremy Paxman,
he's asked about the Internet. Pasman is a little more
like skeptical about its reach and its power and its potential,
(32:14):
and Bowie responds to his kind of, you know, not
being so sure that it's as big a deal as
everyone or as Bowie things. Anyway, I don't think that
we've even seen the top of the iceberg. I think
the potential of what the Internet is going to do
to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable, to which
Pasman retorts, the Internet's just a tool. Bowie says, it's
an alien life form and it is going to crush
(32:34):
our ideas of what mediums are all about.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
And people were all people were prescient at this time,
that's for sure when you look back at what was
on folks mind. Similar to that Bowie conversation, we also
see so much emphasis on the turn of the millennium
right all through the nineteen nineties, in particular, people are
(33:00):
excited plus terror.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, you were really genuinely concerned.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
About that of moving into the twenty first century. There
were even conspiracies about the zipper manufacturer y two k
hy kk y kk yeah because it was two ky because.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
They're gonna be outcast lyrics zipp yeah yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And we also saw, you know, we saw this in
hip hop. Two Bone Thugs and Harmony back in nineteen
ninety five, they released East nineteen ninety nine Eternal, which
is a banger for anybody who's in the older hip hop. Now,
what happens, what happens in the recovery period with the
(33:49):
move into the twenty first century. What happened to people
when they realized the nineties were over?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Well, might not have realized it until it was too late. You're,
you know, way past the the decade point, you know,
And I think people realized the party was over until
all the revenue had dried up from those you know,
media that they had been supporting for so long.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And are we talking about like dot com bubble type
stuff for like just just just maybe just those old
models just kind of being antiquated.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I was thinking more of the you know, the old
style of communication being antiquated. But but yeah, I mean
the dot com bubble, and I mean that's like two
thousand and one, two thousand and two, for sure, the
parties over. Yeah, yeah, those companies are being liquidated.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
We Oh, we're gonna get in trouble with our audience,
especially my girlfriend, if we don't mention some of the
merchandise fad obsessions of the nineties. Beanie babies, Ross, did
you ever have a beanie baby?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Did you ever have a beanie baby?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I had a few, you had a few, Yeah, you know,
I didn't have like an attic full of thousands of them,
like some people did, but I had a handful of them,
and actually I still have a few in my house
that I let my kids play with because they're you know,
absolutely worthless.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Now, hey, hold on to them, you know what I mean.
Don't let this be Star Wars Action figure.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
The tag, the tie tag is ready ripped off. No
going back, No.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Going back, We've gone too far. We also wanted to
shout out as gamer nerds some other things in culture
that you explore in your book. Nineteen ninety nine, this
was a big year for video games as well. Right,
is this the year the first Grand Theft Auto game
comes out? Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
It's it's when GTA two comes out, So it's the
first Grand Theft Auto sequel, but the first.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
More like what we know as modern GTA.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Well wait, I would say the modern gt The first
as we know modern GTA would be Grand Theft Auto three,
which was in two thousand and one. That's the Stay
Station two, that's right, But like I think Grand Theft
at two, and they also had a London Expansion pack
that came out in ninety nine. I found them to
be significant because, like you go from Grand Theft Ato
just being like a one off to like they're starting
to create a franchise on it, and it becomes the
(36:10):
biggest franchise in in media really.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I mean Two's overhead view, it's like top down kind of. Yeah,
it's definitely not.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yes, yeah, but yeah Tony Hawk pro Skater, like tons
of Pokemon games that did very well, Like gaming's really
in the social consciousness due to attempts to regulate and
Bannett falling Columbine.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Are we PS one at this point?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
So yeah, we're PS one and sixty four nineteen ninety nine.
PS two is announced in ninety nine, but it actually
doesn't come out for a year later. First, Silent Well
you have, Dreamcast comes out in ninety nine, and Dreamcast
is actually pretty significant because it's the first system with
the built in modem. You can do online play on
Dreamcast ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Ross, I'm sensing a fellow gamer in the crowd. We
also have to mention our pals. Super Max, a bit
of an enthusiast the video games himself, is blowing us
up with some notes here, so Max wants us to note,
like you said, Noel, Silent Hill also the first super
smash bro g thank you for that, Max, and then.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We also just really quickly just took across over back
to the thing Max said as well. Another video game
was Star Wars episode one, The Phantom Menace, which was
the top grossing movie of nineteen ninety nine and not
very good.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
One might argue, Will Will, We'll see, right, it's up
to future historians, but I think we're on the same
page currently. Yeah, Phantom Menace is a really cool name.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
You know, the taxation of trade Routes, which was, you know,
a very boring way to up a prequel trilogy.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Not the block.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I gotta say this last year that that's become really elevant.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
Man.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Isn't that more the second one where they're really talking
about the blockades and the trade routes?
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Or is that in the I.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Think of the first one in the in the scroll
at the opening the movie talk about the taxation of
trade routes of course contribute to the clone Wars, So
it's in the.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Is the one where I think of the real like
the heavy politics kind of like you're in the halls
of Parliament kind of moment.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Now I'm just imagining how George Lucas pitched that initially.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
I don't think he had to pitch it to anybody.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
I want.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, he said, they said, hey, how should we follow
up with this tremendous trilogy that you decided to start
in media arrests part way through and he said, what
do you guys think about taxation trade routes? That's a question, soul, George,
what if there's a menace, that's a fantom.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
We just weren't familiar enough with tariffs at the time
to appreciate where it was out prescient.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
This is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
What are as as we're starting to wrap up here, Russ,
What are some of the things that you think more
of us in the audience today should realize about the
nineties sort of speaking to your point about the contention
that kind of gets ignored. What's something people forget about
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah, like, like we ready to discussed the contention, you
know with Columbine, the Internet and some terrorist incidents, Like
it wasn't for the people going through it at the time.
It wasn't as peaceful and prosperous as we perceive it
to be afterwards, because we know how it ends.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yea further than Woodstock ninety nine by the way not up,
but like that that is the perfect visual example of
all of those tensions meaning up and setting the world
on fire.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
And then another thing we didn't have time to get
too deep into. I just want to give out some
Juggalo love and say that, like, yeah, gathering in nineteen
ninety nine in same compost, he has always been an
acquired taste. But they got like closer to mass culture
than they than they ever had since they.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Were beloved by the new metal crowd.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Yeah, I mean they played at Woodstock, they had platinum records,
they were wrestling for WCWNWWF before that. So like people
like just bring them up and they joke about them now.
But like they had that contentious lawsuit with Disney, yeah,
where they were kicked off Disney's record before it even released,
and that gave them all this attention and helped them
become a hit, and they were like, you know, kind
(40:25):
of a big thing for a little bit, which you know,
people forget about now.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah. They also they even they got more press, if
we're going under the idea that any press is good press.
They got more press when the FBI deemed Juggalos a game.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, that revived them in the popular press at least.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And we're seeing a as we established at the top,
we're seeing this revival of the nineteen nineties in general.
And we cannot thank you enough for your time to
Dave Ross. We also can't thank you enough for making
this kick ass book.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So fun man, such a great conversay. Obviously this is
red meat for both of us. So a pleasure to
chat with you about this.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Yeah, this is fun as hell. I'd do it at anytime.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Oh man, you're opening a door.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Step through into the ridiculous, into our ridiculous world.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
No, I'm super down.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I think there's a million ways we could cut this,
and there's other topics.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's funny that you should. We should.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It should be ninety nine though, because technically we made
a tacit sort of like agreement that are cut off
for what would.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Be considered history is nineteen ninety four. So you have
just broadened our window, my friend. Because now, but isn't
that the nature of history.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
The further you move into the future, the more recent
history becomes truly history Podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Twenty seventeen, So we could just keep moving it a
year year with a year.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
There, You got exactly right.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Okay, boy boy, are we living through some now I
means you're hired.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, please, please, please please do check out nineteen ninety
nine Into your Low Culture, Conquered America and kick started
our bizarre times out now wherever you find your favorite books?
H Ross? Where can people go to learn more about
your work? And also, you don't have to answer this
last part any teasers on the next project.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
So more about my work, just go to my website,
Ross spinish dot com. I'm occasionally on Twitter, but a
lot of what I do on there is post college
football stuff, So I.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Was gonna say, you're more of a reply guy, more
of a consumer.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Okay, yeah, not a ton of tweets. And my next
project is really just being with these dogs and kids.
I don't congra thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
I got two little ones and then two hounds. And
I don't know when I'll have time to do another
book for quite some time, because I do have a
day job as well as an analyst, so my book
is like my second job and amazing.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
We'll have to have you on for some analysts as well.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, you have accidentally and hopefully consentually become our go
to expert on nineteen nineties culture and we can't wait
to have you back on the show. Ross, Thank you
so much. Thanks as well to our super producer mister
Max Williams Alex Williams, his biological brother, who composed this
track It's True.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Chris Frosciotis Nives, Jeff Codes here in Spirit, Jonathan Strickland,
the Quizzer, A J.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Bahamas, Jacobs the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Big, big thanks to Rachel Big, Spinach Lance Big, Thanks
to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you like us,
you'll love them and Noel just big thanks to the nineties.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, we love the nineties. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear if our super producer,
mister Max nineteen nineties Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Max, he loves the nineties, Williams. We all love it.
We lived the nineties. Yeah, mixed feelings about the nineties now.
I don't know, mainly good, mainly positive.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm still processing it. It's true, still too soon, still
take time. I beg, bullet, you're Noel Brown, and we
have we have long been mystified by the nineteen nineties
because it's something that is surprisingly long ago, but I
think still very present in culture today, like in cultural memory.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It left a mark, no question, it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Left a mark. It left some jinkos, it left there.
But they're expensive.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
They were expensive then. I mean, we can always round
the inflation calculator. But they were always a bit of
a luxury good. But yeah, the big floppy pants with
like built in chains and rings and stuff are like
hugely back with the Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, because they share that same cultural fascination with the
ridiculous history of.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
The nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's it's sort of the way I think maybe we
feel about the sixties or the seventies, where we're like
nostalgic for an era that we never lived through. And
that is, you know, with the Internet and with all
the information out there and the ability to deep dive
into all this stuff and the algorithms of music, et cetera,
it's like you can feel like you were there in
a way, and there is this built in nostalgia for
(01:59):
a time that these kids.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Had no participation in.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And that is an excellent setup for today's episode. We
are exploring the nineteen nineties, especially what people call low culture,
and we're not doing this alone, Noel, we have a
returning guest, the legendary author and journalist and researcher Ross Benish.
(02:28):
You have heard him on our earlier episode, Ridiculous History
of Sex.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Man so bun that I miss that I still don't
know anything about sex. I don't even know how it works.
That would have been mega educational for her. It's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You've You've read Ross's work in Entertainment weekly Esquire, You've
read him in Mental Floss, a personal favorite of Hours.
Pretty much any magazine or publication you can imagine. Ross
is also the author of nineteen ninety nine, The Year
Low Culture Conquered America and kick started our bizarre times. Ross,
(03:03):
welcome back to the show Man. Thanks for the second date.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Hey, it's good to be back. And uh, I wish
I was wearing Jinkos for this one. You guys got
me thinking about how much denim are in those pants.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I owned a Jinko, just one, just one Jinko, just
a single Jinko, and it was not even particularly floppy.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It was just like a gene really with a slightly
wide leg.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
With the tariffs though, in the amount of denim, I
could see the price rising.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh yeah, no, nostalgia tacks.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, that's a college.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah. The uh it's funny that we're mentioning owning one
pair of Jinkos or one Jinko, because I think for
a lot of children in the nineties that was a
that was a heady and heavy negotiation with the parentals.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You know what a creational Jinkos man it still is. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Uh, and Ross, we had such a We had such
a great time with you and our fellow ridiculous historians
getting into a very PG thirteen episode about sex history,
and you came to us and said, guys, what do
you think about the nineties, And we immediately again went
down the rabbit hole of nostalgia. We want to talk
(04:13):
about so much stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Nineties was all about sex, y'all.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Maybe we started this way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Ross.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
In your latest book, which was published just earlier this year,
you specifically call out the year nineteen ninety nine. Could
you tell us why and how you landed on that
date in particular?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Well, ninety nine is just sillier and more ridiculous than
the years around it, And part of that's because of
like Y two k P paranoia and all the silly
stunts that were done around the turn of the century.
But I feel like that era in general has been
really influential, Like the pop culture that was there has
influenced our society in a lot of strange ways that
(04:56):
we're going to dive into. But like, if you want
to write about something being over the top, ninety nine
is certainly more over the top than ninety eight or
oh one is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
It was the year of limp biscuit, it was the
year of voice Shock. Ninety nine. I mean, how much
more ridiculous than that does it gree now?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
This song about it?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Dude? Right? He was looking ahead for sure.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
So about the Prince song when it was New Year's
Day in nineteen ninety nine, like nineteen ninety eight, going
to nineteen ninety nine, MTV had Limp Biscuit playing that
song at midnight, you know, and they're not gonna have prints.
But like what's the sign of the times for nineteen
ninety nine, it's New Metal Baby.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Which is also back in a big way for better
or worse, largely worse. And I'm not quite sure if
people really like it or like it ironically. It's it's unclear.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
It doesn't matter as long as they're getting attention at
the spot.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And I say, whether or not you like something ironically,
at the end of the day, you'll just like it.
And something ironic eventually just becomes a thing that you dig,
you know, like you and Hobo Johnson a million for nine.
I never liked him ironically. I disliked him very genuinely.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I liked the insane clown posse, and I know a
lot of people who follow them have an ironic appreciation.
But like when I know, like you know all the
words to the songs on the entire Great Malinco album.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I know, yeah, I guys went to oz Fest ninety nine.
I was there, Like, I mean, that's like that. They
should have written that into business.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Sounds come out of a thirteen foot tall toilet at
that one.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I was aft.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That was later because this they didn't play. Yeah, it
was I think it was a Black Sabbath headlines. I
remember like Slayer played I'm trying like Slipknot. That was
before they were big and I saw them they were
on the small stage. But boy, if you look at
a pictures of kids at those shows in those days,
what an incredible time capsule for this stuff we're talking about.
Oh absolutely, And part of what we're dancing around here
(06:59):
is a call concept that you introduced this to off
air Ross, which is the idea of low culture. Could
you tell us a little bit about what what we
mean by low culture and what makes it ridiculous history.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So it's mostly just trashy entertainment, but the way like
I see it as it's the pop culture that is
the most mocked and ridiculed of its era. So like
when Biscuit, you know, would be on there, like Jerry
Springer was rated as having the worst show of all
time on TV Guide, so many people were trying to
cancel that show. Yeah, totally, the viewership was was through
(07:39):
the roof.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But like so much for Fraternity Test.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
For the Praternity Test, okay, Springer was about the chair
combat though, right, maybe that was.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And the like you know, weird sexual triangles with family
members and the eccentric characters adults and diapers.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, like k KK guy, not to get too into
it already, but like he was really just a product
of a lot of the daytime stuff that came before him,
like the Sally Jesse, Raphael's and Phil Dona Hughes of
the world. He just sort of elevated it to dare
I say, kind of like a perfectly packaged art form.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, yeah, let's get let's get into it. Yeah,
daytime talk shows very much a genre of their time
and definitely fits your definition of low culture. Ross were
without dating, without putting you on the spot or dating
you too hard? Were you watching those?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
I was?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
But I was way too young from you know, the
suggested age. But so I was nine years old in
nineteen ninety nine, well actually ten for most of so
I was ten years old, and I've watched Jerry Springer
with my parents at night with Yeah, with my parents,
we thought it was funny as hell. You know, my
parents were old when they had me. My siblings are
you know, a lot older, and they had just given up.
(08:59):
So like, we're gonna, you know, nine thirty, Jerry Springer
comes on Fox forty two.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Uh, you know, we're gonna what part of the country.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Isn't the rule Nebraska cool.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
To the flavor of the story.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah, we just had fun with it. Like it was
just like, you know, like we didn't take it seriously.
We're just laughing our ass off the whole time.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, this is interesting because Springer especially has a bit
of a narrative tie in with the format of wrestling
right in that it very much purports to be true,
and everybody kind of has a k fab nod and
wink about whether or not this is indeed reality. When
(09:44):
you were a kid watching these shows with your parents,
did you think these were real people?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
I doubted they were real people. I actually believe more
in them being real people now than I did as
a kid.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Like that's what That's what I'm saying. They weren't they
were real people though, right, it was just like jujh.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I think for most of them, you know, I'm sure,
like you know, they they had thousands of episodes of
all these shows like Sally Jerry Ricky, they all had
thousands of episodes. So I'm sure there are plants, like
you know, staged almost actors. Yeah, I'm sure that actors.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeahs or like how court shows will have uh frankly
comedians and working actors come on as characters with a face.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
They got to fill some airtime. Yeah, but there are
some genuine people in there, and you know that because
there are court cases that happen with some of these
guests that like the stuff that's involved in the case
is from their real life what they discussed on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So they and people who got book deals, you know,
because maybe there was like I mean, this is almost
like mimetic content. Before that was a thing where you
would have these characters that would just penetrate the zeitguys
in that same before there really were like image macro memes.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yeah, like I think of cash me outside a Million
and now she's a big rapper, bad baby. Yeah. That
that was a little bit later than early two thousands,
but same concept. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah. This is also, uh, this is funny because since
it's before podcasting, in a way, daytime talk shows were
like unhinged podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
They were long form, They were a single kind of
or maybe just segmented narrative structure.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
They weren't SoundBite based.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
The idea was that you were witnessing a thing happening
in real time that was supposedly you know, quote unquote authentic.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah. The producers were the the hidden hand, right, They
were the ones who were off to the left of
cameras and saying, okay, chant this, chant this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well to that point, though, Russ, would you argue perhaps
that these daytime shows were like a precursor to reality TV,
because there's.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Certainly that same So what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Cadre of producers sort of manipulating things from behind the scenes,
but it just gets way more overt and don't give
a f about like maintaining any semblance of true reality
when we start seeing reality TV where everything's episodic and
edit it.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah. Well, so they're very similar in a few ways.
You know. One of them is that they're they're ways
cheaper than scripted content to produce. So like the reason
why things like talk shows were sought after, or why
so many TV networks made reality shows in the late
nineties and or two thousands is because they were low
Like they were low grade production costs, like just bare bones.
(12:37):
You're filming people reacting to engineered situations, and the way
you would create a character like those, like whether it's
Jerry or Morey, they're playing like almost fictionalized versions of
themselves and they're aware of it. You see that same
thing when reality TV starts to mature, like someone goes
on the Real World season five, they know like what
(12:57):
the you know, stock type of characters are and how
they can play up to it to get more camera time.
So I think you know, when you if you watch
the Real Housewives and you see like the fights that
they have, you know, a lot of that is really
copied from the Jerry Springer playbook.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I actually a long time ago with a buddy friend
of the show, Paul Decant.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I think this is before he was working with us Ben.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
He had a buddy who made these like sizzle kind
of pilots or trying to sell reality concepts, and I
worked on one as like a sound guy holding the boom,
and it was I mean that the name is just
the most tone deaf thing ever. It was about these
like wealthy white ladies living out in Buckhead, which is
like a bougie part of Atlanta, and it was called
they had a fashion line in their basement and the show,
(13:42):
I shit you not was called the Underground Runway.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Oh my god, well not everything's going to be a winner, right,
And they had a fiery Eastern European woman who they manufactured,
like getting a sex.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Toy sent in the mail to the house from an
admirer and opening it and everyone was a gast and
just like totally this trash you know, all that it
was absolutely made up. And the way they coach those confessionals,
it's pure fiction.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
They are line reading. It is wild.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I've been on some pilots or sizzle things like you're
describing their null for a couple of shows we've done
in the past, and encountered the producer Sweetening firsthand. And
it isn't art. I would say it is a sith art.
It is a dark art, but an art nonetheless and
frank and biting, is it?
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, you want to define that for anybody who doesn't know.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just cut up, like you know, use piecing together
lines where you cut away so you don't see the
person's mouth moving, and you can basically just combine different
takes or different things to make a sentence so that
suits your narrative.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, so you have you have raw audio of someone saying, actually,
I like green tea, and then you have another clip
of them say, you know, I hate the Welsh, and
then you or something it would be more likely to
manufacture that I hate the Well, you know, you would
(15:14):
say I I love green tea, but I hate coffee,
and you would frank in bite that like you're saying
nol by splicing in things, so it sounds like I
love the British, but I hate the Welsh.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Boom game on, let's listen, get into a soccer hooligan
throw down. Yeah, I mean, can you talk a little
bit more about that, because I mean, I guess for
you the daytime trash TV is sort of a bridge into.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
The absolute takeover of reality TV.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
After I guess we're talking about Ozzy again, shows like
The Osbourne's.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah So well, in the late nineties you start to
see a lot more reality TV on broadcast TV, like
you have Big Brother Survivors in two thousand. You know,
you have the reality game shows like Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire? Uh, those a lot of those happen
(16:11):
because there's a deregulation of the financial syndication interest rules
that allow TV networks to produce their own primetime series.
They don't. They no longer have to go and syndicate
them from elsewhere, and so that totally changes the incentive.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So I'm just sorry, I don't know about this at all.
Can you explain a little more about that law change.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yes, So, from the seventies until the mid nineties, there
were these laws that prevented broadcast TV networks from owning
most of their primetime programming. They couldn't produce it themselves.
There was an anti monopoly law, so they would have
to go out and get their content from elsewhere. Once
they could produce it themselves, they wanted to make it
as cheaply as possible, and they just followed the same
(16:53):
playbook that the daytime shows already were doing, because the
daytime shows were all by syndicators. Yeah, Jerry Springer wasn't
on one TV network and dependent on where you live,
what Jerry Springer would be on, Like it could.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Be on as Fox thirteen, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
If you lived in you know, like the West Coast,
it could be CBS. If you lived in this sound,
that could be NBC. You might even have it on
two or three stations, just depending on what, like who
wants to license it. So you know, in the nineties
that deregulation, other deregulations happened that basically encourage these huge
media corporations to produce content as cheaply as possible, to
(17:32):
reach as many people as possible, to just go like
shallow and broad, and that encourages a reality TV boom,
and then later you get another boom because the writers
strike in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Right, yeah, And that's a that's a great tie in
where we're where we're on the nineties. And we have
to admit for anybody who even if you hate daytime
talk TV, that genre and that.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I proved what was successful though, like what exactly what's
sort of thele of the conversation is successful?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Right right? Few people, few studios have ever lost money
pandering to the lowest common denominator, you know what I mean? Unfortunately,
that is part of what these genres proved, and they
also they also, as you point out, they also made
this tremendous cultural impact way beyond media. Right, we always
(18:26):
know that in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands,
a cultural hallmark was being big enough to be mentioned
on The Simpsons, Right, that's when you knew you made
it in media. Can you tell us a little bit
more about how daytime talk shows as a genre, how
they impacted the culture beyond just the world of television.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Well, you would see them like all over the place.
I'll just use Jerry Springer as an example. He would
be making cameos in like every movie at a time,
like the Austin Power sequel Spy Shagmy. The first scene
is Jerry Springer, like doctor Evil's on Jerry Springer and
he then he beats up like some KKK guys And.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Then this isn't that when it's there's like a pattern,
like his son comes out and then they get into
a fight and stuff, and he's all, like.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Anymore really ridiculous than an actual Jerry Springer.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Absolutely, it was just really.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Something you would see on their show. But you know
they would be mentioned on teaching Miss Tingle like every
like so many movies from the late nineties early two
thousands mentioned them. Jerry Springer had a spring Break tour
Springer Break. He had merchandise all over the place. He
had a movie made about him. There was a book
that had the same name as the movie. He thought
about running for Congress, but he didn't because he they
(19:44):
said that he had too much baggage, which is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Didn't he have a background in politics?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
He did. He was Cincinnati mayor and city councilman. We
can get into that as well. But you know, Springer
was just really he had a mail ordered vhs too
out for TV that like set Records, Oh.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Gosh, yes, do I remember that, of course, And it
was it came out around the same time as those
other really trashy like Girls of spring Break, Girl's Gone Wild,
Thank You, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Got Wild tot for TV.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
You definitely was in that same genre.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yes, you're up after eleven o'clock watching cable. You would
see an infomercial for.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
All the phone number get it. You know, I knew
some I knew some.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
People like, oh my gosh, yeah, you mentioned the exact
time of the commercial. Were you at my house.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
It was just it was all of us, man, we
were there.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
These were franchises. They weren't just like on TV shows.
They were almost like intellectual property that would branch out
into its own universe. And then you know, I think
you would eventually see that style of I don't even
call it conversation. It's more like combat or just you know,
being ridiculous. It makes its way into other forms of television,
other movies, and then it's eventually seeps into politics when reality.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Read in circuses.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Man. I mean, it's totally like gladiator backt and that's
the lowest form of entertainment, you know, in ancient Rome
for example. But the funny thing is, you know who
else likes gladiator battles, rich people, smart people.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's not It doesn't mean you're dumb. If you like
trash TV.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
A lot of people genuinely dig it and they have PhDs.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's what broad means. It means it reaches like everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, it's a universal appeal because it appeals to things
that people love seeing, which is messy trouble at a
distance experienced vicariously.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
It makes you feel a little bit better about you,
how well you've got your stuff together.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, well, I know who my kid is, so that
that kind of thing. I think it really speaks to
what you're describing as a shock and awe approach to
the zeitgeist. Right, it doesn't have to be great. It
just needs to be ubiquitous. It just needs to be everywhere.
And we'd love to go back to the point you
(21:55):
noted about interaction with politics, because I would because I
read it there, guys, I would posit we are.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
In peak that thing. This is the culmination only.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Because I would posit only because I read Ross's book
that this is where we start to see a big, weird,
muddy vin diagram of celebrities and politicians becoming increasingly similar.
You know, nineteen nineties was a heyday for current US
President Donald Trump as a media figure.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We had Jesse the body Ventura as well. We started
yeah please.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah, Jesse Ventura became governor in ninety nine. Trump actually
announced his first presidential run in nineteen ninety nine on
the Larry King Show. A talk show. Wasn't daytime talk,
but you know, it gives you a sense of what
that format was like. So he felt that was a
good time.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
To just a lot high not high journalism, Larry King.
I mean, that's that is entertainment journalism. No shade on
Larry King, but the way that show was positioned, and
it was a meme kind of clip generating show that
was all about like entertainment, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, I don't want to I'm very against body shaming,
but Larry King looked kind of weird, right.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Odd neck. That's just maybe.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's the head proportions.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Anyway, I like Larry B. King from the B movie.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Jeez, I forgot about that. You're killing it with the references?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Was that nineteen ninety nine too, Now that was two
thousand I don't know, it was way after Seinfeld ended,
probably two thousand seven.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And just putting a pin in this, I do want
to get into some movies from nineteen ninety Oh yeah,
well we must. I think I've got a good one
that'll be a bridge from this topic. But yeah, please,
let's do talk about that political intersection.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah. Is it true that originally in the first run
for I believe the Reform Party in nineteen ninety nine,
is it true that Donald Trump approached Oprah Winfrey about
being his possible VP.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Well, he don't know if he really approached her personally,
but he said he wanted her to be the VP.
Like I don't know how far that went, but he
is on record saying like he that was his dream VP.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, so talk about low culture. Instead of approaching the
person directly, you just go on interviews talk about Oprah.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Maybe Yeah, I didn't find any evidence that Oprah ever
seriously entertained it.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
Yes, she was like delete this message.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So I love the setup we got here, going into
the halcyon nineteen nineties movies. You also note that a
couple of social critics called nineteen ninety nine the.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Best movie year ever?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Why is that?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And is that ironic?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So, you know, just the recap of nineteen ninety nine.
So for those who haven't watched those movies for a while,
you have you know, sixth Sense, Yeah, Fight Club, like
you have.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Virgin Suicides, Magnolia, Talented, mister Ripley, like it just.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Goes on on Green Mile, Iron Giant, like so many
great moves.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Holland Drive.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean, just to name a favorite and rip David
Lynch if I may really quickly, I just want to
drop one on you, just as a transition from the
reality show stuff and the way it just kind of
permeated the culture to film.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I mean because.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Obviously that was the first and probably most iconic. I'm
sure there are other examples of a truly handheld, meant
to be found footage slash documentary style thing that people,
myself included, genuinely believe might be real.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
I mean, they made those may made it seem like
those kids are actually murdered. They wouldn't let them appear
in public, and like the whole market campaign was so innovative.
But you know, what I've read on the ninety nine
movies is that it's a confluence of things in the
movie entertainment industry that happened right then that made that
(26:14):
production possible. Like you had the indie studios still had
free reign to do what they wanted to do, and
they had theatrical exposure and people were going to the
theaters to actually see movies that not just blockbusters. So
you had a lot of like I don't know what
you would call them, like mid budget movies that could
thrive in a way that they can't today. And then
(26:36):
you also had, you know, the huge studios making blockbusters
that were doing pretty well. You know, Toy Story too
did very well that year.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And not to mention that studios big and small were
willing to take a lot more big swings because DVDs
were still a hell of profitable.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Yeah, you had other revenue streams. DVD's a hell a profitable.
It was also like syndication on TV was still very profitable.
So like even if you could take a big swing,
do a risky movie, and like, well HBO and T
and T are gonna you know, air it and pay
a big licensing fee because they still get you know,
millions of viewers every night, not like they do tonight.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So all of that is gone gone, Like truly, these
blu rays absolutely niche for like exclusively for the nerdiest
of collectors.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
And like the licensing fees from streaming services are not
what they were.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The right excutive Spotify rates as a just an example,
you know, it's not that low, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Even even streaming services now are encountering an issue. I
do want to take a stand for all the fellow
physical media nerds in the crowd. We gotta have it
if you can, you know, get it, get it on
the physical media because this era in the in the nineties,
which is still very physical media driven. As we've established it,
(27:54):
it creates. It was still part of what we call
it ownership society. You bought a thing and then it
was yours instead of streaming, which is basically kind of
a micro license to yourself to watch something until the
big dogs say you can no longer.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Even buying something on Amazon is is you're still just
streaming it off of their servers. And there is something
in the terms. I'm certain that you know caveats that.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
They can still a move it if you buy it
on Amazon. That's happened to people. They could still remove
the movie from the library.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And I bet, I bet you can guess this bit
of trivia Ross. We talk about it on a couple
of different shows in the past. Do you know the
first book that was unceremoniously pulled from Amazon's Kindle service?
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Oh man, no, I do not.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It is nineteen eighty four by Jorge my Gosh. After
people paid for it. It was pulled in with great
you know, uh to do an opprobrium. Eventually Amazon put
it back.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
It was an accident, right, wasn't it? Some sort of
glitch that's what they.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Okay, that's pretty on the note though.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sure is.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, I'm fortunate at very least.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I just want to make one point about the physical
media though we talk about ninety nine. That's actually ninety
nine is part of the most pivotal year and transitioning
to digital consumption of media because Napster and Tvo both
come out that year.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
They revolutionize on demand viewing, revolutionized file sharing, you know,
like creating your own library rather than what is just
coming in at you from like a you know, a
big radio station or a big TV network.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So yeah, and I think created some of the problems
that led to the lockdown of streaming and all of
the sort of like you know, applification of every network
because piracy, that's probably one of the most pivotal years
in piracy as well.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You wouldn't download a car if I could. If I would,
is this economy?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah? I could be saving five hundred dollars a month
on that payment.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And this brings us to another point we'd love to
explore with you, Russ. After research on this book and
all of the work you have done, how do you
think the future will regard the nineteen nineties, oh, man,
just because you know, you're yeah, I don't want to
(30:22):
put you on the spot too much, but you're a
new father. You got to be thinking about the future.
Your kid is going to eventually look back at a
picture of you from the nineties. I go, Dad, Oh.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
My god, don't think about it too hard, man, And
I'm I.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Think the nineties for a while were assessed as like
peaceful prosperity times, like, you know, we had a surplus
in the economy, we were you know, the US was
involved in skirmishes certainly, but nothing to the degree of
the wars that they had before or after. I think, like,
(30:57):
if we're going to like do you know, revision as
history down the line, I think the nineties are actually
gonna be viewed as more contentious time because of the
birth of the Internet and the way it disrupted media
and all of the like, you know, we think of
the nineties peaceful, but when when I like go back
into this research, I mean, man, when the Internet's come
in there are some heavy, like fiery debates in Congress
(31:18):
about regulating it. I think people forget that, you know,
Columbine happened, you know, in ninety nine, and there's a
big push to censor media. And you know, before that,
you know, you had all these other tragedies like Oklahoma City.
So you know, I think there's a dark undercurrent with
the nineties that's being more appreciated now than probably was
ten years ago. And I think, you know, if you
(31:39):
look back twenty years from now, the nineties, will you know,
really look seem as like this is what put us
on the path to where we are today. A lot
of it due to the digitization of communication and media.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, nineteen ninety nine, it's such a bell Weather year,
just for like all the just I think of a
thing and then I look it up and then it
was in nineteen ninety nine. So David Bowie in a
nineteen ninety nine interview with the BBC with Jeremy Paxman,
he's asked about the Internet. Pasman is a little more
like skeptical about its reach and its power and its potential,
(32:14):
and Bowie responds to his kind of, you know, not
being so sure that it's as big a deal as
everyone or as Bowie things. Anyway, I don't think that
we've even seen the top of the iceberg. I think
the potential of what the Internet is going to do
to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable, to which
Pasman retorts, the Internet's just a tool. Bowie says, it's
an alien life form and it is going to crush
(32:34):
our ideas of what mediums are all about.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
And people were all people were prescient at this time,
that's for sure when you look back at what was
on folks mind. Similar to that Bowie conversation, we also
see so much emphasis on the turn of the millennium
right all through the nineteen nineties, in particular, people are
(33:00):
excited plus terror.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, you were really genuinely concerned.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
About that of moving into the twenty first century. There
were even conspiracies about the zipper manufacturer y two k
hy kk y kk yeah because it was two ky because.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
They're gonna be outcast lyrics zipp yeah yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And we also saw, you know, we saw this in
hip hop. Two Bone Thugs and Harmony back in nineteen
ninety five, they released East nineteen ninety nine Eternal, which
is a banger for anybody who's in the older hip hop. Now,
what happens, what happens in the recovery period with the
(33:49):
move into the twenty first century. What happened to people
when they realized the nineties were over?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Well, might not have realized it until it was too late. You're,
you know, way past the the decade point, you know,
And I think people realized the party was over until
all the revenue had dried up from those you know,
media that they had been supporting for so long.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And are we talking about like dot com bubble type
stuff for like just just just maybe just those old
models just kind of being antiquated.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I was thinking more of the you know, the old
style of communication being antiquated. But but yeah, I mean
the dot com bubble, and I mean that's like two
thousand and one, two thousand and two, for sure, the
parties over. Yeah, yeah, those companies are being liquidated.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
We Oh, we're gonna get in trouble with our audience,
especially my girlfriend, if we don't mention some of the
merchandise fad obsessions of the nineties. Beanie babies, Ross, did
you ever have a beanie baby?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Did you ever have a beanie baby?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I had a few, you had a few, Yeah, you know,
I didn't have like an attic full of thousands of them,
like some people did, but I had a handful of them,
and actually I still have a few in my house
that I let my kids play with because they're you know,
absolutely worthless.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Now, hey, hold on to them, you know what I mean.
Don't let this be Star Wars Action figure.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
The tag, the tie tag is ready ripped off. No
going back, No.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Going back, We've gone too far. We also wanted to
shout out as gamer nerds some other things in culture
that you explore in your book. Nineteen ninety nine, this
was a big year for video games as well. Right,
is this the year the first Grand Theft Auto game
comes out? Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
It's it's when GTA two comes out, So it's the
first Grand Theft Auto sequel, but the first.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
More like what we know as modern GTA.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Well wait, I would say the modern gt The first
as we know modern GTA would be Grand Theft Auto three,
which was in two thousand and one. That's the Stay
Station two, that's right, But like I think Grand Theft
at two, and they also had a London Expansion pack
that came out in ninety nine. I found them to
be significant because, like you go from Grand Theft Ato
just being like a one off to like they're starting
to create a franchise on it, and it becomes the
(36:10):
biggest franchise in in media really.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I mean Two's overhead view, it's like top down kind of. Yeah,
it's definitely not.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yes, yeah, but yeah Tony Hawk pro Skater, like tons
of Pokemon games that did very well, Like gaming's really
in the social consciousness due to attempts to regulate and
Bannett falling Columbine.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Are we PS one at this point?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
So yeah, we're PS one and sixty four nineteen ninety nine.
PS two is announced in ninety nine, but it actually
doesn't come out for a year later. First, Silent Well
you have, Dreamcast comes out in ninety nine, and Dreamcast
is actually pretty significant because it's the first system with
the built in modem. You can do online play on
Dreamcast ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Ross, I'm sensing a fellow gamer in the crowd. We
also have to mention our pals. Super Max, a bit
of an enthusiast the video games himself, is blowing us
up with some notes here, so Max wants us to note,
like you said, Noel, Silent Hill also the first super
smash bro g thank you for that, Max, and then.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We also just really quickly just took across over back
to the thing Max said as well. Another video game
was Star Wars episode one, The Phantom Menace, which was
the top grossing movie of nineteen ninety nine and not
very good.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
One might argue, Will Will, We'll see, right, it's up
to future historians, but I think we're on the same
page currently. Yeah, Phantom Menace is a really cool name.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
You know, the taxation of trade Routes, which was, you know,
a very boring way to up a prequel trilogy.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Not the block.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I gotta say this last year that that's become really elevant.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
Man.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Isn't that more the second one where they're really talking
about the blockades and the trade routes?
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Or is that in the I.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Think of the first one in the in the scroll
at the opening the movie talk about the taxation of
trade routes of course contribute to the clone Wars, So
it's in the.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Is the one where I think of the real like
the heavy politics kind of like you're in the halls
of Parliament kind of moment.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Now I'm just imagining how George Lucas pitched that initially.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
I don't think he had to pitch it to anybody.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
I want.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, he said, they said, hey, how should we follow
up with this tremendous trilogy that you decided to start
in media arrests part way through and he said, what
do you guys think about taxation trade routes? That's a question, soul, George,
what if there's a menace, that's a fantom.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
We just weren't familiar enough with tariffs at the time
to appreciate where it was out prescient.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
This is this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
What are as as we're starting to wrap up here, Russ,
What are some of the things that you think more
of us in the audience today should realize about the
nineties sort of speaking to your point about the contention
that kind of gets ignored. What's something people forget about
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah, like, like we ready to discussed the contention, you
know with Columbine, the Internet and some terrorist incidents, Like
it wasn't for the people going through it at the time.
It wasn't as peaceful and prosperous as we perceive it
to be afterwards, because we know how it ends.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yea further than Woodstock ninety nine by the way not up,
but like that that is the perfect visual example of
all of those tensions meaning up and setting the world
on fire.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
And then another thing we didn't have time to get
too deep into. I just want to give out some
Juggalo love and say that, like, yeah, gathering in nineteen
ninety nine in same compost, he has always been an
acquired taste. But they got like closer to mass culture
than they than they ever had since they.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Were beloved by the new metal crowd.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Yeah, I mean they played at Woodstock, they had platinum records,
they were wrestling for WCWNWWF before that. So like people
like just bring them up and they joke about them now.
But like they had that contentious lawsuit with Disney, yeah,
where they were kicked off Disney's record before it even released,
and that gave them all this attention and helped them
become a hit, and they were like, you know, kind
(40:25):
of a big thing for a little bit, which you know,
people forget about now.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah. They also they even they got more press, if
we're going under the idea that any press is good press.
They got more press when the FBI deemed Juggalos a game.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, that revived them in the popular press at least.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And we're seeing a as we established at the top,
we're seeing this revival of the nineteen nineties in general.
And we cannot thank you enough for your time to
Dave Ross. We also can't thank you enough for making
this kick ass book.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So fun man, such a great conversay. Obviously this is
red meat for both of us. So a pleasure to
chat with you about this.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Yeah, this is fun as hell. I'd do it at anytime.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Oh man, you're opening a door.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Step through into the ridiculous, into our ridiculous world.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
No, I'm super down.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I think there's a million ways we could cut this,
and there's other topics.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's funny that you should. We should.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It should be ninety nine though, because technically we made
a tacit sort of like agreement that are cut off
for what would.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Be considered history is nineteen ninety four. So you have
just broadened our window, my friend. Because now, but isn't
that the nature of history.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
The further you move into the future, the more recent
history becomes truly history Podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Twenty seventeen, So we could just keep moving it a
year year with a year.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
There, You got exactly right.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Okay, boy boy, are we living through some now I
means you're hired.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, please, please, please please do check out nineteen ninety
nine Into your Low Culture, Conquered America and kick started
our bizarre times out now wherever you find your favorite books?
H Ross? Where can people go to learn more about
your work? And also, you don't have to answer this
last part any teasers on the next project.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
So more about my work, just go to my website,
Ross spinish dot com. I'm occasionally on Twitter, but a
lot of what I do on there is post college
football stuff, So I.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Was gonna say, you're more of a reply guy, more
of a consumer.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Okay, yeah, not a ton of tweets. And my next
project is really just being with these dogs and kids.
I don't congra thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
I got two little ones and then two hounds. And
I don't know when I'll have time to do another
book for quite some time, because I do have a
day job as well as an analyst, so my book
is like my second job and amazing.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
We'll have to have you on for some analysts as well.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, you have accidentally and hopefully consentually become our go
to expert on nineteen nineties culture and we can't wait
to have you back on the show. Ross, Thank you
so much. Thanks as well to our super producer mister
Max Williams Alex Williams, his biological brother, who composed this
track It's True.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Chris Frosciotis Nives, Jeff Codes here in Spirit, Jonathan Strickland,
the Quizzer, A J.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Bahamas, Jacobs the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Big, big thanks to Rachel Big, Spinach Lance Big, Thanks
to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you like us,
you'll love them and Noel just big thanks to the nineties.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, we love the nineties. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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