Episode 257: Here Today…

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When we chronicle the efforts businesses have made to influence how the public feels about the government, into Propaganda’s Hall of Fame must go the National Association of Manufacturers. I'll share some of their efforts in this Episode 257: Here Today…

In this episode, I read from: the Wikipedia entry on the Goon Show; a blog focusing on comic strips; and Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway's book The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us To Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.


"Your" Town!

I play: A bit of the Goon Show's Xmas episode from some unknown year^*; then-Prince Charles showing off his Goon voice chops; a bit of a Daffy Duck cartoon; excerpts from two episodes of The American Family Robinson; selections from the 1940 short movie Your Town: A Story of America; the robot from the original version of Lost In Space (which I forgot to mention when reading the credits); and Sydney Greenstreet's evil soap-manufacturing character from the 1947 movie The Hucksters.

Clark Gable complains about radio advertising in the opening, backed by KMFDM; and I close with Julie & Rolf & The Campfire Gang doing "Over The Rainbow".

^*I'm sorry, but I forgot to record the link. The BBC runs the old Goon Show episodes on a rotating release schedule, sadly, so I couldn't get that episode if I wanted to.