WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 You know, usually when we talk about a fabricated 00:00:01.899 --> 00:00:06.540 audio clip today, there is this expectation of 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:08.599 a kind of dark digital magic. All right, like 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:10.859 an algorithm doing all the heavy lifting. Exactly. 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.839 You type a prompt into an AI, the software whirs 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:15.960 for a few seconds, and suddenly you have a perfect 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:19.339 seamless recording of a politician saying something 00:00:19.339 --> 00:00:21.679 they never actually said. It's instant. Yeah. 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:24.460 But today... We're going to completely shatter 00:00:24.460 --> 00:00:26.640 that high -tech narrative, because our mission 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:30.600 in this deep dive is to explore how two incredibly 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:34.159 frustrated television comedy writers in 1965 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:36.719 essentially invented the audio deepfake. And 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:39.039 they didn't use computers? No, they used literal 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:42.920 scissors, 36 miles of magnetic tape, and a surprisingly 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:45.850 heavy dose of political satire. We were using 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:47.909 the Wikipedia article for their groundbreaking 00:00:47.909 --> 00:00:50.909 1965 comedy album, Welcome to the LBJ Ranch, 00:00:51.310 --> 00:00:53.210 as our source material today, just to figure 00:00:53.210 --> 00:00:55.869 out exactly how they pulled off this analog miracle. 00:00:56.310 --> 00:00:58.350 It really is a phenomenal story. I mean, we tend 00:00:58.350 --> 00:01:00.469 to think of media manipulation as this byproduct 00:01:00.469 --> 00:01:03.909 of the computer age. But looking at this 1965 00:01:03.909 --> 00:01:07.730 album proves that the impulse to, you know, hijack 00:01:07.730 --> 00:01:10.909 a powerful person's voice is much older. It is 00:01:10.909 --> 00:01:14.109 the absolute definition of analog obsession. 00:01:14.510 --> 00:01:16.510 Now, before we get into the weeds of how they 00:01:16.510 --> 00:01:18.530 physically built this thing, I do need to make 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:20.409 something crystal clear to you, the listener. 00:01:20.629 --> 00:01:23.269 Yes, the impartiality rule. Exactly. Because 00:01:23.269 --> 00:01:26.569 this album relies incredibly heavily on the real 00:01:26.569 --> 00:01:29.849 historical recordings of actual political figures 00:01:29.849 --> 00:01:32.310 spanning from President Lyndon B. Johnson and 00:01:32.310 --> 00:01:34.870 Robert Kennedy on the left to Barry Goldwater 00:01:34.870 --> 00:01:37.189 and Richard Nixon on the right. It covers the 00:01:37.189 --> 00:01:40.030 whole spectrum. It does. So we have to explicitly 00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:43.290 state our strict impartiality rule here. We are 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:45.769 taking you on a deep dive to explore the fascinating 00:01:45.769 --> 00:01:48.329 history and the mechanical genius of this satire. 00:01:48.609 --> 00:01:51.250 But in no way are we taking sides or endorsing 00:01:51.250 --> 00:01:53.450 the viewpoints of any of the politicians mentioned. 00:01:53.790 --> 00:01:55.510 Left -wing or right -wing? Right, none of it. 00:01:55.930 --> 00:01:57.930 We are strictly reporting the facts as laid out 00:01:57.930 --> 00:01:59.930 in the source material. Which is an important 00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:02.269 boundary to set, honestly, because our focus 00:02:02.269 --> 00:02:05.189 is really on the art, the grueling effort, and 00:02:05.189 --> 00:02:07.370 the psychological motivation of the creators, 00:02:08.050 --> 00:02:10.150 not the political policies of the era. Okay, 00:02:10.189 --> 00:02:12.569 let's unpack this. Because to understand how 00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:15.430 this bizarre album got made, we first have to 00:02:15.430 --> 00:02:18.629 understand the desperate ambition of the guys 00:02:18.629 --> 00:02:21.610 who made it. Right. Who are the architects of 00:02:21.610 --> 00:02:24.969 this 1965 deep fake? Well, that brings us to 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:27.669 Earl Dowd and Alyn Robin. And by the time they 00:02:27.669 --> 00:02:30.650 started this project in 1964, these two were 00:02:30.650 --> 00:02:33.370 already absolute heavyweights in the television 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:36.250 comedy writing world. Oh, big time. Yeah. We 00:02:36.250 --> 00:02:38.370 are talking about veterans who had pen jokes 00:02:38.370 --> 00:02:41.129 for the absolute biggest stars of the mid -century 00:02:41.129 --> 00:02:44.930 monoculture. I mean, Jack Pair, Jackie Gleason, 00:02:45.210 --> 00:02:47.849 Jonathan Winters, Ernie Kovacs. Johnny Carson, 00:02:48.069 --> 00:02:50.030 Cliff Arquette, and Steve and Fred Allen. When 00:02:50.030 --> 00:02:52.050 you list those names, that is essentially the 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:54.449 Mount Rushmore of early television. Oh, absolutely. 00:02:54.469 --> 00:02:56.289 Like if you were watching a screen in the early 00:02:56.289 --> 00:02:58.789 1960s, you were probably laughing at a joke written 00:02:58.789 --> 00:03:00.629 by one of these two men. You definitely were. 00:03:01.009 --> 00:03:03.909 But here is the critical tension. You didn't 00:03:03.909 --> 00:03:06.169 know their names. Right. They were totally anonymous. 00:03:06.569 --> 00:03:08.669 Entirely anonymous. They were the guys behind 00:03:08.669 --> 00:03:11.289 the curtain making the famous people look brilliant. 00:03:11.830 --> 00:03:14.449 And the source material points out that they 00:03:14.449 --> 00:03:17.189 were incredibly frustrated. with this dynamic. 00:03:17.229 --> 00:03:19.629 I can imagine. Yeah. Robin actually admitted 00:03:19.629 --> 00:03:22.210 that he found it difficult to consort with these 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:24.569 massive TV stars in the way that they expected 00:03:24.569 --> 00:03:27.469 him to. He was just tired of having to constantly 00:03:27.469 --> 00:03:30.110 stroke their egos to keep his job. And Doud had 00:03:30.110 --> 00:03:32.009 a slightly different perspective on it, right? 00:03:32.250 --> 00:03:34.789 Because he had already tasted what happens when 00:03:34.789 --> 00:03:37.050 you step out of the shadows. Yes. He had a taste 00:03:37.050 --> 00:03:39.770 of real success. Because a few years earlier, 00:03:40.210 --> 00:03:42.509 Doud helped an impersonator named Von Meter. 00:03:42.889 --> 00:03:45.930 reached this sudden overnight stardom with a 00:03:45.930 --> 00:03:49.669 1962 spoof album about the Kennedys called The 00:03:49.669 --> 00:03:52.370 First Family. Right, which was massive. Total 00:03:52.370 --> 00:03:54.509 cultural phenomenon. Even won Doud a Grammy. 00:03:54.849 --> 00:03:57.110 Exactly. So Doud had seen the mountaintop. He 00:03:57.110 --> 00:03:58.949 knew what kind of money and prestige was actually 00:03:58.949 --> 00:04:01.810 out there. So this time around, Robin and Doud 00:04:01.810 --> 00:04:04.569 wanted the fame and the royalties for themselves. 00:04:04.949 --> 00:04:06.889 They were just done handing their best material 00:04:06.889 --> 00:04:09.870 over to a host. Which brings up their core concept. 00:04:10.110 --> 00:04:12.389 And I have to push back a little on the idea 00:04:12.389 --> 00:04:15.610 that Daud and Robin were just, you know, purely 00:04:15.610 --> 00:04:18.990 greedy or in it for a quick cash grab. Oh, I 00:04:18.990 --> 00:04:20.870 wouldn't say it was just a cash grab. Right. 00:04:20.930 --> 00:04:22.629 When you look at what they actually decided to 00:04:22.629 --> 00:04:24.870 do, I think it's much deeper. To me, it feels 00:04:24.870 --> 00:04:28.009 like looking at modern -day social media ghostwriters 00:04:28.009 --> 00:04:31.250 or uncredited music producers. That's a good 00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:33.050 comparison. This wasn't just a business move. 00:04:33.069 --> 00:04:36.089 It was an act of artistic rebellion. They decided 00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:38.449 they were going to take back the spotlight by 00:04:38.449 --> 00:04:40.449 turning the most powerful people in the free 00:04:40.449 --> 00:04:44.180 world into their unwitting comedy stars. The 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:46.180 rebellious angle makes a kind of sense when you 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:48.199 look at the mechanics of the album. I mean, they 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:51.660 completely rejected the standard model. No impressionists. 00:04:51.860 --> 00:04:54.139 Right. Instead of hiring impressionists to do 00:04:54.139 --> 00:04:56.899 fake voices, which was the safe accepted way 00:04:56.899 --> 00:04:59.819 to do a comedy album back then, they used real 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:02.579 historical recordings of these political figures 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:05.360 taken completely out of context. And then they 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:07.800 surrounded those real recordings with a completely 00:05:07.800 --> 00:05:10.579 fabricated environment. They did. They recorded 00:05:10.579 --> 00:05:13.540 famous, highly authoritative news announcers. 00:05:13.579 --> 00:05:15.740 We are talking about people like John Cameron 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:20.360 Swayze. Westbrook Van Voorhees and WPIX anchorman 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:22.959 John St. Leger. The voices of God, basically. 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:27.060 Exactly. They had these serious trusted newsmen 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:29.899 record fabricated comedic questions that Dowd 00:05:29.899 --> 00:05:32.899 and Robin had written. Then to really sell the 00:05:32.899 --> 00:05:35.240 illusion, they layered in laugh tracks and room 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:37.699 acoustics provided by a sound effects specialist 00:05:37.699 --> 00:05:40.660 named Bob Prescott. Wow. Yeah, it created this 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.959 incredibly convincing fake press conference atmosphere. 00:05:44.060 --> 00:05:45.800 It's just a brilliant setup. You take the real 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:47.459 voice voice of a sitting president, have a real 00:05:47.459 --> 00:05:49.620 newsman ask him an absurd question, and then 00:05:49.620 --> 00:05:51.600 you splice in an answer the president gave to 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:53.920 a completely different question months ago. The 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.300 comedy comes entirely from that force context. 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:59.759 Yes. But having a brilliant concept over a cup 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.279 of coffee is one thing. Actually executing that 00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:05.560 concept with 1960s analog technology. That is 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:07.720 where this story becomes an exercise in absolute 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:09.860 madness. It really does. The physical reality 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:12.000 of what they had to do is almost hard to comprehend 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.600 today. Just to give you, the listener, a sense 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:17.540 of scale, the source material notes, they gathered 00:06:17.540 --> 00:06:22.000 36 miles of magnetic tape. 36 miles! Let that 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.769 sink in. Think about that for a second. If you 00:06:24.769 --> 00:06:26.970 laid that tape end to end, you could stretch 00:06:26.970 --> 00:06:29.790 it from downtown Manhattan well into the suburbs. 00:06:30.110 --> 00:06:32.269 That is how much recorded audio they gathered 00:06:32.269 --> 00:06:34.569 of these political figures. And you have to remember, 00:06:34.649 --> 00:06:36.990 they couldn't just drop those 36 miles of tape 00:06:36.990 --> 00:06:39.550 into a software program and, you know, search 00:06:39.550 --> 00:06:42.230 for the word taxes or anniversary. No control 00:06:42.230 --> 00:06:45.029 left back then. No, they had to physically listen 00:06:45.029 --> 00:06:48.870 to all of it in real time. Robin and Doud met 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:51.810 almost every single evening for 13 straight months. 00:06:51.990 --> 00:06:55.199 Wow. Over a year. For over a year, they sat in 00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:57.339 Dad's house on the upper east side of New York 00:06:57.339 --> 00:06:59.800 City just hunting for the perfect snippets of 00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:02.139 audio. And we cannot skip over the studio environment 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:04.519 they were working in because it is easily the 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.079 strangest detail from the source. Oh, the Tet? 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:10.019 Yes. Picture these two exhausted comedy writers 00:07:10.019 --> 00:07:13.699 surrounded by literal miles of tape and the entire 00:07:13.699 --> 00:07:16.600 time they were being watched by Dad's pet kinkajou. 00:07:16.779 --> 00:07:19.360 A small rainforest mammal, native to Central 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:21.759 and South America, just hanging around a New 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:25.399 York apartment. Just chilling. A kinkajou that, 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.980 according to the records, doubt would occasionally 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:31.319 get intoxicated on alcohol. Which is wild! So 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.720 you have a drunk rainforest mammal supervising 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:36.259 the creation of the world's first audio deepfake. 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:39.509 You just cannot invent a detail like that. No, 00:07:39.509 --> 00:07:42.129 you can't. It adds this layer of surreal chaos 00:07:42.129 --> 00:07:44.850 to the whole story. But what's fascinating here 00:07:44.850 --> 00:07:47.649 is that, despite the bizarre environment, the 00:07:47.649 --> 00:07:50.290 actual artistic rules they imposed on themselves 00:07:50.290 --> 00:07:53.310 were relentlessly strict. They made it so hard 00:07:53.310 --> 00:07:55.610 on themselves. They really did. They set constraints 00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:58.850 that made their job exponentially harder. First, 00:07:59.129 --> 00:08:01.490 Doubt insisted that every single political answer 00:08:01.490 --> 00:08:03.329 heard on the album had to be taken whole from 00:08:03.329 --> 00:08:05.649 the source material. They absolutely refused 00:08:05.649 --> 00:08:07.949 to splay sentences word by word. Right, they 00:08:07.949 --> 00:08:10.709 had to be intact thoughts. That constraint is 00:08:10.709 --> 00:08:13.370 just wild to me. It's like trying to do a 5 ,000 00:08:13.370 --> 00:08:16.129 piece jigsaw puzzle, but you're blindfolded and 00:08:16.129 --> 00:08:17.430 you're not allowed to bend any of the pieces 00:08:17.430 --> 00:08:19.230 to make them fit. That's a great way to picture 00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:22.410 it. How did they possibly manage to find perfectly 00:08:22.410 --> 00:08:26.129 matching audio to fit their jokes? without digitally 00:08:26.129 --> 00:08:29.110 manipulating the pitch or the pacing or the inflection. 00:08:29.350 --> 00:08:32.149 Well, the blindfolded puzzle analogy is close, 00:08:32.149 --> 00:08:34.610 but it's actually worse than that because of 00:08:34.610 --> 00:08:36.750 the physical nature of magnetic tape. Right. 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:40.250 To make a cut in 1965, you had to play the reel 00:08:40.250 --> 00:08:43.190 -to -reel machine, listen for the exact moment 00:08:43.190 --> 00:08:46.710 a politician finished a sentence, manually rock 00:08:46.710 --> 00:08:50.029 the reels back and forth to find the exact magnetic 00:08:50.029 --> 00:08:52.889 click of the consonant. Oh my God. Mark the tape 00:08:52.889 --> 00:08:56.100 with a grease pencil. Pull the tape out, lay 00:08:56.100 --> 00:08:59.220 it in a metal block, and slice it at a precise 00:08:59.220 --> 00:09:02.139 45 degree angle with a razor blade. And if you 00:09:02.139 --> 00:09:04.059 miss the angle? If you cut it straight across, 00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:05.919 the audio would pop. And if you made a mistake 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.720 cutting? That piece of tape was completely ruined. 00:09:09.019 --> 00:09:11.019 So they're doing this razor blade surgery for 00:09:11.019 --> 00:09:13.500 13 months while strictly adhering to the rule 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:16.440 that every sentence must be an authentic, untouched 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:18.860 thought. Exactly. And that leads to their second 00:09:18.860 --> 00:09:21.580 major constraint. They strictly avoided using 00:09:21.580 --> 00:09:24.159 audio from political speeches. Wait, why speeches? 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.860 Because even if a speech had a funny out -of 00:09:26.860 --> 00:09:29.100 -context sentence, it sounded like a speech. 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:32.440 They were hunting specifically for the conversational 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.059 tone of an intro. It had to sound like a natural 00:09:35.059 --> 00:09:37.759 back -and -forth press conference. Which perfectly 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:39.860 explains why they needed 36 miles of this stuff. 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:42.179 Yeah, they were throwing out hours of usable 00:09:42.179 --> 00:09:45.200 material just because of the tone. Right. A broadcast 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:48.100 announcer named Chester Santin actually speculated 00:09:48.100 --> 00:09:50.059 later that Robin and Dowd originally just wanted 00:09:50.059 --> 00:09:52.340 to compile recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson and 00:09:52.340 --> 00:09:55.000 his family. But they couldn't. No, because their 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.440 rules were so punishingly strict, they simply 00:09:57.440 --> 00:09:59.960 couldn't find enough funny material. from just 00:09:59.960 --> 00:10:02.799 one family. They had to cast a much wider net 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:05.860 to find usable sentences. And the rigidity of 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:07.879 those rules didn't just make the editing hard, 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:10.100 it actively forced them to kill some of their 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:13.100 best material. The cutting room floor was littered 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:16.200 with famous names. Who did they cut? Well... 00:10:15.950 --> 00:10:17.789 They originally had recordings of the German 00:10:17.789 --> 00:10:21.309 rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun and Prince 00:10:21.309 --> 00:10:24.230 Philip of the United Kingdom. But they decided 00:10:24.230 --> 00:10:27.129 to drop them so the album could maintain a sharp, 00:10:27.490 --> 00:10:30.169 focused theme strictly on U .S. politicians. 00:10:30.649 --> 00:10:32.389 That makes sense. Keep it domestic. And then 00:10:32.389 --> 00:10:34.629 there were the technical cuts, right? Yes. Because 00:10:34.629 --> 00:10:37.509 the source mentions they had audio of ex -president 00:10:37.509 --> 00:10:40.470 Harry Truman that apparently had some very funny 00:10:40.470 --> 00:10:42.789 possibilities. But the audio quality itself was 00:10:42.789 --> 00:10:45.379 just too poor. So Truman was out. Right. All 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:47.220 right, and this goes back to the lack of digital 00:10:47.220 --> 00:10:50.080 tools. Every room has a unique sound, right? 00:10:50.759 --> 00:10:53.379 A quiet Oval Office sounds different than an 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:55.860 echoey auditorium. The room tone. Exactly, the 00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:59.080 room tone. If Truman's audio had a loud tapiss 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:01.419 or an auditorium echo, you couldn't put that 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:04.039 next to a crystal clear studio recording of John 00:11:04.039 --> 00:11:06.700 Cameron Swayze. The listener's brain would instantly 00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:09.120 know it was fake. The illusion would shatter. 00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:12.419 So Truman had to be cut. And then there was a 00:11:12.419 --> 00:11:15.649 cut made out of pure respect. They had captured 00:11:15.649 --> 00:11:17.789 some highly humorous moments from Ambassador 00:11:17.789 --> 00:11:21.149 Adlai Stevenson II, but Stevenson suddenly passed 00:11:21.149 --> 00:11:24.909 away in July of 1965, right as they were finalizing 00:11:24.909 --> 00:11:28.080 the project. Dowd felt it would be an extremely 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.519 bad taste to include a recently deceased figure 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:33.720 in a comedy spoof, so Stevenson was removed entirely. 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:35.919 Which is a decision that actually threw off their 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:39.039 entire underlying structure. How so? Well, Dowd 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:41.480 and Robin had originally intended to have a perfect, 00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:44.220 mathematically balanced album, five Republicans 00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:47.360 and five Democrats. But with Truman and Stevenson 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:50.419 removed, the final album skewed heavier to the 00:11:50.419 --> 00:11:53.299 right, featuring five Republicans and only three 00:11:53.299 --> 00:11:56.139 Democrats. Despite losing that perf - political 00:11:56.139 --> 00:11:59.480 balance, they did manage to unify the final product 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.399 visually in a really striking way. They brought 00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:04.919 in the legendary graphic artist Frank Frazetta 00:12:04.919 --> 00:12:08.210 to do the album cover. Yes, and the visual metaphor 00:12:08.210 --> 00:12:11.129 Frazetta created is incredibly strong. They started 00:12:11.129 --> 00:12:13.769 with a photograph shot by Peter Levy of Daud 00:12:13.769 --> 00:12:16.190 and Robin sitting down playing a game of chess. 00:12:16.769 --> 00:12:19.710 Okay. Frazetta then superimposed eight caricatures 00:12:19.710 --> 00:12:22.789 of the politicians' heads directly onto the chess 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:24.950 pieces. Oh, I love that. It perfectly captures 00:12:24.950 --> 00:12:27.330 the psychological dynamic. Daud and Robin were 00:12:27.330 --> 00:12:29.370 the masters playing the game and the most powerful 00:12:29.370 --> 00:12:31.529 people in the country were literally their pawns. 00:12:31.629 --> 00:12:33.769 That is exactly the dynamic they were going for. 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:35.980 Okay, here's where it gets really interesting 00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:39.320 though, because making the album was a triumph 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.159 of editing. Conquering the analog tape was an 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:45.360 artistic marvel, but actually releasing a physical 00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:48.899 record that puts fake, potentially embarrassing 00:12:48.899 --> 00:12:51.759 words into the mounds of sitting presidents, 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:54.340 vice presidents, and powerful senators. Yeah, 00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:56.500 that was dangerous. That seems like a massive 00:12:56.500 --> 00:12:58.990 legal minefield. To understand the panic this 00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:01.269 caused among the executives, we really need to 00:13:01.269 --> 00:13:03.169 look at the punchlines themselves. Let's look 00:13:03.169 --> 00:13:05.470 at how sharp the humor was. Give me an example. 00:13:06.009 --> 00:13:08.090 The title of the album itself, Welcome to the 00:13:08.090 --> 00:13:11.230 LBJ Ranch, comes from a real recording of First 00:13:11.230 --> 00:13:13.990 Lady Lady Bird Johnson conducting a tour of the 00:13:13.990 --> 00:13:17.029 president's Texas home. Dowd and Robbins set 00:13:17.029 --> 00:13:19.350 up a fabricated question, asking her what the 00:13:19.350 --> 00:13:21.090 Native Americans might have said to Christopher 00:13:21.090 --> 00:13:23.389 Columbus when he landed. And her answer. They 00:13:23.389 --> 00:13:25.470 drop in her real voice, cheerfully answering, 00:13:25.909 --> 00:13:28.529 welcome to the LBJ ranch. It's so good. It works 00:13:28.529 --> 00:13:31.549 perfectly. It really does. And they did the exact 00:13:31.549 --> 00:13:33.490 same thing with Governor Nelson Rockefeller, 00:13:33.529 --> 00:13:35.789 who's famously wealthy. They had one of their 00:13:35.789 --> 00:13:38.610 serious news announcers ask Rockefeller what 00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:40.889 he gave his wife for their anniversary. And the 00:13:40.889 --> 00:13:45.470 splice. They spliced in a real completely unedited 00:13:45.470 --> 00:13:48.009 recording of Rockefeller saying, the state of 00:13:48.009 --> 00:13:51.070 Connecticut and the state of New York, both states 00:13:51.070 --> 00:13:53.970 and the people in those two states. The comedic 00:13:53.970 --> 00:13:56.690 timing is flawless. It really is. But you can 00:13:56.690 --> 00:13:58.629 immediately see why the corporate suits were 00:13:58.629 --> 00:14:01.250 sweating. When the album was ready for release 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:04.850 in November 1965, the major Metropolitan radio 00:14:04.850 --> 00:14:07.789 stations were incredibly hesitant to broadcast 00:14:07.789 --> 00:14:10.500 any excerpts from it. Because of lawsuits. Yeah, 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:12.519 they were terrified that playing this material 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:15.100 would violate the rights of the politicians and 00:14:15.100 --> 00:14:17.539 invite massive litigation. So what does this 00:14:17.539 --> 00:14:19.899 all mean for the creators and the label? I mean, 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:21.940 Capitol Records had to deploy their 40 -person 00:14:21.940 --> 00:14:24.899 legal team just to clear the album as fair use 00:14:24.899 --> 00:14:27.919 parity. 40 lawyers for one comedy record. Right, 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:29.899 so I'm looking at this 40 -person legal team, 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:32.559 and I have a theory. I don't think they were 00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:34.159 actually terrified of the White House shutting 00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:36.360 them down. I think half of this was a manufactured 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:39.389 PR stunt. Really? Yeah. You tell the public, 00:14:39.830 --> 00:14:42.490 this record is so dangerous we needed 40 lawyers 00:14:42.490 --> 00:14:44.950 to release it. It drives up the taboo nature 00:14:44.950 --> 00:14:48.269 of the comedy. Am I completely off base here? 00:14:48.529 --> 00:14:50.720 I see why you would think that. Looking back 00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:52.940 from today's perspective, where controversy always 00:14:52.940 --> 00:14:56.759 sells. But in 1965, the legal concept of fair 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.779 use parity, especially regarding audio manipulation 00:14:59.779 --> 00:15:02.980 of real voices, it simply was not as universally 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:05.639 stress tested as it is today. Oh, so it's genuine 00:15:05.639 --> 00:15:07.879 panic. Capitol's legal team ultimately cleared 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:11.000 it on those grounds. Yes. But the fear of government 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:14.340 retaliation was very real. Executive Brown Maggs 00:15:14.340 --> 00:15:16.580 publicly noted that the album ran into what he 00:15:16.580 --> 00:15:18.919 called stiff resistance from radio stations in 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.679 Los Angeles. Station managers were genuinely 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:24.440 scared for their broadcast licenses. It's kind 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:26.960 of like a modern pitch streamer or YouTuber being 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.279 terrified of playing five seconds of a copyrighted 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:31.899 song because a DMCA strike could delete their 00:15:31.899 --> 00:15:35.720 entire channel overnight. Except in 1965, the 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:38.220 copyright strike might come from the actual commander 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:40.840 in chief. That is a perfect modern equivalent. 00:15:41.139 --> 00:15:43.679 The chilling effect was palpable. But once the 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:46.240 legal team gave the green light, that chilling 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:49.450 effect evaporated. Everywhere outside of Los 00:15:49.450 --> 00:15:52.990 Angeles, the album absolutely exploded. Stations 00:15:52.990 --> 00:15:56.289 in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington DC, 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:59.669 Seattle, Dallas, and Atlanta started spinning 00:15:59.669 --> 00:16:02.169 it constantly. People loved it. And the sales 00:16:02.169 --> 00:16:04.929 numbers were astronomical. Cashbox magazine reported 00:16:04.929 --> 00:16:08.110 that they had sold five million copies. Capital 00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:10.129 Records executives were publicly stating they 00:16:10.129 --> 00:16:12.730 expected to move four million units just through 00:16:12.730 --> 00:16:14.960 the end of the year. To put that cultural impact 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:18.559 in perspective, by Christmas Day of 1965, Billboard 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:21.559 magazine listed Welcome to the LBJ Ranch as the 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:25.259 number three top -selling LP in the entire United 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:27.299 States. Now, you might be thinking, sure, it 00:16:27.299 --> 00:16:29.820 was a novelty hit. But to understand how massive 00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:31.799 this was, you have to look at what it was competing 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:34.059 against, what was sitting at number one and number 00:16:34.059 --> 00:16:36.539 two. It was sitting right behind Herb Alpert's 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:38.960 iconic whipped cream and other delights at number 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.799 one. An absolute classic. And the original soundtrack 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:43.860 to The Sound of Music at number two. The Sound 00:16:43.860 --> 00:16:46.860 of Music, a cinematic masterpiece, and right 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:49.720 behind it is a comedy album made of spliced tape 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:53.320 and a drunk kinkajou. That is an unbelievable 00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:56.399 company to be in. It really is. and it had real 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:59.200 saying power. It charted for 25 weeks in total 00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:02.039 and was officially certified gold by the Recording 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.059 Industry Association of America. But the most 00:17:04.059 --> 00:17:06.500 surprising part of the whole phenomenon, especially 00:17:06.500 --> 00:17:08.940 given all that legal panic from the radio stations, 00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:11.779 was the reaction from the targets themselves. 00:17:11.940 --> 00:17:14.240 The politicians. Right. We talked about the fear 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:17.119 of lawsuits, but the reality was often the exact 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.019 opposite. Senator Everett Dirksen, who was a 00:17:20.019 --> 00:17:22.220 prominent Republican heavily parodied on the 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:25.180 album, reportedly went out and bought stacks 00:17:25.180 --> 00:17:27.079 of the record just to give them out as Christmas 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:29.160 gifts to his friends. If we connect this to the 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:31.799 bigger picture, that reaction from Senator Dirksen 00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:34.299 is the ultimate aha moment of this entire deep 00:17:34.299 --> 00:17:38.539 dive. Dowd and Robin invented a technology specifically 00:17:38.539 --> 00:17:41.339 to hijack politicians' voices and make them look 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:44.019 foolish. But the politicians realized that getting 00:17:44.019 --> 00:17:47.180 angry would only validate the joke. Their response 00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:50.079 was to embrace it. Precisely. It fundamentally 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:52.799 altered political public relations. If you can 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:54.640 show the public that you can take a joke, the 00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:57.680 satire loses its bite. Self -deprecation becomes 00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:00.220 a kind of political armor. And it completely 00:18:00.220 --> 00:18:02.680 changed the trajectory of doubt in Robin's lives. 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:05.160 They escaped the anonymity of the ghostwriter. 00:18:05.819 --> 00:18:08.799 After the album peaked in December 1965, their 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:11.319 prestige skyrocketed. It opened so many doors 00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:14.079 for them. And here is the ultimate irony. By 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:16.940 March of 1966, the newly elected mayor of New 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:20.539 York, John Lindsay, hired Dowd and Robin directly 00:18:20.539 --> 00:18:22.960 to write a funny speech for him to deliver at 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:25.859 the prestigious Gridiron Club dinner. Wow. They 00:18:25.859 --> 00:18:28.119 went from secretly slicing up politicians' voices 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:30.559 in an apartment to being officially hired by 00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:32.720 the politicians to make them funny on purpose. 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:35.200 It really is the birth of the modern era where 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.779 politicians go on late night TV to prove how 00:18:37.779 --> 00:18:40.259 relatable they are. It is the ultimate vindication 00:18:40.259 --> 00:18:43.200 for their artistic rebellion. And it culminated 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:46.150 in the music industry's highest honor. The album 00:18:46.150 --> 00:18:49.130 was nominated for Best Comedy Album at the 8th 00:18:49.130 --> 00:18:53.210 Annual Grammy Awards, held in March 1966. Oh, 00:18:53.390 --> 00:18:56.190 the drama of that Grammy category is fantastic. 00:18:56.970 --> 00:18:58.750 They were facing off against Godfrey Cambridge, 00:18:58.849 --> 00:19:01.410 the Smothers Brothers, and in a twist of perfect 00:19:01.410 --> 00:19:04.430 irony, they were competing directly against Dowd's 00:19:04.430 --> 00:19:06.730 former colleagues. The First Family guys. Yes, 00:19:06.730 --> 00:19:08.309 the guys who produced the First Family album, 00:19:08.410 --> 00:19:10.630 Bob Booker and George Foster, were nominated 00:19:10.630 --> 00:19:12.910 for their new album, You Don't Have to Be Jewish. 00:19:13.089 --> 00:19:15.380 It was a true clash of comedies. Titans. No, 00:19:16.180 --> 00:19:18.519 ultimately, Dowd and Robin did not win. Who won? 00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:21.059 The Grammy that year went to Bill Cosby for Why 00:19:21.059 --> 00:19:23.759 Is There Air? But their impact was undeniable. 00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:26.059 They had proven their audio manipulation concept 00:19:26.059 --> 00:19:28.579 so thoroughly that they actually made a sequel 00:19:28.579 --> 00:19:32.259 two years later in 1967, published by Atco Records 00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:34.960 titled Lyndon Jiglison's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:37.000 Which brings us to a really vital thought to 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:39.059 leave you with today. We started this deep dive 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:41.920 by comparing this 1965 album there to modern 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:44.819 AI voice cloning. We did. We looked at the sheer 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:48.029 genius, the 13 months of agonizing effort. the 00:19:48.029 --> 00:19:51.069 grease pencils, the razor blades, and the 36 00:19:51.069 --> 00:19:53.250 miles of physical tape that had to be manually 00:19:53.250 --> 00:19:55.609 spliced just to make a politician sound like 00:19:55.609 --> 00:19:57.809 they were answering a joke. Right. The sheer 00:19:57.809 --> 00:20:01.450 agonizing friction of the analog world. Exactly. 00:20:02.109 --> 00:20:05.519 So here is the question to ponder. If Earl Dowd 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:08.039 and Aileen Robin were working today, how would 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.039 they view our world of AI deepfakes? Would they 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:13.680 see our modern, frictionless technology as the 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:16.160 ultimate comedy tool they always dreamed of having? 00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:18.119 Or would they argue that the friction itself, 00:20:18.420 --> 00:20:20.380 the absolute maddening restriction of having 00:20:20.380 --> 00:20:23.400 to find and use real, whole sentences from real 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:26.839 people, was exactly what made their 1965 satire 00:20:26.839 --> 00:20:28.960 a masterpiece? Does the removal of the struggle 00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:31.539 also remove the art? That is a phenomenal thought 00:20:31.539 --> 00:20:34.579 to leave on. Does the art lie entirely in the 00:20:34.579 --> 00:20:36.980 idea, or does it lie in the struggle to physically 00:20:36.980 --> 00:20:39.519 build it? It is something to seriously think 00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:41.619 about the next time you see a seamless, instant 00:20:41.619 --> 00:20:44.500 deepfake pop up on your feed. Keep questioning 00:20:44.500 --> 00:20:47.240 what you hear, keep looking for the seams, and 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:49.559 remember the 36 miles of tape that started it 00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:52.400 all. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.