Introducing: George Bailey was Never Born

George Bailey Was Never Born, a one-of-a-kind podcast experience, takes a definitive look at It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the most popular movies of all time, the story of Americans’ decades-long love affair with this cultural institution and how it may offer a light down the path we walk today, all 10 episodes available Nov 21, 2023.  Created by Kurt Engfehr, the editor-producer of Oscar- and Palme d’Or-winning documentaries, and Ray Nowosielski, 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast, the series is a co-production of iHeartMedia and Double Asterisk, in association with True Stories.  Narrated by a familiar angel, he takes listeners back and forth between the part of the multiverse where the events of Wonderful Life really happened and our own, one where George Bailey was never born!  SaveGeorgeBailey.com

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Come be part of a one of a kind podcast experience.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
So it would be on twenty or thirty times, like
per day, on every channel.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
You watch it every year.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Realizing that this movie that had become kind of a
punchline because of its omnipresence was actually really good.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
It moves you.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Every time my father cried, I had never seen my
father cry before.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
I just remember having this very warm feeling about everything
about it.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
George Bay, I'll love you a I die.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most
popular movies ever, but it runs much deeper than you
ever thought. If you were to ask the random person,
is this a subversive movie, They're going to look at
your cross eye.

Speaker 6 (00:50):
I mean, of course not.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
With regard to the picture It's a Wonderful Life. Federal
Bureau of Investigation stated in substance that the film represented
a rather obvious attempt bankers.

Speaker 7 (01:00):
You sit around here and you spend your little webs,
and you think the whole world revolved around you and
your money. Well it does with mister Potter.

Speaker 6 (01:07):
By choosing Dad to be George Bailey, Caprith must have
intended to convey a certain type The movie means different
things at different times, like in these troubled times in
this country.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Could a Christmas movie from the nineteen forties be the
answer to the questions your world is asking now?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Potter is quite clearly somebody who is narcissistic. You will
find a lot of functioning psychopath in very senior positions
multinational corporations, banks.

Speaker 7 (01:38):
Privacy District Attorney Wendell Damison from the New York Times.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Here the Bedford Falls Police Department would have filed larceny
charges against George Bailey.

Speaker 7 (01:48):
Misappropriation of fun well.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
Peasant, and then George Bailey goes off on this left
wing rant Alexandria Kazakh Cortes's talking points.

Speaker 7 (01:58):
Does rabble you're talking about? They do more for the
working and paying and living and dying in this community? Well,
is it too much to have them work and paying,
live and dyeing a couple of decent rooms on a bath.

Speaker 6 (02:09):
I think his idea that it was time to write
about democracy was tied into his ideas about abolitionism, about
anti fascism.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
The failure of It's a Wonderful life is so devastating
for him, and then through some kind of negligence it slips,
I guess into the public domain, the audience votes, it
becomes this feena.

Speaker 7 (02:28):
I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off
my feet and I'm going to see the world.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
And the powers that be in the industry say, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa. Now let's make some money off this film.

Speaker 6 (02:41):
People need this movie in this world where there's a
lot of hopelessness.

Speaker 5 (02:45):
That the George Baileys of the world are going to
triumph over the hyper capitalists. She is a complete croc
Potter one, not George Bailey.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeahs if you made me.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Many who have become part of this podcast event created
by Kurt Angfer, a producer and editor of Oscar Winning
Bowling for Columbine, and Ray Novosselski twenty twenty two NAACP
Image Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast. All episodes available now.
Listen and subscribe today on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

(03:22):
or wherever you get your podcasts. George Bailey was never born.
Subscribe now. Save George Bailey dot com