TV Moments That Changed The World

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:58stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward.

1:31Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

1:51Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is the first episode of the 20026. I thought there was already another episode out. Yes, this is the first one, Chuck. I think this comes out on 1-1-26. Okay. I'm pretty sure, yeah. I thought we had already crept into 26. But that's no matter because it's still 2-5 for us. Yeah, there's some weird time stuff that's going on. We're essentially straddling two years right now. and I'm wearing a silver space suit because of that. All that to say, if we're a little loose, it's because this is our last recording sesh of the year.

2:35And so we're closing this out or opening up the next year with a good old-fashioned top 10 that's not a 10, like just like the old days. That's right. We're finishing up 2025 and stuff you should know fashion, right? Yeah, just like we did in probably 2010. Yeah, probably. Chuck, if you'll allow me to begin. Oh boy, it's just a classic old school opening. Chuck. Do you have a TV? Have you ever seen TV? I knew it was coming. Yes. It was either that or Webster's defines TV. Right, right. One of the two. I've seen TV too. Not only have I seen a TV, I've watched what's broadcast on TV as well, multiple times throughout my life.

3:27It's funny. We chose this moments that changed the world, TV moments that changed the world. And as you're kind of researching this, you realize like for better or worse, man, TV is like it made modern culture more than anything else. I think in the entire world, I would argue more than the Internet. Ooh, interesting. Yeah, I'm just going to say it. All right. I'm not going to argue. I'm not in an arguing mood. Well, people who disagree, just follow us on this journey into TV moments that changed the world. Maybe your opinion will be changed. Either way, I don't fault you. All right. Great. So let's start at the beginning, like the day that TV really kicked off in earnest.

4:11There was a day that this happened. It was April 30th, 1939, in Flushing, New York, on Long Island. and if you are familiar with that date in that area, you may know that this was the 1939 World's Fair and this is where TV got its start, where it was really kind of unveiled to the public at large. That's right. Not the 1940 World's Fair, HowStuffWorks.com because there was not one. No. Yeah, so, you know, TV had been around for a bit but it wasn't super widespread at this point. I feel like we talked about this a lot lately for some reason. Yes. Stuff is just really clicking these days. I'm not sure why.

4:52It really is. But they had broadcast limitations. They could only broadcast, you know, for a limited number of miles, like out a limited number of miles. But by the time that World's Fair came along, they were like, hey, this is a chance to make a really big splash. The RCA Corporation, the Radio Corporation of America, which also then led the way in TVs, they were putting out some pretty good televisions at the point, but they were luxury items. And again, they didn't have like the most regular broadcasting going on, but they knew that this World's Fair was a chance to make a super big splash.

5:24Right. So, yeah, this is where they were going to start selling TVs to the public. The problem is, is you can have all the TVs in the world, but if you don't have anything to watch on it. Good point. What are you going to do? Nothing. You're going to sit there like a jackass and look at a blank TV. So luckily RCA thought of this and they founded NBC, the national broadcasting company, to start broadcasting stuff. So they brought the whole thing together, the broadcasting and the TVs themselves, and they debuted it on April 30th, 1939, when they, I think, created the world's first live television broadcast of Franklin Roosevelt, kicking off the 1939 World's Fair.

6:06That's right. And we did mention this one in another episode, but he was, you know, sort of the first president daddy of TV, granddaddy of TV. And like you said, he opened it up there and, you know, NBC had gotten there and they had their, you know, now antiquated TV technology all lined up. It was just pretty whiz bang at the time. Sure. And they sent signals through these mobile broadcasting trucks, which, I mean, it's pretty amazing that in the 1930s they had the technology to even accomplish that. Right. So it was pretty impressive still to this day. And broadcast that signal out to about 2 ,000 viewers, which seemed like a big number at the time, I imagine.

6:51I'm still impressed with news fans. Oh, yeah, sure. Of the time, which is our time. I'm impressed with news fans today. That's what I mean. Oh, okay. I didn't get it across very well. Yeah, yeah. So one thing I saw, I was looking up pictures of this 1939 World's Fair, the RCA Pavilion. Apparently, they built one of their televisions in transparent, I guess, glass or something like that, maybe plastic. So you could see the internal working parts so that people wouldn't think it was just some sort of trick. Oh, wow. Interesting. That's how new it was. Yeah. Yeah. Oddly, since we're recording our Christmas episode, I feel like this pause before the next one is going to include like jingle bells and things.

7:34Right. But it's not going to. We're just simply moving on to another one, which is Disney's Wonderful World of Color. I'm sure you, like I, grew up watching, I guess by the time we were watching it in the 70s or me in the 70s and you likely in the 80s, it was called The Wonderful World of Disney. I watched Walt Disney Presents, I think, is what it was for me. Oh, okay. So I guess, yeah, since I'm only a year older than you, I was watching The Wonderful World of Disney because this show had some title changes. But the reason we're talking about this at all, it's because of the advent of color television, which Walt Disney himself really got behind and was like, hey, I want to be the dude that kind of brings this to the masses.

8:19Right. Right. Because just like how you could have TVs, but nothing to broadcast, you could have color TVs. And if you weren't broadcasting in color, what's the point? And again, this was an issue for RCA. And by then, of course, they had NBC and NBC was rolling pretty well. But Walt Disney's anthology series had started years before and it was on ABC. ABC wasn't broadcasting in color. So Walt Disney personally held a meeting with NBC and said, we want to do this. Yes, apparently he told his team. He said that, he said, fellas, I want this deal. If necessary, I'll stand on my head in Macy's window.

8:57Yeah, and all the executives said, you don't have to do that. It's a pretty good idea. So why are you being weird? Yeah, but he was just that enthusiastic about the whole thing. But he personally went and pitched the idea to NBC. And the reason why, again, is NBC was the first network to broadcast in color. And so Walt Disney really kind of pushed this through because NBC would have broadcast in color either way. But Walt Disney wanted to do it in like high style. Yeah, for sure. And this is a TV show that launched in 1954 and ran for 34 seasons, obviously at first in black and white. And like I mentioned earlier, you know, the name changes.

9:34I guess they had one, you know, between my birth and your birth because it was initially called Disney's Wonderful World and then Magical World of Disney. Yeah. And then when The Color debuted, he was like, we really want to be sort of obvious with this. So let's call it Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Yeah. But we still haven't even said what this was. I mean, you mentioned Anthology Series. It was like a variety show, essentially. They had cartoons and stuff. I remember when I was a kid that the Davy Crockett TV show, and it says in this HowStuffWorks article, it launched the coonskin cap craze.

10:11And I have a picture of little five-year-old me with a musket and a leather vest and a coonskin cap on my head. So I was into that. I had one, too, but I don't have a picture of it, so I can't prove it. I can probably dig that up and throw it up on the Instagram maybe to align with this. So I'll try and find that. You gotta. I gotta. So there were also like a lot of documentary programming, right? And you would think like, oh, okay, hard-hitting, frontline-esque documentaries. No, not at all. It meant that they would go and film stuff under various themes at Disneyland. They were essentially big ads for Disneyland.

10:50He used that big time. And I mean, they were well-produced and interesting. Sure. But they really went to that well quite a bit in every episode. Not in the first episode, though. Instead, the first episode, and this is the moment that changed the world as far as color TV goes. It was on September 24th, 1961, and the episode was two parts. And the first one was an adventure in color. And it really was a bit of an adventure. Like, it was a bunch of little segments that really kind of showed off what you can do with color TV and just must have knocked the socks off, knocked the coonskin caps off of all the little kids sitting at home.

11:29That's right. And it also featured something called the Spectrum Song, which kind of explained what was going on. because I guess they felt the need to explain color to people who had gone around their entire lives seeing real life in color. But I guess, like you said, it was a pretty whiz-bang thing to see it on your TV for the first time. So they went to great lengths to probably over-explain that. And this is also when we got the debut of Professor Ludwig von Drake from the Disney duck world. Yeah, he was kind of an eccentric inventor. His self-written bio was he's an eminent psychologist, renowned color expert, etymologist, the most sought after lecture in the world.

12:17He is undoubtedly the outstanding genius of the century. So he was fairly egotistical, but he was also funny. And he became beloved. And this is where he came from, that first adventure in color half. And then the second half was a theatrical release featuring Donald Duck. Because all of these, like, Disney cartoons that we just, you know, take for granted today, you used to have to go to the theater to see them. But when you went to the theater to see them, they were in color. You saw them on TV, they were in black and white. Now you can see them in color on TV without leaving the comfort of your home.

12:50What was their deal with the ducks? Was that, I mean, I guess it's just like any other cartoon animal, but they really leaned into the ducks. It was a great excuse to draw something without pants. Ah, okay. That makes sense. I never got into any. I was a little old for like DuckTales and all that stuff. That was a good show. So like Donald Duck was my only, I guess, exposure. My only duck exposure. His little feathered fanny. Oh, sorry. Sorry, listeners in England. I know what that means there. That's right. Yeah. Nice catch. To be perfectly honest, I was a little old for DuckTales too, but I still watched it.

13:27Yeah, well, you know, we all regress. I never progressed, I think. Oh, come on. So just like Disney probably promised RCA and NBC, like they started selling color TVs like hotcakes thanks to, in large part, the wonderful world of color. Disney's wonderful world of color, to be exact. That's right. And that feels like a great time for a break, huh? Yes, it does. All right. We'll be right back, everybody.

14:04Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that? Or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.

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16:43All right. So you might think that we're going in chronological order. We are not. We're going to go back in time a little bit from the debut of Color TV, but after the World's Fair in 1939, two years after, and we're going to go to, you know, I never found out what network this was on. Did you? No. That's silly. Let's just call it ESPN. Okay. So on ESPN in 1941 on July 1st, this is a moment that changed the world. Some people who are watching the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Philadelphia Phillies essentially saw the first television ad ever. Yeah. It was either nine or ten seconds long. It depends on the source that you cite, but it was pretty short.

17:33And all it was, and I know we've talked about this before because I have seen this before and I can't think of any other reason why I would have. But it is a scene of a bull of a clock face just sort of superimposed over a map of the United States. And it's had the phrase over the top of it, like a chyron, the world runs on bull of a time. And about 4 ,000 people saw this ad. And I imagine they were like, what the heck is this? Why am I hearing about bull of a? And why do I suddenly feel like buying a bull of a watch? Yeah, probably. What's super quaint and sweet is that the ad cost Bulova$9. That's crazy.

18:14The whole thing. Even for the time, that's crazy. Yeah, even at the time, that's$195 today. Yeah. So that was quite a sweet deal. Sure. And what it did was show, like, we can do this. We can advertise to people. And it's not to say that there were just no ads on TV before the Bulova ad, but they just followed a completely different format. so much so that the Boliva ad is pretty safely considered among historians as the first actual TV commercial. Yeah, that's for a couple of reasons. You did mention some other ads, but before that, it was like, you know, this program is sponsored by whatever.

18:55And that was just the ad. It was an actual TV commercial in between content. The first ad, I guess, if you count that stuff, was in 1930. the year TV debuted really and it was a furrier man it seems like it would have been from like 1830 but it was a furrier in Boston called IJ Fox Furriers who sponsored the CBS Orchestra it was a program called the Fox Trapper so that's kind of how ads went up until 1941 yeah and that was the radio format it was essentially they just took the format that had been pioneered on radio and now they were doing it on TV that's not really an ad If you call that an ad, you're just being contrarian, right?

19:37There were still even other ads, but they were illegal because it wasn't until 1941 that the FCC started issuing licenses to run commercials on broadcast networks. But that means that the ads before them were illegal. I could not find any mention of what these ads were for, but I got the impression that they were just experimentation networks kind of on the sly figuring out how to do it as they went along. So again, Bolova is the first actual TV commercial that was legal and that was also produced with the intent, the sole intent to sell a particular product on air. That was it. That space of air was filled up by an ad.

20:21That was the first time ever. That's right. And I know we mentioned this before, but for those who aren't familiar with our canon in the old days of Stuff You Should Know, our boss, Conal Byrne, who commissioned the whole show to begin with and changed our lives. Thank you, Conal. He came up to us at one point after we had been doing it a while and said, hey, people are running ads on podcasts now and we need to get into this. And we were like, no way, no how. We're not going to foul up our show by selling it. And then eventually he said, well, you know, if we can sell this thing, it'll make the company money.

20:58And on down the road, maybe this just becomes your job. I don't know if he said that, but the writing was kind of on the wall. And maybe this can just become the only thing you do here. And you won't be writing articles for HouseToForks.com anymore. And we went, hmm, tell us more. You make a good case here. Yeah. Hey, Chuck, real quick, speaking of our canon, so for all of you listeners out there, it's a little behind-the-scenes peek. Oh, yeah. We have, like, I think including short stuff in the neighborhood of 2 ,300 episodes. It doesn't really get it across when you say 2 ,300. We have a ton of episodes in our back catalog, and we, like, people write in all the time, and they're like, you should do this episode.

21:39And we're like, we did, like, seven years ago. And it's, like, a lot of people just have no idea the episodes we've done, So we're trying to like figure out how to get it out there better. Yeah, for sure. That's the reason we mentioned this. We've been sort of putting our heads together at iHeartMedia because like you said, a lot of people don't, you know, I think iTunes serves up about 300. But here's a little trick. If you're on your podcast player for iTunes on your iPhone, if that's how you listen, when you scroll down through like the first five episodes, there's a little button there that says see all 2000 plus episodes.

22:15And if you click on that, they're all there and you can scroll through. But, you know, a lot of people don't know that. A lot of other players don't, you know, who knows how many they display. But it's a frustration for us. And so it's just a gentle reminder that there are literally thousands of these episodes out there. Yeah, they're all also, I think you said on the iHeartRadio app, and StuffYouShouldKnow.com has the Vast repository and a pretty good search function. And one of the ways we figured out, like, we could probably, like we could probably do a lot better about mentioning episodes like specifically when they come up in another episode like a new episode but i feel like we're gonna have to do a lot better than we normally do which is like didn't we do some episode on something related to this yeah we got to figure it out but we will because there's just a bunch of great episodes just sitting there waiting for people to discover that's right and with that we move on to oh wait Yes?

23:10We have to do the Super Bowl comparison. You have to do it if you talk about the Bulova ad. Do we really? Yes. All right, you take it away then. I refuse to take part. So if you write or talk about the Bulova ad, it's basically incumbent upon you to compare that ad cost, the$9 cost, to what it would have cost had they run it on a Super Bowl. And so for the 2025 Super Bowl, if Bulova had run this, they would have paid$2.35 million for those 10 seconds. Amazing. Quite a deal. That's right. I just kept us from being sued. Well, I don't even think we're even, I think we're supposed to say the big game, aren't we?

23:49No, like we're supposed to not buy into that. Okay, I gotcha. All right, moving on to the next one on the list is the, that was a good segue too, because we can't talk about like our old episodes and then say, also there was a devastating tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean. Right. Because that happened, and we, you know, if you're a, actually, you don't have to be much of a certain age, but on December 26, 2004, there was an undersea earthquake, about a 9.0 magnitude that set off this incredible tsunami in the Indian Ocean. I mean, we've done episodes on tsunamis and earthquakes And we've talked about all this before But it was about 100 feet tall Traveling at 500 miles an hour Not much advance warning And was one of the most devastating tragedies in human history It killed close to 230 ,000 people in 14 countries It also sparked the biggest rail disaster in history When it completely wiped out a train traveling along the coast of Sri Lanka.

24:53And we mention all this because the only positive that came out of this was the media's reaction, which sparked the incredible amount of philanthropy and aid and giving in its aftermath. Yeah, because I was reading a study on this. It was called Media Coverage and Charitable Giving After the 2004 Tsunami. It was by Philip H. Brown and Jessica Nix Minty. And they said like the media coverage was unprecedented. Like it didn't, the world didn't forget about it in like three days. It was 24 hour coverage of this disaster for weeks on end. Right. And because these images were broadcast around the world and because it was so mind bogglingly devastating, people just opened up their pockets.

25:45I saw 99 different countries donated, and 13 of those countries had never donated for a natural disaster relief before. It got to everybody. Yeah, and there are, I think, about 195 countries in the world. Yeah, which it's kind of like, do better other 96 countries. Yeah, I imagine the countries that didn't have their own issues, had their own issues going on, you know. Well, now I feel bad. No, don't feel so bad. But they have done studies, that 2006 study that you referenced, they said that the Catholic relief charities got a million dollars in three days, which would turn out to be small beans in the long run.

26:27But over three days, that's quite a haul. Save the Children got more than six million dollars in four days. The Lutheran World Relief raised more money in a week than it does in a year. And the AP found that 30 percent of American families donated in the first two weeks. And just from the United States, there was about$1.6 billion. And estimates around the world were about$14 billion raised. Yeah. And just to kind of go over the power of the media, one thing I left out here is that that same study found that one extra minute of coverage on television equated to an increase in Internet donations by 16 to 20 percent.

27:07So like this, the impact, it's just essentially like a classroom lesson in the impact that media can have, the positive impact that media can have. And that's, I mean, that is definitely something to TV's credit. Yeah. You want to move on to, well, move backward to Vietnam? Yeah. Again, we're jumping all over the timeline. And we're in Vietnam right now because I guess we should talk a little bit about pre-Vietnam and as far as media coverage go. Because before that, World War II and certainly the Korean War, what you got as far as media coverage was highly sort of curated and regulated government-mediated film reels.