The story of Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line that bears her name is a remarkable one, encompassing topics of institutionalized racism, scientific ethics, and medical marvels. Adam Curtis made a fine documentary about Lacks and the HeLa line of cells in 1997 for the BBC.
The video for “All The Things She Said” by Simple Minds presents a fine example of the then-cutting-edge video work of filmmaker Zbigniew Rybczyński.
And after you’ve seen that, really blow your mind with Charles and Ray Eames’s head-spinning 1977 short, Powers of Ten!
Jen and Tim come to a tenuous agreement about a once universally loathed Martin Short comedy, Clifford. Also, Tim punches down ruthlessly on a twenty pound miniature pinscher [who could lose a little weight].
The Slate article about Martin Short that riled everyone up may be found here, but if you want to skip right to the synchronized swimming sketch from SNL, you can watch it on Vimeo.
The Vulture oral history of the making, the release, and the eventual cult fandom around Clifford is as exhaustive a history of the film as one may be expected to tolerate.
DNA specialists identified the Boy in the Box as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, 65 years after his death (be careful if you search for info on the case; the police distributed postmortem photos shortly after he was found in an attempt to generate leads).
While Clifford is the exception, why not check out one of our several other episodes about traumatizing children? Or look at this awful little kid from Woodchipper Massacre?
So much of this episode wouldn’t exist without the superlative work of Seuss biographer Brian Jay Jones. His book Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisl and the Making of an American Imagination highlights Geisl’s creativity and enduring legacy in popular literature. Jones talked in depth about the life of Dr. Seuss on the Our American Stories podcast (listen to our show first though lol).
The charming animated short Gerald McBoing-Boing may be viewed on YouTube.
Jen mentioned the Australian child murderer (and worse) Mr. Cruel— see the legitimately terrifying police sketch of the suspect at Wikipedia, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.
And yes, we highly recommend that calendar Rifftrax short we mentioned, whether you like to laugh, or if you’re just genuinely confused about how to use a calendar!
Director/writer Patrick Read Johnson’s long-gestating nostalgia trip, 5-25-77, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 22, 2022. In the meantime, you can read Karina Longworth’s review of a cut of the film in 2008 from the now-defunct Sprout Blog. The director left a comment rebutting some of her criticism there (thank you, Internet Archive).
This Slate article sums up the probable facts behind the “War of the Worlds mass panic” myth quite well.
Tim and Jen start spooky season early with a shockingly dark release from Disney, Return to Oz.
Jen forgot to mention that the main reason the film does not resembles the MGM film from 1939 apart from the Ruby Slippers™ is because all of the trappings of the MGM version were and are copyrighted. In fact, Disney had to shell out to use that plot device in the film. Hence, while Walter Murch’s desire to make a movie closer in spirit to the L. Frank Baum material is admirable, it most likely played second fiddle to the demands of copyright law.
Additionally, the movie finally made a profit from a 1949 re-release, not “like twenty years later” or whatever Jen glibly claimed.
Go here for a bio of Piñero, the trailblazing Nuyorican playwright, as well as a list of his works.
BTW, there’s a documentary called The Survivor’s Guide to Prison that is slick, well made, and narrated by Danny Trejo as well as many other cultural icons. You can watch it for free with ads on Tubi, or on Kanopy with a library card. In other words, it’s perfect for sending to your normie friends who haven’t been hipped to the cause of prison abolition yet!
Mike Rosen joins Jen and Tim to discuss that movie you really liked as a kid and then revisited as an adult and realized it wasn’t that good. That’s right, it’s Willow, from 1988! George Lucas perhaps wisely handed off directing duties to Ron Howard, but results are still mixed at best.
Speaking of Ron Howard, Jen and Tim depart significantly on his legacy as a director. We briefly discussed his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard in our Antichrist episode.
Tim alluded to the very fine podcast 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back. If you’d like to hear their take on the Shadow Moon series, start here!