0:00

Folks, we're returning to you this Saturday

0:02

with a classic episode that

0:04

is near and dear to our hearts, both

0:07

as native sons

0:09

of Atlanta or people who reside in Atlanta

0:11

now, and as longtime

0:14

fans of a little franchise called Star

0:16

Trek.

0:17

A giant nerds

0:20

Max, Oh, he's just giving it. He's throwing up

0:22

a throwing up the spock piece sign.

0:24

I love in the newer show lower

0:27

decks the a sarcastic thing.

0:29

You can start like some characters we starcasting

0:31

on the hey, stop doing that sarcastic falcon

0:33

sign.

0:34

Also, that is ancient, uh,

0:37

an ancient blessing from Judaism.

0:42

They kind of just told him to do something, is something.

0:45

And he did the call it even blessing.

0:46

Yeah, he did that, And you know there's some

0:49

great stories about that.

0:50

Isn't it funny though? How sometimes the most arbitrary

0:52

of choices or ad libs or whatever

0:55

become just the biggest

0:58

sticking kind of cultural I

1:00

love that about history.

1:02

Similar to Popeye right the

1:04

Sailor Man, which is still fresh on our

1:06

minds, folks. Today's

1:08

story is about Star Trek,

1:10

but it's also about how history

1:13

can hinge on such tiny

1:15

moments in our classic episode.

1:17

Now we are exploring how a

1:19

single conversation with a

1:22

perhaps surprising fan of Star Trek

1:24

shaped the course of the show.

1:26

That is a global phenomenon today.

1:29

We've always talked about, you know, whenever possible,

1:32

whenever it, Mas has his way talk

1:34

about Star Trek on the show, and it's such

1:36

an interesting, almost like model

1:39

un kind of situation the

1:41

way it depicts this sort

1:43

of utopian world where people can

1:46

get along, and people with different

1:48

races and creeds and species

1:50

even can coexist, and even the

1:52

battles are largely around diplomacy

1:55

more so than they are about raw you

1:57

know, violent type shoot them ups. That

2:00

this is a perfect example historically

2:02

speaking of how that attitude

2:05

really kind of created a big

2:08

cultural high water mark moment.

2:10

I'm just thinking about Philip J. Fry from

2:12

the Futurama Star Trek

2:14

episode. He says, Star Trek giving me hope because

2:16

it didn't matter if you're white, black, Klingon,

2:20

Vulcan, or even female.

2:22

Yeah. I also, I will

2:24

point out we don't get to it in this episode,

2:26

but I will point out one thing about

2:28

Star Trek as a universe is that

2:30

the cooking is weird. There

2:33

is a there is a famous scene I

2:35

think it's in Next

2:37

Generation somewhere in the second

2:40

season where right

2:42

Riiker creates

2:45

Riker is gonna cook for a

2:48

couple of the crew.

2:49

Lasky, Data, Jeordie and

2:51

war Yeah, and he is.

2:53

He's cracking eggs and

2:56

he's not using the replicator. He's doing that old

2:58

school. But it's insane that

3:02

he gives them each like a

3:05

small bit of scrambled egg and

3:07

then serves it with whiskey. And

3:09

we don't know what time it is there at

3:11

this point, but does nothing do

3:14

it with anything.

3:15

Let's all remember with Pulaski who was the doctor in season

3:17

two only Season two brought the whiskey

3:20

right.

3:20

Yes, However, tell

3:22

us your favorite space meals, and we hope

3:25

you enjoy this episode about how none

3:27

other than Martin Luther King Junior

3:29

influenced the course of Star Trek.

3:32

Astronaut ice cream is my favorite space

3:34

meal.

3:35

And Dippin' dots are space

3:37

but they are the ice cream in the future.

3:39

Let's roll it.

3:43

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio

4:10

Captain's Look Sturdy zero

4:13

nine zero six nine

4:15

sixty six point eight. We

4:18

have entered another episode of

4:20

things both ridiculous and historical.

4:24

My name's been whoa.

4:27

That was like a Shatner meets

4:30

Rod Serling kind of thing. That was awesome.

4:33

Well, that's very kind, that's very exciting.

4:35

That was I was in rapture to the point where I've almost

4:37

forgotten my name, and it is, in

4:39

fact Noel Brown. And I am not

4:41

a treky, right right, I

4:44

am.

4:44

I wouldn't describe myself as a tricky

4:47

either, although I am a fan of sci

4:49

fi, and you know, you and I

4:51

don't particularly need a

4:54

wealth of science fiction here

4:56

because we have our own wizard

4:59

every time we record a show, and

5:01

that, ladies and gentlemen, is our long suffering super

5:03

producer, Casey Pegram.

5:05

Who has turned into a can of soda.

5:10

That super producer sure is

5:12

refreshing.

5:15

And speaking of refreshing

5:18

and segues, imagine

5:21

yourself as a television

5:23

viewer on September ninth, nineteen

5:25

sixty six in Canada.

5:26

I'm there.

5:27

Wow, If you're there, you're very

5:29

very lucky, because you are watching

5:32

that evening something that no one

5:34

has ever seen before the very first

5:36

episode of Star Trek.

5:38

What the super fan community calls

5:40

TOS or the original series,

5:43

and.

5:43

This series was revolutionary

5:46

when it first aired, which was originally

5:48

I think in Canada and the later in the United

5:50

States by a couple of days. In

5:53

this series, viewers are treated

5:55

to a more diverse

5:58

cast than they are used

6:00

to seeing, and that should go as an understatement.

6:02

Right, Hey, you had green women, you

6:04

had alien dudes with

6:06

plenty ears. Oh, you mean diverse in

6:09

terms of the actors, right, the people, right?

6:11

Oh, and the characters as well. I mean there's

6:13

a Russian what in nineteen

6:15

sixty there's a Scotsman.

6:17

Yes, there is a Scotsman. Yes.

6:21

And there are also people

6:23

of color on the show.

6:25

Yeah, specifically a lovely

6:27

actress by the name of Nachelle Nichols

6:29

who portrayed the character of Lieutenant

6:32

Uhura. And this

6:35

was important for a lot of reasons. She was

6:37

not only a person of color featured in this

6:39

show very prominently, but she had

6:41

a position of power in

6:44

the organization of the Starship Enterprise.

6:47

I believe she was the fourth in

6:49

charge.

6:50

Yes, that is absolutely correct, which

6:53

also makes it a prominent

6:55

progressive step for the

6:57

role of women or female

6:59

characters in these sorts of shows.

7:01

Okay, so I'm a little Canadian boy in

7:04

the mid nineteen sixties watching Star

7:06

Trek. But what's happening at the same

7:08

time, Ben.

7:09

Right, the civil rights movement?

7:11

Ye, nothing good? I mean good.

7:13

Yes, a lot of progress, but also

7:15

a lot of horrible racist

7:18

violence.

7:20

Absolutely, We're talking protests,

7:22

abuse by law enforcement officers,

7:25

and public moves toward nonviolence

7:27

and pushes for equality

7:30

alongside antagonistic forces

7:33

who are pushing for the discriminatory

7:35

status quo to remain

7:38

the same. Gene Roddenberry, the creator

7:40

of Star Trek, was very much aware

7:42

of this, and he set out with

7:45

the express aim of creating

7:48

a show with a multi racial

7:51

cast. And the show had

7:53

a lot of fans right well.

7:54

It also had a message of cooperation

7:57

working to solve problems between race

8:00

and people of other galactic

8:02

origins and species and you

8:05

know green women, right, the.

8:07

Idea, the idea that in

8:09

the future humanity will overcome

8:12

the current problems or the contemporary

8:14

problems of the age in which Star Trek was

8:17

produced. Right, So, we had massive

8:19

discrimination, We also

8:22

had the threat of war.

8:25

There was inequality and

8:27

you know economic inequality, social

8:30

inequality, and Star Trek

8:32

presented a picture where in human

8:35

ingenuity and the inherent drive

8:38

toward curiosity and drive towards self improvement

8:41

created a world in which these problems

8:43

were solved and.

8:44

That resulted in a lot of almost

8:46

philosophical discussion. The show

8:49

is not super heavy on the

8:51

action. A lot of it is almost

8:53

diplomacy and conversations

8:56

and kind of solving these problems without violence.

8:58

And then of course you know they'd ended up on a and

9:00

have to fight some dude in a monster suit and shoot him

9:02

with their phasers or whatever. But the big

9:04

message of the show was that we can solve these

9:06

problems without resorting to violence.

9:09

Because we were talking about the civil rights movement

9:12

of the mid sixties. We're talking

9:14

bombings at African American

9:16

churchesters. When Birmingham,

9:19

four young black girls were killed.

9:21

Malcolm X, a very influential

9:24

civil rights leader and activist, was

9:26

assassinated. There was a

9:28

divide and it was a

9:31

powder keg kind of situation.

9:33

Absolutely, this is one of

9:35

those times where wherein people

9:37

can feel the hinge of history

9:40

as it swings and begin to wonder

9:42

what direction it will go

9:44

in. Here's the thing, folks,

9:47

It turns out that the Star

9:49

Trek we are so familiar with today

9:52

almost took a very

9:54

different direction because the actor

9:56

Michelle Nichols, who's playing this historically

10:00

significant and profound role on

10:02

television, almost

10:04

quit.

10:05

Yeah, it's true. She had a

10:07

background in the performing arts

10:09

in theater and got an offer

10:12

to play on

10:15

Broadway in a satire about

10:17

Hugh Hefner and his kind

10:19

of jet setting raunchy magazine

10:22

Playboy entitled Kicks and

10:24

co And that she had been in this originally

10:27

and then left to do Star Trek, but

10:30

after the first season she was

10:32

asked to return to that and it was going to be taken

10:34

to Broadway, and she was like, Okay, this

10:36

is what I want to do because I think the cultural impact

10:38

of Star Trek hadn't fully

10:40

set in after one season at

10:43

least, the fandom that we know today was

10:45

not fully entrance. This was this is kind of like a

10:47

well, I did one season of a kind

10:49

of quirky sci fi TV show. I could

10:52

take it or leave It'll maybe I'll maybe I'll move

10:54

on and do something some more serious

10:56

work, you know, right, But you

10:58

know, as fate would have it, thankfully,

11:01

this ended up not being the case.

11:04

Right when Nichols

11:06

said the version of you know, thanks

11:08

so much for having me on the show, Geene Roddenberry,

11:11

I like to head out and pursue,

11:13

as Noel said, more

11:15

serious or substance work or just something different.

11:18

Rotten Berry didn't take it well and

11:21

reputedly said, hey, don't

11:23

rush out of this. Don't you understand what I'm trying

11:25

to do here, And he told

11:28

her take the weekend. Take the weekend

11:30

and think it over. And during that

11:33

weekend, Nichols

11:35

went to a fundraiser

11:37

in Beverly Hills where she was

11:39

told there was a fan of

11:41

this new fangled show star Trek

11:44

who really wanted to meet her.

11:46

So, yeah, based on some of these reports, I guess the term

11:48

Trek he existed after one

11:50

season, which is pretty incredible.

11:53

But as it turned out, this person that

11:55

she was told about came

11:57

walking up to her and it

11:59

was doctor Martin Luther King Junior,

12:02

and this is what he said to her. According to

12:04

an NPR interview where Nichols

12:06

recalls this meeting, she

12:09

says, and I turn and before I could get

12:11

up, I looked across the way and there was

12:13

the face of doctor Martin Luther King smiling

12:15

at me and walking towards me. And he

12:17

started laughing. By the time he reached me, he

12:20

said, yes, miss Nichols, I am

12:22

that fan. I am your best, greatest

12:24

fan, and my family are your greatest fans.

12:26

As a matter of fact, this is the only show that my

12:28

wife, Coretta, and I will allow our little children

12:31

to watch, to stay up late to watch because

12:33

it's past their bedtime.

12:35

Which is such a humanizing and

12:38

important detail. I'm sure all parents will

12:40

recognize. That's some rarefied

12:42

air. So Nichols clearly

12:45

is aware of doctor King, and

12:47

King is saying that he admires

12:50

her work on the show, and he admires

12:53

that Gene Roddenberry, along

12:55

with Nichols, has created

12:58

a realistic character,

13:00

right, not some sort of stereotype

13:03

or object of derision or

13:05

mockery. And she says,

13:07

thank you. But then she says something that

13:10

you know, sounds very understandable from

13:12

from her position this conversation. She

13:14

says, you know, thanks, and I'm

13:17

glad you like the show, But I

13:19

feel like I should be out there with

13:22

you, out there marching after out there fighting

13:25

for equality, pursuing the ideals

13:27

that people are putting their life in danger

13:29

for.

13:30

I read this quote earlier, and then I kind

13:33

of immediately teared up for something. It just it just hit

13:35

me in a very real way. He

13:38

said, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.

13:40

We don't need you to march. You are marching.

13:43

You are reflecting what we are fighting

13:46

for. He said, don't you understand

13:48

what this man, Geene Roddenberry has

13:50

achieved for the first time on television.

13:53

We will be seen as we should be seen

13:56

every day, as intelligent, quality,

13:58

beautiful people who can sing and

14:01

dance, but who can go into space,

14:03

who can be lawyers and teachers, who can be

14:05

professors, who are in this day.

14:08

Yet you don't see it on television now.

14:10

And this is during the common part of

14:12

the conversation where she says I'm

14:15

going to quit the show and he is

14:17

firmly against this, and he continues

14:19

by saying, Gene Roddenberry has opened

14:22

a door for the world to see us. If

14:24

you leave, that door can be closed

14:27

because you see, your role

14:29

is not a black role, it's

14:31

not a female role. He can

14:33

fill it with anything, including

14:36

an alien. And this left Nichols

14:38

speechless.

14:39

Yeah, there's one more line from an

14:41

ama on Reddit that Nichols did,

14:44

where she said that he said something

14:46

along the lines of if you leave, they can replace you with

14:48

a blonde haired, white girl and it'll

14:50

be like you were never there. Well, you've accomplished

14:53

for all of us. Will only be real if you stay.

14:55

And she said that got her thinking about,

14:58

you know, really thinking about that audience, about

15:00

how fans of color saw her,

15:03

and how it would feel if she left

15:05

the show. And you

15:07

know, it's just it's a TV show, you know,

15:10

it seems even from the standpoint of someone that's

15:12

in it, you could see how it could be perceived

15:14

as being frivolous and like, why

15:16

does this matter? But it

15:19

does matter, especially in those days when kids

15:22

did not see themselves or a

15:24

positive reflection of themselves in

15:27

popular culture, and this was that

15:29

thing.

15:30

Absolutely, And this changes

15:32

Nichol's thinking, right, And

15:35

a few days later, she's

15:37

talking with Roddenberry and she relays

15:40

her conversation with doctor

15:42

King and as she

15:45

recalls, Rodenberry thought

15:47

about it, looked at her for psycond and he said, God

15:49

bless doctor Martin Luther King. Somebody

15:52

knows where I'm coming from. And so

15:55

she decided to stay on

15:57

the show, and the character Hura

16:00

continues on for decades, right, not just

16:03

on the small screen, toward the world

16:05

of Phil.

16:06

And it also resulted in a

16:08

very monumental moment, even

16:10

if it's a little cheesy, but it

16:12

was a thing that it was important cultural

16:14

lately speaking. It was the first interracial kiss,

16:17

and that was between William Shatner's Captain

16:19

Kirk and nichols Lieutenant

16:22

o'hura. And let let's have that clip

16:24

right now.

16:25

I'm thinking,

16:29

I'm thinking of all the times on the Enterprise,

16:31

what I was scared to dead.

16:36

And I would see you so busy at Jungle Man,

16:40

and.

16:40

I would hear your voice from all parts

16:42

of the ship.

16:45

And my fears would fade.

16:47

And now they're making me dre.

16:51

But I'm not afraid. I

16:55

am not afraid.

17:10

And Uhura is a pivotal

17:13

character on the show. This isn't one of

17:15

those characters called and

17:17

what are they called red shirts? You know, the disposable

17:20

ones who are sent down to the planet.

17:22

Yeah, she was number four man.

17:23

Yeah, she was number four, fourth in line for the

17:26

throne, the space throne. And

17:33

she saw in her real life

17:36

the effects of her character's presence in The

17:38

Zeitgeist. She relays in the same

17:40

interview that she met Whoopy

17:42

Goldberg during the Next Generation.

17:45

The follow up franchise for Star

17:48

Trek and Whoopy Goldberg PNG

17:50

right, who does have a role

17:53

in the Next Generation. She told

17:55

Nichols that she was nine

17:57

years old when she saw Star Trek and

18:00

she would turn on the TV and she

18:02

saw Lieutenant Uhura and ran

18:04

through the house screaming, come quick, come

18:06

quick, there's a black lady on TV. And

18:08

she's not a maid.

18:09

Yeah, and going back to that interracial

18:12

kiss, that first monumental, groundbreaking

18:15

interracial kiss that

18:17

happened a mere seven months

18:19

after Doctor King was assassinated in

18:22

nineteen sixty eight, and

18:24

you know, and in that scene, it's

18:26

a little hammy, and then you look, you listen back

18:28

to it now and the dialogue is a little overwrought, but

18:30

there is real chemistry between Shatner

18:33

and Nichols, and yeah,

18:35

that she is a gent She's portrayed, at least

18:37

as far as I can tell. Again, I'm not I don't have a deep

18:39

knowledge of Star Trek, but in the scene,

18:42

whatever the circumstances are, there

18:45

is a genuine chemistry between

18:47

them. And she has played as what could

18:49

be a genuine love interest for this

18:51

character, and you know that wasn't

18:54

really a thing, you know, like you said,

18:57

African American characters were often

19:00

relegated to you know, tertiary

19:03

or even lower types of roles

19:05

like maids or workmen, or

19:07

a lot of times even

19:10

more horrible stereotypes like

19:13

criminals and things like that.

19:14

And while this sounds like a

19:17

clear cut, you know, tidy

19:19

story with a bow on top and everything,

19:23

the reality is a little bit

19:25

different because behind the scenes,

19:28

Nichols and Roddenberry and the

19:30

show's writers were constantly

19:32

butting heads with the studio, and

19:35

the studio was a force of the status

19:37

quo here at the time. For

19:39

example, there is an episode wherein

19:42

Lieutenant Uhura was written

19:44

to assume the helmsman's position because

19:47

all the senior officers were on a planet,

19:49

but the script was rewritten to

19:51

exclude that action by Lieutenant Uhura,

19:54

and Nichols raised Caine over

19:56

it being written out, and then,

20:00

you know, her point was, when you're out in space

20:02

in a dangerous situation, you're not going to have some

20:04

female that goes, oh, captain, save

20:07

me, save me. She was bound

20:09

and determined not just to as

20:12

an actor, not just to

20:14

find a more prominent role for her character,

20:16

but to find prominent roles for all

20:19

female characters or more to

20:21

up the representation.

20:23

And I misspoke. That was not the

20:25

first interracial kiss on American

20:27

television. That was in the Wild

20:30

Wild West and I spy and

20:32

that was between a white actor and an Asian

20:34

actress. That those were both in nineteen

20:36

sixty six, But it was the first scripted

20:39

kiss between a black and a

20:41

white actor. And the only

20:43

other one was an improvised kiss between

20:45

Sammy Davis Junior and Nancy Sinatra on

20:48

Moving with Nancy, and that was in nineteen

20:51

sixty seven. Nichols

20:54

said that they got a really big

20:56

response from the episode and

20:59

that she received an insane amount

21:01

of fan mail, all positive,

21:04

which you know, even in what we do, Ben, you

21:07

know, every time we get an email, it's

21:09

always like if we've gone

21:11

on a limb on something, it's like are we going to get totally

21:14

shredded or are people going to be on board?

21:16

And so when you really take a chance and do something

21:18

like this, it's really nice to see that overwhelming

21:21

outpouring of positivity. And

21:24

that was also an important cultural touchdown

21:26

because from their perspective, they hadn't

21:28

offended anybody, and then it, you know, became

21:31

less of an issue like you said, with

21:33

those studio heads and the standards and

21:35

practices types there we go, Yeah, the S

21:37

and p s.

21:38

Right. So what

21:40

we're seeing here is a

21:42

fantastic and enormously

21:45

important example of

21:48

the role that art can play

21:50

in a society.

21:52

You know.

21:52

And sometimes it's easy to dismiss

21:55

works of fiction or

21:57

works of art as largely

22:00

symbolic, we're not addressing a

22:02

problem. But we

22:04

see that that is not the

22:06

case. And because

22:09

of a single conversation

22:12

with one of the world's most well

22:15

known civil rights icons, because

22:17

of this single conversation at this party,

22:20

history changed.

22:22

Well. He also saw the

22:24

importance of pop culture because again I

22:26

keep coming back to the idea of it being entertainment,

22:28

of it being pure frivolous kind of,

22:31

you know, a way to pass the time. But

22:34

my kid watches TV all the time. My kid

22:37

has characters that she identifies with

22:39

and that are important in shaping her view

22:42

of herself and feeling and getting

22:44

a sense of like what's okay, what's not okay,

22:46

What kind of behavior is acceptable, kind of behavior

22:49

is not? And she gets it from me too. As

22:51

a parent, you know, I try to teach her well

22:53

and what's right and to treat people with respect. But

22:56

a lot of kids, what if they grow up and

22:58

don't have good quality parents, I don't have

23:00

parents that are teaching them right from wrong, and

23:02

they're getting that primary drive

23:05

from pop culture. Then they see something

23:07

like that that you can feel like you're a part

23:09

of this too, this thing that makes you very happy, but that you

23:11

have maybe up to that point, felt sort

23:13

of left out of and King saw

23:15

that.

23:16

Yeah, and there's there's a doubly

23:18

important part here too, because when

23:21

people are seeing this and it speaks to them, they're

23:24

not just seeing a show

23:26

about, you know, a show

23:28

about life in a city in nineteen

23:30

sixty six, they're seeing themselves in

23:32

the future as well, you know, and

23:34

that's powerful.

23:35

That's a really good point.

23:37

So we would be remiss

23:39

if we didn't mention another work

23:42

that came out recently that I guess

23:44

would also kind of qualify as science fiction,

23:46

and that's the Black Panther film.

23:48

Yeah, and I took my daughter to see that and

23:50

we both loved it on the merits of

23:52

it just being a badass, exciting, incredible

23:56

film that is just a lot of

23:58

fun. But it's blowing

24:00

up box office numbers, which is

24:02

something that you know, is a language that

24:04

executives speak, and if you start making

24:06

money on things, you're going to see more of it. But it

24:09

is, it's such a different kind of

24:11

film. What do you think then?

24:13

Well, yeah, the question is,

24:15

you know, there's this genre that's encountering

24:18

a huge moment in the sun

24:20

right now, the superhero film

24:23

or the comic right film, and these

24:25

films, like many other genres, have

24:28

their own problematic issues.

24:31

Typically, the protagonist is going

24:33

to be, you know, a white guy,

24:36

right, and the other characters

24:38

that exist are going to One of

24:40

the criticisms you'll read or they is that

24:42

they're often these two dimensional foils

24:45

for the protagonist to bounce off of. Right.

24:48

But in a in any

24:51

well done film, which

24:53

of course Casey can probably speak to or

24:55

you can speak to more than I can. In any

24:57

well done film, the characters

24:59

might us feel real. They must

25:02

have their own dilemmas, their own motivations,

25:05

right, And in Black

25:07

Panther, not only are these

25:10

characters fleshed out with realistic,

25:13

understandable motivations, personal

25:15

demons. Not only are they real people, but

25:18

also, at least so far

25:20

as film critics are arguing, also,

25:23

it exists without

25:25

what would be called the white lens, you

25:28

know what I mean, Like the the idea

25:30

that there has to be a

25:35

a whitewash lack of a better

25:37

term, Like the story doesn't need

25:39

to have all

25:42

of a sudden this, you know, this messianic

25:46

figure who is just white, like in you

25:48

know, like in a Last Samurai,

25:50

the Tom Cruise.

25:51

Thing, any of that white savior stuff. Yeah,

25:53

has crazy. And I just want to point out that I understand

25:56

the problematic nature of two white

25:58

dudes wapsying rapsotic about this stuff,

26:01

but it does it is powerful,

26:03

Like you knows as a dad, seeing

26:06

my kid grow up in a world where

26:08

there is so much more inclusivity, and

26:11

she just doesn't see these things, doesn't

26:13

see these lines and these divides

26:15

at all. She just doesn't have it.

26:18

It's not in her to have And that makes

26:20

me feel really hopeful. And and so

26:22

that's I'm gonna I'm gonna leave it there. But

26:25

this story about Doctor King and Star

26:27

Trek, I was not expecting it

26:29

to get me as much as it did. And when

26:31

I read that quote about him saying no, no, no, no, you

26:33

don't understand you are marching, You're

26:35

you're doing it right, now that

26:38

I kind of started tearing up at my desk,

26:40

and I was not expecting that in a story

26:42

about Star Trek.

26:43

And this

26:50

is one aspect right

26:52

of Star Trek, just as it is one

26:54

aspect of the civil rights movement,

26:57

one that people may not be

26:59

entirely aware of. And

27:01

thanks so much for listening. We want to hear

27:04

from you. Do you consider

27:06

yourself a trekky? If

27:08

so, please please go easy on

27:11

us, right, Noel.

27:12

Oh Man, Please, we're we're

27:14

very dainty, little baffodils or very ridiculous

27:16

system, So.

27:17

Please please go easy us and let us know

27:19

what other cultural impacts

27:22

you believe came about via

27:25

Star Trek. Also, let

27:27

us know if you have other examples of ways

27:30

in which fiction and culture

27:32

in the arts moved culture

27:35

as a whole forward.

27:36

And speaking of examples, here are a few

27:38

examples of listener males that didn't hurt

27:41

our feelings.

27:45

All right, First, we have one from two

27:48

too and he said to pronounce it that

27:50

way, and the subject is an extra

27:52

trivia for the Great Stink episode,

27:54

which was a fun one to do for us. Dear

27:56

Ben and Nola, warmest greetings from Malaysia. I'm

27:59

a listener to the show since its inception, and I've

28:01

enjoyed the various topics you guys have put out so

28:03

far. Your most recent episode on the

28:05

Great Stink of London was definitely an interesting take

28:07

on the matter, adding some depth and perspective

28:10

for me on the subject since I last heard it being

28:12

mentioned in another house Stuff Works podcast

28:14

plug Stuff to Blow Your Minds episode

28:16

on miasma theory and the Evil

28:19

Air. We didn't talk about the evil air, but yeah,

28:21

that miasma theory is a doozy. Both

28:23

your show and STBYM covered the historical

28:26

figure John Snow, while your

28:28

show additionally covered the figure John

28:30

Harrington.

28:31

This is interesting.

28:32

What I found to be a missed opportunity for

28:34

you guys may be a little trivial, he said

28:36

it was trivia. Yet I can't

28:38

help but mention that Kit Harrington, who

28:40

portrays HBO's Game of Thrones character

28:43

John Snow, at least according

28:45

to the actor himself, and then he gives us a link, is

28:47

a descendant of said John

28:49

Harrington.

28:51

What casey can we get

28:53

a like a.

28:57

Perfect He goes on, right, he does go

28:59

on, He says, talk about coincidences.

29:02

Perhaps you guys were aware, but opted

29:04

not to mention due to its triviality. No,

29:06

sir, I can tell you we were not, as you

29:09

just heard our minds being blown, and they are in fact

29:11

all over the walls right now. But just in case

29:13

you guys weren't aware, I thought you might find

29:16

the little tidbit amusing at least. Anyway, Thanks

29:18

a bunch for putting the show together. It's been a pretty cool addition

29:20

to my podcast library that I listen to during

29:22

my daily drive to work. Looking forward to more great episodes

29:25

regards two.

29:26

Thanks so much too. As Reddit likes to say,

29:28

today, I learned, and

29:31

we have one more listener

29:33

mail here. We been getting

29:35

so many awesome listener mails it's difficult

29:37

to choose just one.

29:38

I know, it really is.

29:39

So we're going to save all the butter Smuggler

29:41

stuff for another episode.

29:43

I agree. That's going to be a fun one.

29:44

And there are some great things about language. I

29:47

got to stop telling everybody about the emails we're

29:49

going to.

29:49

You know, listener mail spoilers.

29:51

Dude.

29:51

Yeah, we'll just five year statute of limitations

29:53

on that.

29:54

We'll just be so great if somebody

29:56

send us an email five years before

29:58

we did the show is time travel possible different

30:01

episode. Here's an email from Jared

30:03

P. Jared P writes, ohoy, fellas,

30:06

I'm a new fan of the show. I've been binge listening

30:08

to catch up. You guys are great.

30:09

Thank you, Jared.

30:11

Jared continues, I lived in Japan for three

30:13

years and my wife is Japanese. The KFC

30:16

x miss I choose to write x mess out of

30:18

sheer laziness. Notes phenomenon has

30:20

been around a long time, over twenty five

30:22

years. Everything I know of it is

30:24

that it caught on after a successful ad

30:27

campaign. Most Japanese folks

30:29

don't celebrate Christmas, and those that do enjoy

30:31

it for the commercial side of it more than any

30:33

religious connotations. Most Japanese

30:36

people think of x mess in American

30:38

stereotypes, so doing something American

30:41

on that American holiday, like eating

30:43

fried chickens suddenly isn't so crazy.

30:45

They also don't consume fried chicken and burgers

30:48

at the rate we do, so it's a bit of a special

30:50

occasion to go to those fast food

30:52

places. KFC was the first

30:54

successful fast food chain in Japan, and

30:56

it's still popular today. Kentucky,

30:59

as it's known here, tastes like a somehow less

31:01

greasy, healthier fried chicken version of the American

31:03

original, if that makes any sense.

31:06

They offer rules, which is a bummer. If you're a biscuit

31:08

fan, it's not bad. But if you're there and wanting

31:10

to explore Japan's take on American fast

31:12

food and McDonald's Tarryaki.

31:14

Burger is where it's act like a

31:17

good tariokey burger, I agree, we

31:19

should go. We should try it.

31:21

Unrelated, he concludes, I

31:23

love the teaser of sorts about North Korea making

31:25

a Godzilla movie. Keep up the great show and

31:28

feel free to go down the Kim Jong Ill

31:30

rabbit hole anytime.

31:32

Cheers Jeed. I'm still really

31:34

gonna lean on my idea of a rap name as

31:36

being Kim Jong Ill, but just spelled

31:38

like licensed to ill, you know, like ill.

31:41

I think it'll be lost on ears, though when you

31:43

say it's me, the rapper Kim Jong

31:45

Ill, people are like booo, maybe

31:47

poor taste.

31:48

Maybe Kim Jong two Ill.

31:50

That's pretty good, Kim Jong two Ill. I

31:52

like that. Speaking of burger stuff, did you hear that

31:55

Sonic is coming out with a burger

31:57

that's fifty percent beef and fifty percent mushroom

32:00

and it's supposedly like this green thing

32:03

that like the conservationists are

32:05

praising them for.

32:06

Really I would try it.

32:07

No, it sounds good. I love a good mushroom. I

32:10

love a good burger.

32:11

So you can probably tell by you

32:14

can probably tell folks by the

32:16

theme of our conversation

32:19

that it's time for us to take a lunch break.

32:21

So we are going to head

32:24

out now. We'd like to think two.

32:26

We'd like to thank Jared. Where would

32:28

we be without Casey Pegram,

32:30

So thanks to him.

32:31

And also thanks to David Dennis

32:34

for writing how Mlka influenced the direction

32:36

of Star Trek for how stuff Works, and

32:38

to our composer Alex Williams, who wrote

32:40

our theme. Most importantly, thanks

32:42

to you.

32:43

If you want to take a page from

32:45

a Jed and Two's book, go

32:48

ahead and write to us with your suggestions,

32:51

your reactions, your feedback

32:53

on this and any other episode,

32:56

and.

32:56

Please do yourselves and us

32:58

a favor and join us for our next episode

33:00

where we talk about animal spies.

33:03

I'm just gonna leave it right there, see

33:06

you guys later. For

33:15

more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

33:18

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

33:20

to your favorite shows,