WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.540 I want you to imagine, just for a second, the 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:05.099 world we live in right now when it comes to audio. 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:09.419 Oh, it's wild right now. Right. Like, we are 00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:11.699 constantly surrounded by altered sound bites, 00:00:11.980 --> 00:00:15.000 AI voice clones, hyper -realistic deepfakes. 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.460 Yeah. If you want to make it sound like, I don't 00:00:17.460 --> 00:00:20.039 know, a famous politician is saying something 00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:22.199 utterly ridiculous, you could probably do it 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:24.800 on your phone right now. Easily. While you're 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:26.800 waiting in line for coffee. In about... Five 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:29.019 minutes. Yeah, the technology is just everywhere. 00:00:29.399 --> 00:00:32.280 Exactly. But for this deep dive, I want you to 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:34.679 leave your smartphone behind and travel back 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:38.799 in time with us. We're going back to 1965. A 00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:41.179 very, very different era. Completely. This is 00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:44.100 an era long before digital editing, before software, 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:46.219 before you could even see a visual waveform on 00:00:46.219 --> 00:00:48.039 a screen. There's no visual feedback at all. 00:00:48.299 --> 00:00:51.399 Exactly. It's a time when creating fake audio 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:54.240 meant sitting in a smoky room and physically 00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:58.090 cutting miles and miles magnetic type with actual 00:00:58.090 --> 00:01:01.409 literal metal razor blades. I mean it is just 00:01:01.409 --> 00:01:05.379 a a completely different universe of media creation. 00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:08.739 We're talking about an incredibly tactile, painstakingly 00:01:08.739 --> 00:01:12.620 slow, and highly physical way to manipulate reality. 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.060 Right. You couldn't just click undo if you made 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:17.439 a mistake. If you cut the tape wrong, that was 00:01:17.439 --> 00:01:20.079 it. That was it, yeah. And today, our source 00:01:20.079 --> 00:01:23.120 material is a fascinating Wikipedia article that 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:25.500 details a completely forgotten, yet massively 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:29.280 successful 1965 comedy album. It's called Welcome 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:32.079 to the LBJ Ranch. Such a great title. It really 00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:34.400 is. And our mission for this deep dive is to 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.340 explore how two incredibly frustrated comedy 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:40.260 writers managed to engineer this blockbuster 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:43.140 piece of political satire simply by manipulating 00:01:43.140 --> 00:01:45.319 the recorded voices of the most powerful people 00:01:45.319 --> 00:01:47.379 in America. Yeah, it's quite the story. We're 00:01:47.379 --> 00:01:49.239 going to look at the massive technical hurdles 00:01:49.239 --> 00:01:52.739 they cleared, the legal minefield they navigated, 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:55.000 and how they ultimately changed the way politicians 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:57.480 handle being the butt of the joke. It serves 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:00.680 as a brilliant case study, really, in early audio 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:03.700 manipulation. Looking back at it gives us a really 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:05.760 striking precedent for how the public interacts 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:09.659 with political figures and just how much effort 00:02:09.659 --> 00:02:11.979 it used to take to manufacture a viral comedic 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:14.270 moment. Absolutely. Now, before we jump into 00:02:14.270 --> 00:02:16.349 the story, a quick but very important note for 00:02:16.349 --> 00:02:18.930 you listening. Our source material today heavily 00:02:18.930 --> 00:02:20.909 features prominent political figures from the 00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:23.590 1960s, and that spans both the left wing and 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:25.889 the right wing. Right. We're talking about President 00:02:25.889 --> 00:02:28.650 Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, 00:02:28.729 --> 00:02:31.210 and a host of other massive historical names. 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:34.689 So we want to be explicitly clear upfront that 00:02:34.689 --> 00:02:37.590 this deep dive is completely impartial. Completely. 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:39.889 We are not taking any sides, and we are certainly 00:02:39.889 --> 00:02:42.009 not endorsing any of the political viewpoints 00:02:42.009 --> 00:02:44.110 or the... targets mentioned in these historical 00:02:44.110 --> 00:02:46.870 records. We are simply here to report on the 00:02:46.870 --> 00:02:49.590 historical facts, the comedic ideas, and the 00:02:49.590 --> 00:02:51.930 sheer technical achievement contained in the 00:02:51.930 --> 00:02:54.409 original source material. Yeah, we are examining 00:02:54.409 --> 00:02:57.110 this purely through the lens of history, comedy 00:02:57.110 --> 00:03:01.189 writing, and audio engineering. The political 00:03:01.189 --> 00:03:03.629 affiliations of the targets are just the raw 00:03:03.629 --> 00:03:05.990 materials these creators use to build their album. 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.750 Okay, let's unpack this. To really understand 00:03:08.750 --> 00:03:11.430 this album and why it exists at all, we have 00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:13.449 to start with the masterminds behind it. And 00:03:13.449 --> 00:03:16.090 more importantly, I think, we need to look at 00:03:16.090 --> 00:03:19.169 why two guys would ever willingly put themselves 00:03:19.169 --> 00:03:21.830 through what sounds like an absolute torture 00:03:21.830 --> 00:03:24.050 chamber of an editorial process. Yeah, because 00:03:24.050 --> 00:03:26.210 this wasn't some casual weekend hobby they picked 00:03:26.210 --> 00:03:29.270 up on a whim. Right. By 1964, when they started 00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:32.530 cooking up this project, the two men behind it, 00:03:32.729 --> 00:03:35.750 Earl Dowd and Aylin Robin, were already operating 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:38.030 at the absolute pinnacle of their industry. They 00:03:38.030 --> 00:03:40.610 were big deals. They really were. They were highly 00:03:40.610 --> 00:03:43.750 successful television comedy writers. Doud had 00:03:43.750 --> 00:03:46.250 written hilarious, iconic lines for television 00:03:46.250 --> 00:03:49.509 legends. We're talking Jack Parr, Jackie Gleason, 00:03:50.050 --> 00:03:52.770 Jonathan Winters, Ernie Kovacs, and Johnny Carson. 00:03:52.969 --> 00:03:55.509 I mean, those are the absolute titans of mid 00:03:55.509 --> 00:03:59.629 -century entertainment. Exactly. Meanwhile, Alyn 00:03:59.629 --> 00:04:02.370 Robin was a longtime core writer for The Tonight 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:05.280 Show. He had also written for major variety stars 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:08.439 like Cliff Arquette, Fred Allen, Steve Allen. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.919 These two men were essentially architecting the 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:14.639 sense of humor for the entire American public 00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:17.560 on a nightly basis. But they were entirely anonymous 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:19.660 to the general public. Nobody knew their names. 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:21.779 They were the men behind the curtain. It reminds 00:04:21.779 --> 00:04:25.509 me a bit of like... Highly paid ghost writers, 00:04:25.509 --> 00:04:27.290 you know, you're sitting there in a writer's 00:04:27.290 --> 00:04:30.110 room churning out the absolute best punch lens 00:04:30.110 --> 00:04:31.629 of your life And then you have to stand in the 00:04:31.629 --> 00:04:33.870 wings and watch someone else step into the spotlight 00:04:33.870 --> 00:04:35.889 Yeah, and they deliver your joke and they get 00:04:35.889 --> 00:04:37.970 all the applause all the laughs and basically 00:04:37.970 --> 00:04:40.470 all the credit for your hard work And that lack 00:04:40.470 --> 00:04:43.250 of public recognition breeds a very specific 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:46.750 very potent kind of frustration Oh, I bet Robin 00:04:46.750 --> 00:04:48.790 actually went on the record about this stating 00:04:48.790 --> 00:04:51.009 quite bluntly that he was looking for a way to 00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:53.800 make more money He pointed out that he found 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:55.959 it difficult to consort with television stars 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:58.420 in the lavish lifestyle they expected of him 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:00.399 while he was basically taking home a writer's 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:02.980 salary. Right, he's hanging out with millionaires 00:05:02.980 --> 00:05:06.180 but not making millionaire money. Exactly. Both 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:08.300 of these men wanted fame. They wanted their names 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:10.720 on the marquee, and they wanted the financial 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:12.720 security that came with it. And Dowd had actually 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.180 already tasted a little bit of that massive center 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:17.980 stage success, hadn't he? He had, yeah. Couple 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:21.019 of years earlier, Dowd produced the 1962 comedy 00:05:21.019 --> 00:05:24.000 album, The First Family. Oh, right. Yeah, that 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.319 album featured an impersonator named Vaughn Meader 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:29.319 doing this very gentle, poking fun impression 00:05:29.319 --> 00:05:31.920 of President John F. Kennedy and his family. 00:05:31.920 --> 00:05:35.120 Uh -huh. And that record was a massive, unprecedented 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:38.060 overnight sensation. It sold millions of copies 00:05:38.060 --> 00:05:40.660 in a matter of weeks, and it even won Dowd a 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.889 Grammy Award. So he knew firsthand that comedy 00:05:43.889 --> 00:05:46.730 albums could be a vehicle for the kind of cultural 00:05:46.730 --> 00:05:48.689 dominance and massive financial windfall they 00:05:48.689 --> 00:05:50.629 were looking for. What's fascinating here is 00:05:50.629 --> 00:05:54.660 how the most basic human desires for The need 00:05:54.660 --> 00:05:57.319 for recognition, for financial security, for 00:05:57.319 --> 00:06:00.060 validation of one's own talent drove these two 00:06:00.060 --> 00:06:02.720 men to push the absolute technological boundaries 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:05.600 of audio editing in the 1960s. Yeah, they weren't 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:08.220 just writing jokes anymore. They were inventing 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:10.920 a completely new way to deliver them to the masses. 00:06:11.019 --> 00:06:13.680 And that brings us to the actual physical reality 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.160 of creating this album, which honestly sounds 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:18.459 less like a creative process and more like a 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.160 bizarre psychological endurance experiment. That's 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:23.319 a good way to put it. Right. To build this album, 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.720 Doud and Robin met nearly every single evening 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.439 for 13 solid months. A relentless daily grind. 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.060 And remember, this is on top of their already 00:06:33.060 --> 00:06:35.459 demanding television job. Yeah, they didn't quit 00:06:35.459 --> 00:06:38.079 their day jobs. So they set up shop at Doud's 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:40.199 house in New York City, which was located in 00:06:40.199 --> 00:06:42.879 the East 60s on the Upper East Side. And over 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:46.220 those 13 months, they amassed and reviewed a 00:06:46.220 --> 00:06:50.269 staggering 36 miles of magnetic tape. 36 miles. 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:52.649 I want you, the listener, to let that sink in 00:06:52.649 --> 00:06:55.829 for a second. 36 miles. That is roughly the distance 00:06:55.829 --> 00:06:57.750 from New York City all the way to the middle 00:06:57.750 --> 00:07:00.449 of Connecticut entirely made of thin fragile 00:07:00.449 --> 00:07:03.310 ribbon containing the voices of politicians. 00:07:03.709 --> 00:07:05.629 Picture the scene in that Upper East Side house. 00:07:05.810 --> 00:07:09.329 It's the mid -1960s. The room is dominated by 00:07:09.329 --> 00:07:12.709 these bulky, heavy reel -to -reel tape recorders. 00:07:13.050 --> 00:07:15.689 to even find a quote. They couldn't just, you 00:07:15.689 --> 00:07:17.649 know, search a transcript on a laptop. Right, 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:20.089 no control F back then. No, not at all. They 00:07:20.089 --> 00:07:22.569 had to sit and listen to hours and hours of press 00:07:22.569 --> 00:07:25.089 conferences in real time. I really want to dig 00:07:25.089 --> 00:07:27.209 into the mechanics of this because I think we 00:07:27.209 --> 00:07:30.269 take audio editing so for granted today. How 00:07:30.269 --> 00:07:32.889 are they actually manipulating this tape? Well, 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:35.290 the physical process of analog tape splicing 00:07:35.290 --> 00:07:38.220 is intensely surgical. Once they found a piece 00:07:38.220 --> 00:07:40.300 of audio they liked, they had to isolate it. 00:07:40.339 --> 00:07:42.959 And you do that by manually rocking the tape 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:45.240 reels back and forth over the machine's playback 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:48.480 head. OK. You do that to find the exact microscopic 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:51.540 start and end points of a syllable. Then you 00:07:51.540 --> 00:07:53.779 literally mark that exact spot on the tape with 00:07:53.779 --> 00:07:55.819 a grease pencil. You pull the tape away from 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:58.100 the machine, place it into a metal cutting block, 00:07:58.319 --> 00:08:00.959 and physically slice the tape at a 45 degree 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:03.560 angle with a metal razor blade. So they are literally 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:06.350 severing the magnetic tape in half. Yes. Then 00:08:06.350 --> 00:08:08.490 you take that severed piece of tape, you line 00:08:08.490 --> 00:08:10.430 it up perfectly with the next piece of tape you 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:12.589 want to use, and you join them together with 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:15.069 a special adhesive splicing tape. That sounds 00:08:15.069 --> 00:08:17.970 incredibly tedious. It is, because if your razor 00:08:17.970 --> 00:08:21.750 cut is off by even a millimeter, or if the angle 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:25.050 isn't perfectly 45 degrees, the audio will pop 00:08:25.050 --> 00:08:28.089 or click or just sound completely unnatural when 00:08:28.089 --> 00:08:31.430 you play it back. Doing that seamlessly, thousands 00:08:31.430 --> 00:08:34.669 of times over 13 months, requires almost superhuman 00:08:34.669 --> 00:08:37.639 patience. To put this in perspective for anyone 00:08:37.639 --> 00:08:40.919 listening, trying to build a fluid, natural -sounding 00:08:40.919 --> 00:08:44.059 comedy album by cutting 36 miles of tape with 00:08:44.059 --> 00:08:46.460 a razor blade is like trying to write a best 00:08:46.460 --> 00:08:48.360 -selling novel by cutting individual letters 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:50.519 out of a mountain of daily newspapers. Yeah, 00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:53.019 that's exactly it. The margin for error is essentially 00:08:53.019 --> 00:08:55.120 zero. And doing it in a room that was likely 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:57.500 covered in tiny discarded strips of magnetic 00:08:57.500 --> 00:09:00.279 tape and smelling strongly of splicing fluid. 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:03.340 Oh, and we absolutely cannot leave out the strangest 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.100 detail from our sources regarding that room. 00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:08.100 Oh, the kinkajou? Yes. While they are doing this 00:09:08.100 --> 00:09:11.100 highly meticulous, mind -numbing editorial work, 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.580 they are being watched over by Dude's pet kinkajou. 00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:17.500 A kinkajou being a small, nocturnal rainforest 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:20.120 mammal, closely related to the raccoon, usually 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:22.519 found in the canopy of Central and South America. 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:25.659 Not exactly a common Upper East Side house pet. 00:09:25.779 --> 00:09:27.940 Not at all. And the source material casually 00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:30.899 drops this incredible detail. This kinkajou was 00:09:30.899 --> 00:09:33.519 sometimes intoxicated from alcohol that Dowd 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:35.940 supplied to it. Just unbelievable. So you have 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:39.559 two frustrated comedy writers, 36 miles of tape, 00:09:39.789 --> 00:09:43.809 sharp razor blades, and a drunk rainforest animal 00:09:43.809 --> 00:09:46.409 supervising the whole operation, you literally 00:09:46.409 --> 00:09:49.129 cannot write a more chaotic scene. It paints 00:09:49.129 --> 00:09:52.110 a very vivid, almost surreal picture of the environment 00:09:52.110 --> 00:09:54.250 where this groundbreaking media manipulation 00:09:54.250 --> 00:09:56.509 was taking place. It really does. But looking 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:58.309 at the mechanics of this, I have to ask a question 00:09:58.309 --> 00:09:59.909 that I think anyone listening would be wondering 00:09:59.909 --> 00:10:03.330 about. With 36 miles of tape and all those hours 00:10:03.330 --> 00:10:05.850 of politicians talking, why not just chop up 00:10:05.850 --> 00:10:08.309 their speeches word by word? Like take a the 00:10:08.309 --> 00:10:11.210 from here. an apple from there, a tax from over 00:10:11.210 --> 00:10:13.389 there, and just string individual words together 00:10:13.389 --> 00:10:15.789 to make the politicians say literally whatever 00:10:15.789 --> 00:10:18.629 crazy sentence you wanted. It's a completely 00:10:18.629 --> 00:10:21.690 logical question, but taking that shortcut would 00:10:21.690 --> 00:10:24.370 have ruined the illusion. They specifically avoided 00:10:24.370 --> 00:10:26.909 doing that. In fact, Dowd stated that they tried 00:10:26.909 --> 00:10:29.149 to stay away from the tapes of formal political 00:10:29.149 --> 00:10:32.610 speeches entirely. Really? Why avoid the speeches? 00:10:32.669 --> 00:10:35.450 Wouldn't that be the cleanest audio? Yes, but 00:10:35.450 --> 00:10:38.450 completely wrong in its tone. Think about how 00:10:38.450 --> 00:10:40.690 a politician sounds when they were standing at 00:10:40.690 --> 00:10:43.009 a podium, giving a prepared speech to a crowd 00:10:43.009 --> 00:10:45.830 of thousands. They project their voice from their 00:10:45.830 --> 00:10:48.809 chest. They leave long pauses for applause. The 00:10:48.809 --> 00:10:51.190 cadence is very rhythmic and theatrical. Right, 00:10:51.190 --> 00:10:53.590 it's very performed. If you took that booming 00:10:53.590 --> 00:10:57.129 theatrical auditorium voice and spliced it in 00:10:57.129 --> 00:10:59.409 as the answer to a casual, intimate interview 00:10:59.409 --> 00:11:01.740 question, The listener's brain would immediately 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:05.379 reject it. It would sound jarringly fake. So 00:11:05.379 --> 00:11:07.340 it's not just about the words. It's about the 00:11:07.340 --> 00:11:10.600 acoustic environment and the delivery. Precisely. 00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:13.659 They realized early on that they only wanted 00:11:13.659 --> 00:11:17.120 to use complete, unchopped answers from casual 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.940 interviews and press conferences. They desperately 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:23.279 needed that natural conversational tone, the 00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:25.700 breathing, the slight hesitations, the casual 00:11:25.700 --> 00:11:28.519 cadence to make the fabricated interviews sound 00:11:28.519 --> 00:11:31.120 completely real to the ear. That makes so much 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:34.759 sense. By imposing this massive, difficult constraint 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:37.899 on themselves, refusing to chop up sentences 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:41.080 word by word, they actually elevated the comedic 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:43.480 art form they were inventing. The joke on this 00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:46.440 album isn't that they made a fake, robotic sounding 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:49.960 sentence. The joke is that a real, genuine, naturally 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:52.600 delivered sentence perfectly answers a completely 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:54.690 absurd question. I'm trying to wrap my head around 00:11:54.690 --> 00:11:56.909 the workflow here. If you have a strict rule 00:11:56.909 --> 00:11:59.889 to only use an unchopped answer from a real interview, 00:12:00.269 --> 00:12:02.289 you can't just write a funny joke and then go 00:12:02.289 --> 00:12:03.889 look for the audio to match it. Right. You'd 00:12:03.889 --> 00:12:05.450 never find it. You'd have to do it in reverse, 00:12:05.590 --> 00:12:07.129 right? Yeah. You'd have to sift through the tape, 00:12:07.450 --> 00:12:09.509 find a weird or interesting piece of audio first, 00:12:09.570 --> 00:12:12.230 and then engineer a fake setup question to fit 00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:14.450 what the politician's already saying. That is 00:12:14.450 --> 00:12:16.350 exactly the reverse engineering process they 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.389 had to master. They started by cataloging interesting, 00:12:19.629 --> 00:12:22.250 ambiguous, or funny out -of -context answers 00:12:22.250 --> 00:12:24.730 from the politicians, and then they worked backward. 00:12:25.289 --> 00:12:27.549 They wrote a fake interviewer's question that 00:12:27.549 --> 00:12:30.450 would transform that mundane answer into a brilliant 00:12:30.450 --> 00:12:32.620 punchline. And the source material gives us some 00:12:32.620 --> 00:12:35.139 incredible examples of this working in practice. 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:37.700 The actual title of the album, Welcome to the 00:12:37.700 --> 00:12:40.480 LBJ Ranch, comes from a recording of First Lady 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:42.960 Lady Bird Johnson giving a guided audio tour 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:45.779 of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Texas home. 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:50.379 A location which is now a national historic park. 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:53.340 So Daud and Robin find this tape of the First 00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:55.980 Lady saying, very warmly and hospitably, welcome 00:12:55.980 --> 00:12:59.019 to the LBJ ranch. They isolate that clip and 00:12:59.019 --> 00:13:00.799 they write a fake interview question for her. 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.299 The fake interviewer asks, as a student of history, 00:13:03.379 --> 00:13:05.159 I wonder if you could remember the actual words 00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:07.220 the Native Americans spoke when Christopher Columbus 00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:09.419 landed on these shores. And then they play her 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:12.220 real audio, welcome to the LBJ ranch. It's such 00:13:12.220 --> 00:13:14.840 a simple structural joke, but it lands perfectly 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.799 because her delivery of the line is totally sincere 00:13:17.799 --> 00:13:20.639 and pleasant. The contrast between the historical 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:23.399 premise of the question and her cheerful Texas 00:13:23.399 --> 00:13:26.580 hospitality is what creates the comedy. Here's 00:13:26.580 --> 00:13:28.899 another one I love from the sources. They targeted 00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:31.179 the governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, 00:13:31.379 --> 00:13:34.059 who is famous for being a member of the astronomically 00:13:34.059 --> 00:13:37.360 wealthy Rockefeller family. Right. The fake interviewer 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:41.000 asks him a very simple, relatable question. What 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.500 did he give his wife for their anniversary? And 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:46.159 the real, unchopped audio of Rockefeller replies, 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:48.460 the state of Connecticut and the state of New 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:51.200 York, both states and the people in those two 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:54.080 states. In reality, he was likely answering a 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:57.019 dry policy question about infrastructure initiatives 00:13:57.019 --> 00:13:59.110 or regional voting blocks. Yes, totally. But 00:13:59.110 --> 00:14:01.049 when that audio is placed immediately after the 00:14:01.049 --> 00:14:03.730 anniversary question, it perfectly skewers his 00:14:03.730 --> 00:14:06.789 public reputation as an unimaginably wealthy 00:14:06.789 --> 00:14:09.850 tycoon who could literally gift an entire state 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:12.629 to his spouse. And to make this illusion ironclad, 00:14:13.029 --> 00:14:15.389 they didn't just have Robin or Dowd read the 00:14:15.389 --> 00:14:18.049 fake set up questions into a microphone. They 00:14:18.049 --> 00:14:21.610 brought in serious heavyweight broadcast talent. 00:14:21.629 --> 00:14:25.129 Oh, yeah. They hired famous. instantly recognizable 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:27.590 news announcers of the era. We're talking guys 00:14:27.590 --> 00:14:30.350 like John Cameron Swayze, Westbrook Van Voorhees, 00:14:30.470 --> 00:14:34.490 and WPIX anchorman John St. Lugger. These were 00:14:34.490 --> 00:14:36.889 the definitive voices of authority and truth 00:14:36.889 --> 00:14:40.230 in 1960s America. The voices you trusted. Exactly. 00:14:40.549 --> 00:14:43.149 Hearing these trusted newsmen ask these completely 00:14:43.149 --> 00:14:46.370 absurd questions gave the entire album a veneer 00:14:46.370 --> 00:14:49.750 of absolute journalistic seriousness. And then, 00:14:49.750 --> 00:14:52.029 to bridge the gap between news and comedy, they 00:14:52.029 --> 00:14:54.539 topped it all off with a careful calibrated laugh 00:14:54.539 --> 00:14:56.600 track. Yeah, added by a sound effects specialist 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:58.779 named Bob Prescott. If we connect this to the 00:14:58.779 --> 00:15:00.360 bigger picture, you have to look past the jokes 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.259 and realize the immense legal risk Dowd, Robin, 00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:04.879 and their publisher were taking. Oh, I can't 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:08.120 even imagine. Imagine. You're one of the executives 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:11.470 at Capitol Records. You've got this brilliantly 00:15:11.470 --> 00:15:13.730 funny tape sitting on your desk, but you are 00:15:13.730 --> 00:15:16.929 looking at manipulated audio of the sitting president 00:15:16.929 --> 00:15:19.490 of the United States, the vice president, powerful 00:15:19.490 --> 00:15:22.149 senators, and influential governors. You are 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:24.509 literally putting words into the mouths of the 00:15:24.509 --> 00:15:27.029 leaders of the free world. I would be terrified 00:15:27.029 --> 00:15:29.580 of the liability. Capital Records certainly was. 00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:31.419 They didn't just put this record out blindly. 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:34.519 They actually deployed their 40 person legal 00:15:34.519 --> 00:15:37.600 team to review the entire album, track by track, 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:40.659 to clear it for release. 40 corporate lawyers 00:15:40.659 --> 00:15:43.240 dissecting a comedy record. They had to be absolutely 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:45.340 certain it fell firmly under the protection of 00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:48.899 fair use as a parody. In 1965, taking actual 00:15:48.899 --> 00:15:51.379 audio of the president and manipulating it for 00:15:51.379 --> 00:15:54.759 commercial comedy was relatively uncharted territory 00:15:54.759 --> 00:15:57.820 for mainstream major record labels. They were 00:15:57.820 --> 00:15:59.500 testing the boundaries of the First Amendment. 00:15:59.820 --> 00:16:01.779 That fear of crossing the line wasn't just a 00:16:01.779 --> 00:16:04.100 legal concern, though. It also drove their editorial 00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:07.519 curation, right? They had 36 miles of tape, meaning 00:16:07.519 --> 00:16:09.899 they had audio of almost everyone, but they were 00:16:09.899 --> 00:16:12.080 hyper aware of the optics of who they targeted. 00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:14.120 They were meticulously balancing the scales. 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:16.659 If you're going to use the president's voice 00:16:16.659 --> 00:16:19.240 for comedy, you can't just attack one side of 00:16:19.240 --> 00:16:21.279 the political aisle without looking like a partisan 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:23.759 hitch -op. Makes sense. They originally planned 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:27.000 to use audio from Werner von Braun, the famous 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.779 German rocketry pioneer, and Prince Philip of 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:32.679 the United Kingdom. But they ultimately dropped 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:35.299 them to keep the focus strictly on the ecosystem 00:16:35.299 --> 00:16:38.860 of American politics. Which keeps the album conceptually 00:16:38.860 --> 00:16:41.720 tight. It does. But they also had to make some 00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:44.980 painful cuts of major American figures. They 00:16:44.980 --> 00:16:47.539 had unearthed some fantastic comedic potential 00:16:47.539 --> 00:16:49.860 in recordings of former president Harry S. Truman, 00:16:50.279 --> 00:16:52.799 but the analog audio quality of those otter tapes 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.720 was just too poor. Ah, too much hiss or crackle. 00:16:55.960 --> 00:16:58.379 Exactly. It wouldn't blend seamlessly with the 00:16:58.379 --> 00:17:00.899 crisp studio -recorded questions from the news 00:17:00.899 --> 00:17:03.279 anchors. And then they had some incredible material 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:06.099 featuring Ambassador Adlai Stevenson II. But 00:17:06.099 --> 00:17:08.599 the timing of that material became incredibly 00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:12.319 tragic. Right. Stevenson died suddenly in July 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:15.880 1965, which was just a month before Dowd and 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.079 Robin went into the studio to record the announcer 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:20.980 voices. Dowd made the editorial call that it 00:17:20.980 --> 00:17:23.160 would be an extremely bad taste to include a 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:25.240 man on a comedy album right after his sudden 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:28.279 passing. Of course. So dropping Truman for technical 00:17:28.279 --> 00:17:30.920 reasons and Stevenson for ethical reasons actually 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.240 shifted the carefully planned political balance 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:35.980 of the album. They had intended to engineer a 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:39.119 perfect 50 -50 partisan split with five Republicans 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:41.700 and five Democrats. But the final track list 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:44.019 ended up featuring five Republicans and only 00:17:44.019 --> 00:17:46.200 three Democrats. It's fascinating how much of 00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:49.000 this groundbreaking final product was dictated 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:51.160 not just by the writer's comedic vision, but 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:54.259 by the physical limitations of audio fidelity 00:17:54.259 --> 00:17:57.140 and, you know, basic human decency regarding 00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:59.039 a recent death. Yeah, real world constraints. 00:17:59.380 --> 00:18:01.799 So let's look at the climax of all this effort. 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:07.059 November 1965 rolls around. The 13 months locked 00:18:07.059 --> 00:18:09.980 in the Upper East Side apartment, the 36 miles 00:18:09.980 --> 00:18:12.259 of magnetic tape, the drunk kinkajou, the 40 00:18:12.259 --> 00:18:15.440 person legal review. It's all done. The album 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:18.119 is finally released to the public. The multi 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:21.000 -million dollar question is... Did it actually 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.660 work? It was an absolute runaway blockbuster. 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:25.900 The sales numbers from the source material are 00:18:25.900 --> 00:18:28.420 staggering. Cashbox Magazine reported that the 00:18:28.420 --> 00:18:31.759 album sold five million units, just a massive 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:34.779 volume of vinyl moving across the country. By 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:37.839 Christmas Day in 1965, it had rocketed to number 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:41.420 three on the Billboard charts for top LPs. And 00:18:41.420 --> 00:18:43.240 to give you a sense of the cultural oxygen it 00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:45.519 was consuming, the only two albums beating it 00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:47.799 on the charts were Herb Albert's legendary Whip 00:18:47.799 --> 00:18:50.079 Cream and Other Delights at number one, and the 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:51.980 soundtrack to the movie The Sound of Music at 00:18:51.980 --> 00:18:54.160 number two. That is some serious competition. 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:56.440 This comedy album of spliced tape was sitting 00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:58.920 right there shoulder to shoulder with the biggest, 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:01.440 most defining cultural juggernauts of the entire 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:04.200 decade. And it had incredible staying power, 00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:07.039 remaining on the charts for a total of 25 weeks. 00:19:07.940 --> 00:19:10.380 But that massive success did not come without 00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:13.359 some serious institutional friction. The initial 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:16.059 rollout to radio stations was incredibly tense. 00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:18.599 The sources note that major metropolitan radio 00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:20.579 station managers were deeply hesitant to put 00:19:20.579 --> 00:19:23.500 this on the airwaves. They were terrified of 00:19:23.500 --> 00:19:25.759 violating the rights of these powerful politicians 00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:29.099 or inviting FCC scrutiny. Yeah, nobody wanted 00:19:29.099 --> 00:19:31.299 to be the first to jump. Capital records had 00:19:31.299 --> 00:19:33.480 to continuously reassure them, essentially saying, 00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:36.019 our 40 lawyers looked at this, we promise it's 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:38.599 legal. But they faced what one capital executive 00:19:38.599 --> 00:19:42.160 described as stiff resistance, particularly from 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.859 major radio stations in the Los Angeles market. 00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:48.220 However, the dam eventually broke. Once brave 00:19:48.220 --> 00:19:50.599 station managers in places like New York, Chicago, 00:19:50.920 --> 00:19:53.220 Dallas, Seattle, and Atlanta finally started 00:19:53.220 --> 00:19:55.660 broadcasting excerpts on the air, the public 00:19:55.660 --> 00:19:58.240 reaction was instantaneous. People had never 00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:00.640 heard their stoic leaders sound like this. That 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.400 radio play is what drove those massive five million 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:05.940 unit sales numbers we just discussed. This raises 00:20:05.940 --> 00:20:09.500 an important question. How did the actual targets 00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:13.119 of the satire, the politicians themselves, react 00:20:13.119 --> 00:20:16.480 to being manipulated? In today's highly polarized, 00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:19.240 litigious environment, you might naturally expect 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:21.940 a flurry of lawsuits, angry press conferences, 00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:24.779 or demands for censorship and boycotts. Absolutely. 00:20:24.940 --> 00:20:28.519 But the reaction in 1965 was incredibly revealing 00:20:28.519 --> 00:20:31.160 about the changing nature of politics. Talk about 00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:33.980 a plot twist. Senator Everett Dirksen, who is 00:20:33.980 --> 00:20:36.720 a very powerful figure and one of the main politicians 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:39.079 parodied on the album, didn't issue a gag order 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:42.359 or sue them. According to the sources, he reportedly 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:44.859 bought stacks of the album to give away to his 00:20:44.859 --> 00:20:47.259 own friends as Christmas gifts. And the embrace 00:20:47.259 --> 00:20:49.900 of the comedy goes even further than that. John 00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:51.579 Lindsay, who had just been elected as the mayor 00:20:51.579 --> 00:20:53.900 of New York City, heard the album and reached 00:20:53.900 --> 00:20:56.480 out directly to Dowd and Robin. He didn't complain 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.000 about how he was portrayed. Instead, he hired 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:01.079 the two of them to write a comedy speech for 00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:03.940 him to deliver at the prestigious annual Gridiron 00:21:03.940 --> 00:21:06.759 Club dinner the following March. Right. You'd 00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:10.119 expect a politician in 1965 to be furious. But 00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:13.180 instead, he essentially admits, OK, you guys 00:21:13.180 --> 00:21:15.619 are funnier than my PR team. Come work for me. 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:18.740 It perfectly highlights a pivotal cultural shift. 00:21:19.420 --> 00:21:21.599 Politicians were beginning to realize that being 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:25.059 in on the joke was becoming a highly valuable. 00:21:25.369 --> 00:21:28.549 political tool. Yes. Showing the voting public 00:21:28.549 --> 00:21:31.029 that you could take a punch, laugh at yourself, 00:21:31.430 --> 00:21:34.390 and appreciate good satire made you appear more 00:21:34.390 --> 00:21:37.150 human, more approachable, and frankly, more modern. 00:21:37.269 --> 00:21:39.170 It really feels like the birth of the modern 00:21:39.170 --> 00:21:41.470 politician trying to prove they're cool and relatable 00:21:41.470 --> 00:21:44.009 by going on late night comedy shows. Totally. 00:21:44.230 --> 00:21:46.690 And as a capstone to all this immense effort 00:21:46.690 --> 00:21:51.029 and success, welcome to the LBJ Ranch. Earn a 00:21:51.029 --> 00:21:53.210 Grammy Award nomination for best comedy album. 00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:56.480 which provided exactly the kind of top -tier 00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:59.140 industry validation and name recognition that 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:01.339 Doud and Robin had been craving since their anonymous 00:22:01.339 --> 00:22:03.500 days in the television writers' room. Interestingly, 00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:05.880 they found themselves competing against Doud's 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:08.319 former colleagues from the First Family team, 00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:10.539 who had a new album out called You Don't Have 00:22:10.539 --> 00:22:13.160 to Be Jewish. A small world. They were also up 00:22:13.160 --> 00:22:15.519 against heavyweights like Godfrey Cambridge and 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:18.490 the Smothers Brothers. Ultimately... They didn't 00:22:18.490 --> 00:22:20.829 take home the trophy the Grammys that year went 00:22:20.829 --> 00:22:23.309 to Bill Cosby for his album Why Is There Air. 00:22:24.269 --> 00:22:27.569 But LBJ Ranch was officially certified gold by 00:22:27.569 --> 00:22:29.809 the Recording Industry Association of America. 00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:32.730 Incredible. Dowd and Robin finally got their 00:22:32.730 --> 00:22:35.849 fame and they certainly got their money. So what 00:22:35.849 --> 00:22:37.829 does this all mean for you listening to this 00:22:37.829 --> 00:22:40.490 deep dive right now? Why should we care about 00:22:40.490 --> 00:22:44.289 the mechanics of a comedy album from 1965? I 00:22:44.289 --> 00:22:46.390 think it's because this story reminds us of the 00:22:46.390 --> 00:22:48.630 sheer monumental human effort it used to take 00:22:48.630 --> 00:22:51.250 to create a seamless piece of audio manipulation. 00:22:51.430 --> 00:22:54.049 It really was monumental. Doubt and Robin proved 00:22:54.049 --> 00:22:56.849 that our appetite for political satire and our 00:22:56.849 --> 00:22:58.970 inherent willingness to blur the lines between 00:22:58.970 --> 00:23:01.890 reality and comedy is not some new phenomenon 00:23:01.890 --> 00:23:04.049 born out of the internet era. No, not at all. 00:23:04.369 --> 00:23:06.390 We've always wanted to laugh at the people holding 00:23:06.390 --> 00:23:09.029 the levers of power, and we've always been captivated 00:23:09.029 --> 00:23:11.430 by the illusion of hearing them say the quiet 00:23:11.430 --> 00:23:14.589 or utterly absurd part out loud. And examining 00:23:14.589 --> 00:23:17.690 their painstaking analog process leaves us with 00:23:17.690 --> 00:23:20.910 a rather profound thought to mull over. If two 00:23:20.910 --> 00:23:23.970 guys in 1965 could create a massive cultural 00:23:23.970 --> 00:23:27.289 phenomenon and fundamentally shift how politicians 00:23:27.289 --> 00:23:30.190 engaged with comedy using nothing but metal razor 00:23:30.190 --> 00:23:33.470 blades, sticky tape and 36 miles of magnetic 00:23:33.470 --> 00:23:36.369 ribbon. Yeah. What does today's frictionless 00:23:36.369 --> 00:23:39.890 instant AI generated audio mean for the future 00:23:39.890 --> 00:23:42.359 of political satire? That's a great question. 00:23:42.700 --> 00:23:44.779 When anyone with a smartphone can generate a 00:23:44.779 --> 00:23:47.200 perfectly flawless, synthesized fake in a matter 00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:49.920 of seconds, completely bypassing all the creative 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:51.839 constraints and reverse engineering that Dowd 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:54.599 and Robin faced, will the painstakingly crafted 00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:57.740 joke lose its power entirely? Or will we simply 00:23:57.740 --> 00:24:00.119 reach a saturation point where we stop trusting 00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:02.400 anything we hear, turning every single piece 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:05.180 of audio into a potential parody? a completely 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:07.980 terrifying but entirely relevant question to 00:24:07.980 --> 00:24:10.240 take with us as we navigate our own increasingly 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.220 complex era of manipulated media. I know I'll 00:24:13.220 --> 00:24:15.259 definitely be thinking about that 36 miles of 00:24:15.259 --> 00:24:17.220 physical tape the next time I scroll past a political 00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:19.539 meme. Thank you so much for joining us on this 00:24:19.539 --> 00:24:20.740 deep dive. Thank you for listening.