Podcasts about Bedford Falls

In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, Michael Hingson welcomes Karolyn Grimes, best known for her unforgettable role as Zuzu Bailey in Frank Capra's timeless classic It's a Wonderful Life. At 85, Karolyn brings not just cherished memories from Hollywood's Golden Age but profound lessons in faith, resilience, and gratitude that still inspire today. She shares vivid behind-the-scenes stories of working with Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, and Maureen O'Hara—moments that shaped her life long after the cameras stopped rolling. From learning her lines at six years old to celebrating a surprise birthday on the set of Rio Grande, Karolyn offers a heartfelt glimpse into the wonder and warmth of old Hollywood. But her story reaches far beyond fame. After losing both parents by age fifteen and later enduring the heartbreak of losing her husband and son, Karolyn rediscovered purpose through the enduring message of It's a Wonderful Life. Today, she travels to Seneca Falls, New York—the real-life Bedford Falls—attends festivals, supports the Zuzu House foundation, and co-hosts the Zuzu All Grown Up podcast, continuing to spread the film's message of hope. Michael and Karolyn also share exciting plans for a Richard Diamond, Private Detective radio drama at next year's REPS showcase. Filled with nostalgia, laughter, and heart, this episode reminds us that no matter the season—or the challenges— “It truly is a wonderful life.”   Highlights: 01:24 – Hear how Karolyn's early music and elocution lessons opened doors to a Hollywood career at just six years old. 07:50 – Discover how losing both parents by age fifteen changed her path and led her to a quieter life in Missouri. 14:51 – Learn what it was like to work under Frank Capra's direction and how he brought out the best in young actors. 19:12 – Feel the kindness of Jimmy Stewart as Karolyn recalls a moment when he turned a mistake into encouragement. 27:20 – Relive her birthday surprise on the set of Rio Grande with John Wayne and a cake she'll never forget. 31:29 – Get a candid glimpse of Maureen O'Hara's fiery personality and how it lit up the screen. 47:23 – Walk with Karolyn through Seneca Falls, New York—the real-life inspiration for Bedford Falls—and its annual It's a Wonderful Life festival. 58:27 – See how she keeps the film's spirit alive today through public appearances, the Zuzu House foundation, and her Zuzu All Grown Up podcast.   About the Guest:   Karolyn Grimes is an American actress best remembered for her role as Zuzu Bailey in Frank Capra's timeless film It's a Wonderful Life (1946), where she delivered one of cinema's most cherished lines: “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” Born in Hollywood, California, in 1940, Grimes began acting as an infant and appeared in 16 films during her childhood, including The Bishop's Wife (1947). Her early career placed her alongside Hollywood legends like James Stewart, Donna Reed, Loretta Young, and David Niven. She later earned honors such as a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame and the Edwin P. Hubble Medal of Initiative for her contributions to film and culture. Grimes' personal story is one of remarkable endurance. Orphaned by age 15, she was sent from Hollywood to rural Missouri to live with strict relatives, yet she persevered and eventually became a medical technologist. Life brought both love and heartbreak—two marriages, seven children, and the tragic loss of her youngest son and husband. In the 1980s, renewed popularity of It's a Wonderful Life reconnected her with fans and co-stars, inspiring her to embrace the film's message of hope. Today, she travels widely to share her memories of the movie, appears annually at the Seneca Falls celebration that inspired Bedford Falls, and continues to spread its enduring message that every life truly matters.   Ways to connect with Karolyn:   podcast site, www.zuzunetwork.com Facebook page Karolyn Grimes, www.zuzu.net     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, a gracious hello to you, wherever you happen to be today, I am your host, Mike or Michael. I don't really care which hingson and you are listening to or watching unstoppable mindset. Today, we get a chance to chat with someone who, well, you may or may not know who she is, you will probably by the time we're done, because I'm going to give you a clue. Probably one of the most famous lines that she ever spoke was, whenever a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. And you are right, if you guessed it, you get to meet Zuzu or Karolyn Grimes. Today, I met Karolyn a few years ago when we were both involved in doing recreations of old radio shows with the radio enthusiasts of Puget Sound, and we have had the opportunity to chat and do things together like other recreations ever since. I'm going to miss, unfortunately, the one in September, because I'm going to be off elsewhere in Texas doing a speech. But what do you do anyway? Karolyn or Zuzu, whichever you prefer, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Karolyn Grimes ** 02:35 I'm so disappointed I don't get to see your dog.   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Oh, next time. Okay, see we and you know that's the thing Carolyn is, just like everyone else, it's always all about the dog. Forget me. That's okay. It's okay. He loves it.   Karolyn Grimes ** 02:58 Well, I'm sorry you're not coming. Because you know what, I really am going to do a fantastic part that I love, and that's playing Loretta Young's part in the bishop's wife, the bishop's wife, right? Yes, and you're going to miss it. Well, I   Michael Hingson ** 03:14 will probably try to at least listen on the internet and and hear it. I think that'll be fun. It's a it's a great part. Well, you were in the bishop's wife originally, weren't you?   Karolyn Grimes ** 03:25 Yes, I was, who did? Who did you play? I played Little Debbie, who was David Nevin and Loretta Young's little girl, and Cary Grant was an angel who came down to straighten my dad out,   Michael Hingson ** 03:43 and at the end he straightened him out, but there was never any memory of him being there. Was there.   Karolyn Grimes ** 03:50 That's right, he was erased, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 03:56 oh, you know, it's all about doing it, and not about him. So it's okay. I think I thought Cary Grant did a great job. I really always was wonderful, wonderful. What was he like to work with? And what was David Nevin like to work with, much less Loretta Young?   Karolyn Grimes ** 04:13 Well, at the beginning of the movie, they told me not to go near David Nevin. Don't bother him. So I never did. I just had the feeling he didn't like kids or something, I don't know. But Loretta Young was cordial and nice, but she pretty much sat in her chair and studied the script most of the time, so I didn't really get to visit with her all that much, but boy, Cary Grant was hands on. Oh, he was great. He there was a lot of snow in the movie, and there was an ice skating scene, and there was actually an ice rink on our stage. So every day at lunch, he would come and get me and. And he pulled me around on a sled while he practiced ice skating. And that was so much fun,   Michael Hingson ** 05:08 cool. And that was all in Hollywood, right?   05:11 Oh, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 05:15 I, I always found it interesting. We went to see the Rockettes a couple of times at Radio City Music Hall in New York. And it was interesting to see their, quote, ice skating rink, which was, was a very smooth floor and and they could raise it and lower it and all sorts of things. It was. It was kind of fascinating to actually know about that. And I actually got a chance to go look at it was kind of pretty interesting.   Karolyn Grimes ** 05:45 Can you imagine, they actually made a skating rink on stage. I mean, you know, yeah, before miracles.   Michael Hingson ** 05:55 Well, tell us a little bit about, kind of, maybe the early Karolyn growing up, and, you know, how things got started and and what you did a little bit? Well, my   Karolyn Grimes ** 06:04 mother gave me all kinds of lessons. I was an only child, and so when I was about, I guess, three, she started me on the piano, the violin, dancing, which never took singing, and even elocution, diction, everything I had lessons coming out my eyeballs and I played the violin and piano.   Michael Hingson ** 06:30 So did you ever? Did you ever compete with Jack Benny playing the violin? Not hardly just checking.   Karolyn Grimes ** 06:37 I did win a scholarship, though, to go to college on my violin when I was in high school. So, you know, I I played it for a long time, but I didn't play the piano, just I stuck with the violin and I did singing. I did a lot of vocal stuff when I got older, but when I was little, she gave me all these lessons and and I can remember saying, Well, I really don't want to go to school today if I stay at home and I practice my elocution, or I practice this, or practice my piano or whatever, well, then could I stay home and she let me stay home from school so I would practice.   Michael Hingson ** 07:21 Yeah. Did you ever   Karolyn Grimes ** 07:23 go ahead? That's fine, that's all.   Michael Hingson ** 07:26 Did you ever ask her or ever learn why she was so adamant that you took all these kinds of lessons when you were young and so on, as opposed to just going to school and so on. Well,   Karolyn Grimes ** 07:38 unfortunately, she started getting sick when I was eight years old. And, you know, I was too young to think about asking questions like that, you know. And then she died when I was 14. So that was kind of the end of my career, for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 07:55 Well, yeah, and sort of it was but, but you never really did learn why she was so so steadfast in her beliefs that you had to take all of those lessons.   Karolyn Grimes ** 08:07 I had no idea, because when she started getting sick, she had early onset Alzheimer's, and so, you know she wasn't, you couldn't communicate.   Michael Hingson ** 08:18 Really, yeah, yeah. And it was only when you were old enough that that started. So, yeah, you really couldn't get a lot of information and do a lot of communicating. I understand that. No, and you didn't have much time after that to really talk to your father about it either. No, I didn't.   Karolyn Grimes ** 08:41 He died a year after she did. And I was 15, and the court in Hollywood shipped me to a little town in Missouri. I think there were 700 people in the town, or something like that. Yeah. So it's quite a culture shock, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Get me out of Hollywood was great.   Michael Hingson ** 09:01 So what did you do then? So you were now 15, and they sent you off to Missouri. Why Missouri?   Karolyn Grimes ** 09:09 Well, those were the only people who volunteered to take me. I had a lot of people in LA, where I lived, who would have taken me, but my father didn't leave a will. So when I asked the judge, I said, Do I have any say at all about who I go to live with? And he said, whatever you want is like a drop in the bucket. So needless to say, my mean aunt and uncle took me back to Missouri, in a little town, but it was like, I say the best thing ever happened to me, because they're real people. They weren't phony. They were they were serious and and they were loving and kind, and they realized I was in a. Horrible home situation. So they really my teachers and merchants, everybody knew, and they really made up for that. They made my life livable and that I will never forget it, and I will always love that town, because   Michael Hingson ** 10:19 what town was it? Osceola,   Karolyn Grimes ** 10:21 Missouri. Oh, Osceola. Okay, I've heard of it. 800 people in there or something.   Michael Hingson ** 10:27 You said they were your mean aunt and uncle. Why did you Why do you call them mean?   Karolyn Grimes ** 10:34 My uncle wasn't mean, but he was beaten down by his wife. She would her. Her best ploy would be to if I did something wrong, she would punish other people. And that was worse than punishing you. Yeah. So it was very, very hard to not do something wrong, because I kind of seemed like I did all the time.   Michael Hingson ** 11:05 Yeah, you didn't know what the rules were. No, yeah, that that made it, made it very tough. So what did you do once you went back there? I assume you went to, you finished school.   Karolyn Grimes ** 11:21 Yes, I finished school, and then I went to college. Where did you go? Well, it was called Central Missouri State at that time, and it was the home of the mules. And of course, my major was music, so that was what I did, mostly with my life, but I ended up going into science and I became medical technologist.   Michael Hingson ** 11:46 Uh huh, well, the mules, so you majored in music. Did you get any advanced degree or just get a bachelor's?   Karolyn Grimes ** 11:57 No, okay, I changed everything and decided that I need to make money instead, to survive,   Michael Hingson ** 12:05 yeah, you got to do some of that kind of stuff. Yeah, you do. It's one of those, those things that happens. So what did you do after college?   Karolyn Grimes ** 12:13 I got a job working for medical office in was kind of a clinic in Kansas City, Missouri, okay? And I spent probably 15 years there, maybe, maybe more I remember for sure, and that's, that's what I did. Then after that, I retired and raised a bunch of kids.   Michael Hingson ** 12:42 Well, that's a worthwhile endeavor.   12:46 It's stressful.   Michael Hingson ** 12:50 Well, you know, but as long as they don't call you mean, then that probably counts for something.   Karolyn Grimes ** 12:56 Yeah, they didn't call me mean. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 13:00 there you are. So you you did all of your your acting and movies and so on, kind of at a younger age, you didn't go back into doing any of that. No, I   Karolyn Grimes ** 13:11 didn't, but I did get active in the theater scene in the Kansas City area. So I did quite a few plays, and I had a really good time doing that. Okay, only problem with that is you have to memorize so much.   Michael Hingson ** 13:27 Yeah, you can't use cue cards and you can't use a script,   Karolyn Grimes ** 13:30 yeah? So I tried to work and do that, yeah, it's kind of tough, but I did. I the last one I did. I think I was 40 something, but it was fun. I loved it.   Michael Hingson ** 13:44 So what, what kind of maybe famous plays were you in?   Karolyn Grimes ** 13:49 Not famous? They were small ones. And honestly, I can't even remember what they were. I it's in my mind, one, the last one was musical, and it was kind of a Western. I can't remember what it was to save my soul, but that's, that's privilege of getting old.   Michael Hingson ** 14:09 Yeah, you never know. You might remember one of these days,   Karolyn Grimes ** 14:14 yeah, oh, I will, I'm sure, probably about an hour from now.   Michael Hingson ** 14:18 Yeah. Well, so going back earlier, what was the first movie you were in   Karolyn Grimes ** 14:27 that night with you, and that starred, Oh, see, there goes. My mind again. It was an opera singer. Can't think of Suzanne, York, oh, okay, and it had Irene Ryan, who was in the hillbillies. She was a maid. And it was, it was a Christmas scene, or it was section of the movie where I was one of. Five orphans that were sent. This opera singer wanted us to give us a Christmas night. We were from an orphanage, and so she had us come. We were going to spend the night, and she had presents for us and all that sort of thing. And the first thing I did was break an ornament on the Christmas tree. Oh, dear. Ah, so the kids got mad at me, because they knew we were going to be sent back to the orphanage. But anyway, in the end, she held me on her lap and sang a lullaby to me, and I will always remember that.   Michael Hingson ** 15:39 Yeah, you mentioned Irene, Ryan, granny, which was, yeah, she was in. She played a maid. What a character she   15:46 was. She was a maid.   Michael Hingson ** 15:50 Then what did you do after that movie? How old were you for that movie? I was four. You're four. So you do remember it sort of, yeah.   Karolyn Grimes ** 16:01 Just don't remember names particularly. I mean, yeah, but you were really funny about it that the there was one agent, pretty much, that had all the kids in her stable that worked in the movies back then. It was an easy thing, and she had Jimmy Hawkins, who was Tommy, and it's a wonderful life. And she also had his older brother, and his older brother was in that particular movie with me, so it was kind of a family affair all every time you went to an audition or an interview you saw the same kids over and over.   Michael Hingson ** 16:49 Well, how did you end up then being in It's a Wonderful Life. What? What did they what does it think and decide that you were the person for   Karolyn Grimes ** 17:01 it. Well, nothing really special. You know, I went on the interview back in the day. They didn't have what they do today. They had interviews where you went, and you had a one on one situation. Maybe five or six us girls would go to the interview, and then they'd bring another batch in, and that's kind of how it went. And most of us, as I say, had the same agent, so we, my mother took me to the interview, to the and it's like, it's not like an audition, it's an interview, and you actually go in and talk to casting director. And you know, you know, do what they tell you to do. So in this particular interview, there was a little girl who accidentally spilled some coffee on my dress. Her mother's coffee on my dress, because so back then, we all wore dresses, and I just didn't think a thing about it didn't bother me to have a dirty dress. I just I went in and did my interview. When I went in there, I meant Frank Capra was in, ah, and he interviewed and and cast every single person in that film, even the extras. That's how precise he was. But I went in there, and I remember he asked me how I would look, how I would act if I lost my dog and he died. I gave him my spiel, all with a dirty dress, but didn't bother me a bit. Came out, and then when we were leaving, I heard my mother mentioned to one of the other mothers that she felt like that, that girl's mother had had her spilling on purpose so they would intimidate me. But I didn't know it. I didn't realize it, and didn't bother me a bit.   Michael Hingson ** 19:11 What did you say when Frank Capra asked me that question? Do you remember?   Karolyn Grimes ** 19:16 Well, I I didn't say anything.   Michael Hingson ** 19:20 I just looked, no, I mean, about the dog?   Karolyn Grimes ** 19:22 Well, I just looked, oh, you know, yeah, squeezed up kind of teared, and was unhand picked. That was, you know, there was no line involved. It was just that, well, she must ask the other lines, but I don't remember, I just remember that.   Michael Hingson ** 19:46 So what was he like to work with?   Karolyn Grimes ** 19:49 He was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. He would get down on his knees so that he could communicate with those kids. And I. I thought that was really great, and I'm sure you got a lot more out of us by doing that. Rather than looking down on us and telling us what he wanted   Michael Hingson ** 20:09 us to do, he made you feel like a part of it all.   Karolyn Grimes ** 20:13 Yes, he did. He gave us a lot of power that way.   Michael Hingson ** 20:17 Yeah, and what was it like working with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.   Karolyn Grimes ** 20:22 Well, you know, I didn't have any scenes with Donna Reed, except that being the movie, that's true. I didn't have any interaction with her. I had no lines. I don't even remember Donna Reed, but he was my focal point. Jimmy Stewart was fabulous. He was kind, considerate, and I fluffed a line in the pedal scene, and he said that, that's all right, Carolyn, you'll get it right next time. And it was things like that, you know, that made a difference between, if you messed up online, where they would get aggravated with you, and then you probably mess it up again. But he did the right thing. He made me not feel bad about it, and encouraged me to do it again.   Michael Hingson ** 21:17 It's, it's interesting, and it, it's a great lesson to you know, to point out that when when people help empower and they aren't negative and are encouraging no matter what you're doing, that counts for a lot. And I I find that when I encounter people who just decide they're going to be mean because they got to boss you around and do all sorts of obnoxious things to try to intimidate you and so on. In the long run, that is just so unproductive, it seems to me.   Karolyn Grimes ** 21:49 Yes, I agree. I don't see what it accomplishes.   Michael Hingson ** 21:53 Yeah, so I can appreciate what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm glad, and I always thought that Jimmy Stewart was that kind of a person, both he and Cary Grant both seemed sensitive, really concerned about people succeeding. They weren't jerks.   Karolyn Grimes ** 22:13 No, they weren't. And caught up with him later in life, he was getting calls from a lot of people about whatever happened to that little girl. And so he had one of his secretaries Call Me and find Me and and he called me and we had chat. And here I am in Missouri. He's in Hollywood. That was pretty cool when you're 40 years old. When that was the first year I ever saw the movie after I talked to him. So that was kind of how it went. But then after that, I met him in New York at a function, and we spent some time together, and he was delightful, so kind, so   Michael Hingson ** 23:01 generous. I remember when I first saw part of It's a Wonderful Life. It was back in the day when there was regular television. Then there was UHF, which was everything above, basically channel 13. And you had to have special at that time receivers to receive it. And one day I was, I just come home from high school, from classes, and I turned on the television, and it was a UHF channel, and I started scrolling across, and all of a sudden I heard Jimmy Stewart's voice, and I went, What's that? And it took me a couple of minutes of listening to it to figure out what the movie was, because I had heard about it enough that I I figured it out, but I listened to about half the movie, and then later I found the whole movie and watched it. And of course, also since then, I have had the opportunity to listen to radio broadcasts of it, like Lux radio theater and so on, where, where they did it. But I remember it well, yes, so did you do much of anything in in radio?   Karolyn Grimes ** 24:13 Then? Not really, not really. I can remember being on the radio for the opening night of the bishop's club. That was really exciting.   Michael Hingson ** 24:28 It's a lot of interesting movies back then. You know, It's a Wonderful Life The Bishop's wife in 1947 also, there was Miracle on 34th Street that people thought was never going to go anywhere. And it and also,   Karolyn Grimes ** 24:43 I'm sorry, still alive today, it   Michael Hingson ** 24:46 is and, and it's a classic. All three of them are classics and, and should be, right? So what did you do after the bishop's wife, from movie standpoint?   Karolyn Grimes ** 24:59 Oh. Um, I think I really don't remember exactly, but I did some movies that were westerns, and I really liked those. They were really fun. I did Rio Grande John Wayne and off Scott and I did honey child with Judy Canova.   Michael Hingson ** 25:28 I'll bet that was a   25:29 was a hoot. It was a hoot. What   Michael Hingson ** 25:33 was Judy Canova like?   Karolyn Grimes ** 25:36 Well, she was really nice. I played her niece, and I lived with her, and she was very nice. It's like that this particular movie, her mother had just died, so she was kind of not all happy, herself, still mourning, but she was very nice and considerate. And you know, she's the one that's saying, I'll be coming around when I come. Yeah, she'll be coming around the corner when she comes. That was what I always remembered her for, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 26:15 Oh, she was always quite the character.   Karolyn Grimes ** 26:18 Oh, she was and she though she had that voice that was unusual.   Michael Hingson ** 26:27 So what? What did you do? What was your role in Rio Grande with John Wayne and marine O'Hara?   Karolyn Grimes ** 26:39 I was the school teacher's daughter, and we lived on a fort. We were in Moab, you daughter? Film it. Yeah, we lived on a fort. And I, my uncle was Victor McLachlan. And so the Indians came and raided us, and he they saved us and put us in a wagon to send us off to be safe. But the Indians got us and killed my mom and put us in the top of a Chapel Church, and that's where we were. And so they the three of the the people, I can't think of their names again. That's problem for me names, but I'll think of them eventually. They rescued us kids, and Victor McLachlan came to get me when the Calvary had gotten there, and I'm on a plat, kind of a platform, ringing the bell. I was ringing a bell throughout this movie, and I hit a bell. I hit Harry Carey Junior over the head with a bell. I always had a bell, so I'm ringing this giant bell to say it's okay for the Calgary to come in. And Vic McLachlan had to pull me off the platform and get me out the door and into a wagon to be rescued, because all his kids were being rescued. And so when he pulled me off that platform, I had this little dress on, and I got a big bad splinter in my bottom. Oh, gosh, it was horrible. It hurt so bad I was going to say, I bet it did. You can never show anything like that. So I did not show it. I just jumped off into his arms, and that was it.   Michael Hingson ** 28:44 Well, I would presume they eventually got the splitter out. Well, my   Karolyn Grimes ** 28:48 mom did, yeah, those things happen.   Michael Hingson ** 28:53 So what was it like working with John Wayne and Marie? No Hara, what both, what characters they are? Oh,   Karolyn Grimes ** 29:02 yeah. Well, John Wayne was just a booming voice. Yeah, he was a huge figure. He I didn't really have any relationship with him, but I had a birthday in the Fourth of July while I was there, ah, and the Korean flicked. Had just broken out. It was 1950 and the government had commandeered airplanes, so John Wayne managed to have airplane bring in a bunch of supplies, and it was one of them was a big, giant birthday cake for me, and bunch of fireworks. He had $300 worth of fireworks, and so we he threw me a party out on Colorado River bluffs, and we had glass. Do is really so funny. Said Happy birthday Little Miss Carolyn and Pat way and his son, who's my age, was out there too. He was he and Michael on school break for summer, and so they were part of the film. He was my age, so we hung around a lot. We were kind of upset because all we got to do with all those fireworks, two little sparklers, what   Michael Hingson ** 30:32 was marine O'Hara like?   Karolyn Grimes ** 30:38 I guess maybe she and Mr. Ford didn't get along very well, and she had a temper. He had a   Michael Hingson ** 30:47 temper, an Irish temper, yes, yes.   Karolyn Grimes ** 30:50 And I saw a lot of that. And one particular time we were in, they had a limo that would take us from the motel to the set which was on the Colorado River, and it was on this person's ranch. So we go down this terribly dangerous road to go to his ranch. At least it was dangerous to me. I was scared, definitely going to Fall River, yeah, because it was right on the edge. But she was angry, and we were in this limo, and she was with her hairdresser. They were in the front row, and my mother and I were in the back of the limo. She was cursing and carrying on about mister Ford, and I didn't pay any attention to it. And so her hairdresser said, Miss O'Hara, there's, there's a little girl in the back. She just kept right on going. But when she said that, I started paying attention what she was in and she was just a string of curses. It was so bad, she was so angry, and it was so funny. So she didn't, it didn't bother her to swear in front of the little child.   Michael Hingson ** 32:14 Just think how much language and how much elocution you learned, huh? Oh no, I did because, oh   Karolyn Grimes ** 32:19 yeah, potential, until she said that, then I listened.   Michael Hingson ** 32:25 Just rounded out your vocabulary. Oh,   Karolyn Grimes ** 32:28 yes, I've never heard words like that, and   Michael Hingson ** 32:32 probably never did again, no, than the ones you used, but, you know, but still. Oh, that's, that's pretty cool, though. So, did you ever have any kind of an opportunity to reunite and be with all of the Bailey family again from the movie?   Karolyn Grimes ** 32:53 Yes, in 1993 or four? Wow. It was quite a while, 60 years later, yeah, um, I had already been in contact with little Tommy. We've been conversing on a phone for about five years, but the target tour had, It's a Wonderful Life is a sort of a theme in their stores that year, and so they thought it would be a good ploy to have a reunion with the Bailey kids. So they brought us all together and put us on a tour. And that was when we all met up again, and I was so excited to do it, and that's the first time I actually saw people's response to this movie. We were in an autographed line at some of the targets that we went to, and people would come through the line and they share their stories about how the movie had affected their lives, and I was so impressed. I well, I just couldn't forget it. And so from that time forward, I became very enamored of sharing messages with other people, and I started doing various appearances and things like that.   Michael Hingson ** 34:23 Yeah. So what other kinds of appearances have you done?   Karolyn Grimes ** 34:28 Oh my gosh, I couldn't even begin to tell you lots. Well, that's good. All different kinds. I mean, you know, all different kinds.   34:38 Have you had   34:40 Go ahead. Thanks.   Michael Hingson ** 34:43 Have you had any or any significant number of appearances and interviews on television over the years?   Karolyn Grimes ** 34:50 No, just interviews, lots of interviews, live interviews. Yeah, yes, that's all never involved with anything again. And, but, yeah, I think I might do something kind of fun in September   Michael Hingson ** 35:08 March or in in Washington.   Karolyn Grimes ** 35:11 No, no, what in Ireland?   Michael Hingson ** 35:15 In Ireland, be gosh and be Garda. Yes, what are you going to   Karolyn Grimes ** 35:19 do? They're going, they're filming movie about Jimmy Stewart. Oh, and they want me to do a cameo. Well, cool. Isn't that fun?   Michael Hingson ** 35:31 That'll be exciting. Yes, I'm really excited. Wow. So long later. I, yeah, you know, I, I, I've seen, of course, movies with Jimmy Stewart, and I remember seeing him once on The Tonight Show, Later in the period of The Tonight Show and so on. And I'm not sure how long after that, he he passed, but I remember his his appearance, which was kind of fun.   Karolyn Grimes ** 35:59 Did you happen to hear him when he did the poem about his dog bull.   Michael Hingson ** 36:04 Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. That's the one I saw   Karolyn Grimes ** 36:07 that was so tender and true. It was just really something.   Michael Hingson ** 36:13 And the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was such a wonderful show. I watched reruns of it regularly on some of the channels, and I just think that it's so much more fun than a lot of what we see in late night TV. Today, I do miss Johnny Carson. Yes, did you ever, did you ever meet him?   Karolyn Grimes ** 36:32 No, I didn't.   Michael Hingson ** 36:38 Well still, I remember old Bo   Karolyn Grimes ** 36:43 Yes, he was a wonderful man. Yeah, they did a special thing in 19 a, 1990 it was they had a special event that was honoring him and all the people that he worked with, Allison, you know, all the stars that he'd work with. And so he invited me to come. So I went to New York, and I just had a really wonderful time about to meet his wife, and it was just good old fun just to see him again, because he was just such a down to earth man, yeah, and he just was so kind and so generous that it was a real, real exciting moment For me, that's for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 37:40 I watch him occasionally now, because he is regular, not regularly, but he's often on the Jack Benny show. And the Jack Benny show is being run on a couple on some of the TV stations, and so it's kind of fun to see the by play between he and his wife and Jack Benny. And, of course, Jack Benny, it's the traditional Jack Benny image. But the shows are so much fun, yes? And clearly, Jimmy Stewart, well, all of them have a lot of fun doing those shows.   Karolyn Grimes ** 38:17 Yeah, I think they did. Yeah. Those old radio shows were so great. I really enjoyed them back in the day well.   Michael Hingson ** 38:29 And I find that when people really enjoy what they do, and you see that come out in even on some of the earlier television shows, with the radio shows, it makes such a difference, because you can feel the energy that's coming from people.   Karolyn Grimes ** 38:48 You do. You really do.   Michael Hingson ** 38:52 If people don't enjoy what they're doing, that comes through. And you you can tell so it's it's fun, when people really enjoy it. Well, how did you get involved with the Marshfield Cherry Blossom Festival? You've been doing that for a while,   Karolyn Grimes ** 39:14 a long years, more than I true. Well, Nicholas called me. He runs the festival. I can't tell you what year it was, but it probably was early 80s. Maybe, wow, no, wouldn't have been early 80s. Sorry, no. Probably in early 2000 okay? And he called me and asked me if I would come down and be in the festival. So I said, Okay, and so. We flew back and went to the festival, and it was Dean Martin's daughter was there, and one of the Munchkins was there. Can't think of his name. One lived in St Louis, character. He was there. Couple of other people that were there, you know, old stars, and it rained, it snowed, and it was just, it was awful. It sweeted. It was just really bad. So there wasn't much of a turnout, and it was kind of a disappointment to Nicholas, I think because it since then they've changed the date, so it's a little later in the year. And yeah, you know, kind of count on the weather being a little better. But then I didn't come back for about two years, and then he called me King, and from that time forward, I went back every year, and one of the special things that happened by being there was that the lady who played violet bit, young, Violet bit, she can't think of her name, but I'm really bad At names today. Yeah, way she she was a psychologist, and for the last, oh, I guess long, maybe eight years before I met her, Jimmy Hawkins, the littlest boy in the movie, and myself, had tried to get her involved with the film, and what the things that we did for the film, and she wouldn't have anything to do with it, because she thought it was Hollywood, and she didn't believe in that, and this was the only movie she did. So someone by the name of Nicholas convinced her to come that year. So she came, and she her son brought her, and when she saw how much that movie is loved and how it had affected so many people and their story, she got the first hand view of that that was then for her. She decided she wanted to be a part of It's a Wonderful Life from then on, did they   Michael Hingson ** 42:27 show the movie that you're at the festival? No, oh, okay,   Karolyn Grimes ** 42:32 no, she just came,   Michael Hingson ** 42:34 and so many people just talked about it.   Karolyn Grimes ** 42:37 Yeah, yeah. She she finally realized that people really loved the movie. Of course, she saw it after that, because after that little appearance, I say you're coming to Seneca Falls. I won't take no for an answer. So her son brought her every year after that, and of course, we saw the movie dead, and she had experienced the real love that the people had for the film and for the characters in the film.   Michael Hingson ** 43:12 What was it like being around and working with Lionel Barrymore,   Karolyn Grimes ** 43:20 well, I really wasn't around him very much. We had cast fish shoes sometimes, and he he was in his he was really in a wheelchair. He had crippling arthritis. It's terrible. His hands are all gnarled. And I really didn't talk to him or having any interaction with him. I might have been in scene with him, or we've done publicity photos with him, but I don't, I don't remember ever   Michael Hingson ** 43:50 interacting with him, with him that much, yeah,   Karolyn Grimes ** 43:53 but he wasn't scary, yeah?   Michael Hingson ** 43:57 Well, that's a start. Not, not like marine O'Hara huh?   Karolyn Grimes ** 44:01 No, no. And they had a cast party at the end of movie. Most movies after they're finished, had a cast party, uh huh? This one was celebrating the end of its wonderful life. And so he, he came and I got to talk to him without, you know, he had a skull cap on, and it raised his forehead about two inches, so he had real elongated, big forehead, and took more hair off his head, so he looked meaner. That was the idea. So he didn't have that on you just look like a normal man and everything, and he didn't look mean. And so I chatted with him. He was fine. He wasn't really a nice guy.   Michael Hingson ** 44:51 Again, it's one of those things where he was perfect for that part, though.   Karolyn Grimes ** 44:55 Oh yes, he was perfect. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 45:00 It was, it was fun. And I, I think, at the time, when I first saw the movie, I didn't even know that he was the person who played Mr. Potter, but I didn't, I didn't realize that because I was young enough, but I hadn't really learned about different characters and and different actors, but I figured it out soon enough. Yeah, so tell me about Zuzu house back there.   Karolyn Grimes ** 45:30 Well, one night I was writing in a limo, and it was during the Christmas season. I was somewhere in New York, and I can't remember where I was doing a gig, and Nicholas called me, and I'll always remember it, because I was sitting in this room all and he said, Carolyn, I just discovered there are people in this community. This is very small town. Well, it's a small town, and there are people who young people who don't have a place to sleep. They're sleeping on park benches. There's this couch surfing, all this chippy said I had no idea this was going on. I want us to start a house and make it possible for them to have shelter. And so he said, The reason I'm calling you is because I want to know if it's alright if I name it the Zuzu house. So I said, Well, of course, go right ahead. So from then on, I became active with the Zuzu house and their foundation and their situation, all that they do. Unfortunately, covid happened right after that, and it made it really hard to get, you know, materials, building materials, and things like that that we needed to finish it. So it took a long time to finish the house, but it's finished now, and it houses now. It houses is us refuse for women from mean men, I guess, and that's what it is. So I'm proud to be part of it, and they did such a fabulous job. It's a great, wonderful, beautiful facility, and it's way out in the country, and it's really a place where they can get their marbles all on sack again.   Michael Hingson ** 47:33 How far is it from Marshfield? Um, I didn't get to go there when I was there last year.   Karolyn Grimes ** 47:40 My guess is about 30 minutes. Oh, okay.   Michael Hingson ** 47:47 Well, now the the the other question I would ask is, as you pointed out, the reason that the women are there, so do you go and teach them elocution, like how Marino Hara talk so that they can, yeah, I just just say, help them out, you know,   Karolyn Grimes ** 48:08 yeah, I learned a lot there.   Michael Hingson ** 48:12 But yeah, that that's really cool, that that you, you do that. Well, tell me about Seneca Falls, or, should we say, Bedford Falls, and what goes on there, and, yes, what you do and so on. I'll always think of it just Bedford Falls, but   Karolyn Grimes ** 48:27 most people do,   Michael Hingson ** 48:29 as opposed to potters field, you know. But yeah,   Karolyn Grimes ** 48:34 about seeing my this is my 23rd year. So 23 years ago, God, I can't believe it's that long. I knew cameraman on the Oprah show. It's very good friend of mine. And so it was September, and he called me and he said, Oh my god, Carolyn, this is it. This is the town you've got to come here. You've got to come He says, I'm going to go talk to somebody. And that was the last I heard. But he talked to somebody, the right person who knew what it was about and saw the possibilities. And so her name was mo cock at the time. Her name is Young. Now mo young, but she went to the Historical Society and got funding and turned it around real fast so that they could create an event for me to come and appear. So I did, and I landed in Rochester, I believe what drove to Seneca Falls, and it was snowing, and I there was no one on the streets. There was no one around. And she drive, drove up to the Main Street and open. The car door. When we just walked on Main Street, the bridge was there. It was all lit up, yeah, lit up on each post, lamp post. And it was the most wonderful experience, because I really felt like this was the place, if Frank Kaplan wanted to see a place that would inspire him to build bamboo falls, this would be the place to come. And I was so impressed. And I just loved it. So I came back every year after that, yeah, and, and then I started inviting other people like Jimmy Hawkins and Jamie, who Carol Coombs, who played Jamie, and, you know, other people. And so it was very neat event. And I even invited the babies who played Larry, the oldest boy in the movie. You know, they have a they have to have twins to play babies, because they can't be under the lights so long. So they rotate them. And so that was, that was really kind of incredible, too. Now, it's a huge affair and it   Michael Hingson ** 51:21 never had anything to do with the movie originally, right?   Karolyn Grimes ** 51:25 We're not sure. I actually think that Frank Capra had an aunt in Aurora, which is south of that town, and there's a barber there that he swears that he cut Capra's hair, and when I first started going there, what, 20 years ago, he was still alive. So I talked to him, and I said, Do you really think that was Frank Capra? And he said, Yes, I do. I really do. And he said, You know, I cut his hair, and I will always remember we chatted, and he said he was from Sicily, and I was from Sicily too, so we had a lot of calm. And he said his last name was Capra, and it means goat in Italian. And Tommy's name, the barber's name is bellissimo, which means beautiful. So he said, I always remember cutting the goat's hair. Wow, I saw three weeks later in a newspaper, there was an article about him going to make the movie. It's a wonderful love. So he said I knew that was who he was, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 52:54 so he had clearly been there, and imagery made such an impression on him,   Karolyn Grimes ** 53:03 and also on the bridge, there's a plaque, and he would have seen this, and it was for a young Italian immigrant. And of course, you know, capper was strong Italian. And this young Italian immigrant didn't know how to swim, but he jumped in the canal to save the life of a wasp woman who was committing suicide, and he made her her get out of our she got out of the water safely, and he died, he didn't know how to swim. So it was a huge thing back then, and it brought the community together. You know, there was the Italian side and and the the other side. And this brought everybody together. And it, it turned out that the they brought the whole family, his whole family, over, because they were, you know, what, wanted to do something, because they appreciated what he'd done so much to say that woman's life. And so I think camper would have seen that and that plaque, and he would have learned a story, and maybe that gave him some ideas about It's A Wonderful Life.   Michael Hingson ** 54:28 I don't know a lot about Frank Capra, but it's fascinating to hear the stories that you're telling, because it it certainly portrays him as a not only a caring person, but a person who pays attention to a lot of detail. The very fact that that he was in that town, and all the imagery and all the things that he brought to it had to, had to be very relevant. Well, all   Karolyn Grimes ** 54:56 the names of the streets in the town are. The movie, or, you know, quite a few of them, yeah, and the main street had a part of it at that time that had trees down the middle of it. And there's just so many things in in the town that are applicable to the film. And I used to know tons more when I was trying to convince everybody that this was the place. But now I don't have to remember those anymore, because people already know there are 1000s and 1000s of people that go through the town and feel the magic that now then we, we the gift shop is making it possible for people to remember their loved ones by putting bells on the bridge. And it's really, you know, become something. And then the museum, which I helped start, is really a cool museum, but they are getting a new museum, which is going to be much larger because they can't even begin to display all the things they have.   Michael Hingson ** 56:14 Well, it's, it's, it's interesting how all of this has has come up, but none of the filming of the movie was was done there. It was all in Hollywood, right? Oh, yes, but, but still, the the imagery and the vision that that people have, that brought you and everyone together to create that celebration is certainly great for the town. I love that one is it? I'm just going to have to show up. It's a Christmas event every year, right?   Karolyn Grimes ** 56:47 Yes, yeah. There's a 5k run, and they start on the bridge. And there's a few serious people in the beginning, some fellas and gals that want to win. But after that, let me tell you, it's fun. There are people dressed like Christmas trees. They got lights all over themselves. They they light up their dogs, their babies, their strollers, and they're all in this run, and it's five miles. And at some of the they go through the residential district, and some of the houses they have the booths give them a little bit of hot toddy and so forth to get them on   Michael Hingson ** 57:29 the way. Yeah, in Christmas time, I would think so it's just   Karolyn Grimes ** 57:33 a lot of fun. And people love it. And I always started every time they have it. I've always started it, so that's kind of a tradition.   Michael Hingson ** 57:46 So you have done some cameos, like Gremlins and Christmas vacation, right? Well, yeah, cameo appearances,   Karolyn Grimes ** 57:55 yeah, I guess you say that, yeah. What was that like? Well, it's, it was just, you know, the movie they showed the movie, yeah, so that was, that was all. It was just, they showed the movie just like they showed it in Christmas vacation. And somehow, when they show the movie, it's always when Zuzu is saying that line. Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 58:21 okay, so it's not so much you as it is the the original movie, yeah, it's little Zuzu well, but it's a great line. I mean, you know, well, it is. I remember last year, wasn't it? I think at the reps event. We'll get to that in a sec. But I remember getting some bells from you, and I actually, I think I told you I was going to send one to my cousin, and I let you say hello to her, and she got that bell and was completely blown away. She loves it. Oh, good. And I have the bell. I have my bell sitting out in open plain sight for the world to see, and I go by and ring it every so often. Oh, great. Oh, well, we gotta have those angels out. So what kind of events and things do you do typically, or do you like to to enjoy doing it Christmas?   Karolyn Grimes ** 59:20 Um, I kind of work during Christmas. Well, that's my season, and so I do gift shows. I do appearances, I introduce the movie. I do I'm on the road the whole time, and I love it, because I interact with these wonderful people who love the movie. And if they love the movie, believe me, they are wonderful people.   Michael Hingson ** 59:45 Yeah, undoubtedly, so well, so you you also have been involved with some of the radio recreations from from reps. And what do you think about that? How do you like that? Do.   Karolyn Grimes ** 59:59 Oh, my goodness, so much fun. And I'm old enough to remember a   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:04 lot of the shows.   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:00:07 No, I remember very well. And, you know, I it was just a whole bunch of fun to do that and recreate these scenes from older raining days. And I remember my mother and father bought a brand new Frazier. It's a car, and I'm sure nobody's ever heard of Kaiser Fraser cars, because that was the ugliest name car in my life. But they had to have that car. And I remember when we got the car, my dad was offered he could either have a heater and he could afford to pay for either a heater or a radio. And he chose the radio. So I heard inner sanctum. I heard all these wonderful, wonderful plays. Back in the day, all these shows from the radio.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 I came in near the the so called traditional end of radio, probably actually 1957 so I had five years, but almost from the beginning, I always wanted to collect more of the shows and did, and then also did a radio program for six and a half, almost seven years at the campus radio station where I worked, kuci. We did radio every Sunday night, so I had three hours of radio. And I love to tell people I heard about this show on television called 60 minutes. But my show was opposite Mike Wallace, and mine went for three hours, and his was only an hour, but it was like seven years before I got to watch 60 minutes and and learn about it, because we had shows every year or every every Sunday night, and we had a deputy sheriff who called from the Orange County jail once to tell me. He said, You know, you guys have created a real challenge for us, because he said, so many people have heard about what you do, some of a lot of our inmates, that on Sunday nights, we have to split the jail and send half people up, half the people upstairs, where there's enough radio reception, they can listen to your show, and the other half listens to and watches 60 minutes, which I always thought was kind of cute. So you do a podcast now too, don't you?   1:02:34 I do tell us   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:36 about that. I know we were focused on it. Yeah,   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:02:39 Chris and I do it. He's He's a psychologist, and we interview all kinds of people, all walks of life, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:51 How long has it been running now,   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:02:54 this is second year, okay,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:57 well, I don't know. Chris hasn't said a single word during this whole thing.   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:03:01 Oh, he's not here. What good is he, you know, right?   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:09 Well, so you know, we've been, can you believe what we've been doing? This an hour?   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:03:14 Oh, really, I did not know. I'm   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:18 telling you, time flies when you're having fun. Is there kind of anything that you want to talk about that maybe we haven't yet, any any last questions or thoughts that you have that you want to bring up?   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:03:31 No, I don't think so. I think we've covered it pretty good. We've, we've,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:37 we've done a lot. But you know, it's really wonderful to to have you on if people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:03:45 They can reach me at Carolyn, K, A R, o l, y n, dot Wilkerson, W, I, L, k, e r, s o n@gmail.com,   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:01 okay. Well, hopefully people will reach out, and if they want to also have a website, I was going to ask   1:04:10 you that zoo, zoo.net,   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:12 well, you can't do better than that. And what's the podcast called   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:04:22 seeing this is the thing with names. There it goes again. You think, I know? Oh, my goodness, I can't remember. Oh, tell you, I'm getting old. It's getting worse and worse.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:36 All grown up is the puppy. All grown up, all grown ups. Oh, Carolyn, Carol, well, there you go. Well, yeah, and I, I enjoyed being on it. Well, I'm sorry we're going to miss seeing you at reps, because I won't be able to be there. I had told Walden, and walden's actually been on unstoppable mindset now a couple of. On, but I had told him he and I had talked about me doing Richard diamond private detective and actually playing Richard diamond. And I said, I want Carolyn to play Helen Asher. So we'll now have to postpone, postpone that till next year,   1:05:14 but we're going to do it. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:17 yeah. It'll be fun. I Richard diamond has always been kind of really my favorite radio show, and I think I can carry off that voice pretty well.   Karolyn Grimes ** 1:05:27 So it'll be fun. Yeah, it will well.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:30 I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening to us today, reminisce and talk about all sorts of stuff. Love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at Michael H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, and, of course, wherever you're observing the podcast today, I hope that you'll give us a five star rating. Karolyn deserves a five star rating, even if you don't think I do do it for Karolyn. We love to have great reviews. We appreciate it. And Karolyn for you and everyone out there who is listening and watching. If you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, we'd love it if you'd reach out and let us know, give us an introduction. I think everyone has a story to tell, and I enjoy getting the opportunity to to visit with people and hear stories. So please, if you have any thoughts, introduce us. We'd love to to meet other people. But again, Karolyn, I really appreciate you being here, and I want to thank you for being with us today.   1:06:38 My pleasure being here.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:42 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

What's up, dudes? I've got Ken Kessler from Sounds of Christmas here with me to talk about the fever dream "A Rock 'N' Roll Christmas!" Yes, it's the love child of "It's a Wonderful Life" and 'Weekend Update'... and Christmas rock.Dennis Miller hosts this event with interspersed segments of George Bailey trying to bring rock to Bedford Falls. Of course, in a show predicated on a pirate signal hacking a 'traditional' Christmas show, there has to be music. Subsequently, several bands provide holiday entertainment, including Eddie Money, Little Richards, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds!In the meantime, clips of Ernest Saves Christmas are intercut over Bryan Adams. Several acts, like Jimi Hendrix and Elvis, are cut short to make room for the It's a Wonderful Life parody. Pat Benetar provides a killer song via satellite, and popular videos from MTV by U2, Run DMC, and Buster Poindexter fill out the ranks.The Beach Boys? Yep. The Beatles? Check. Oingo Boingo? Only on a theater marquis. So grab your leather jacket, spin some records, and jam out to this episode on 'A Rock 'N' Roll Christmas!" Sounds of ChristmasFB: @SOCMusicTwitter: @SOCMusicIG: @socmusicGive us a buzz! Send a text, dudes!Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!

Send us a textIn Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, a traumatized Israeli soldier gets into a debate with a rabbi about prayer notes stuck into cracks in the Wall, while nearby air raid sirens wail a warning.Bernadette Armstrong directs Gary Lamb and Dennis Gersten.Peter Prizel is the playwright. He is the author of two fiction books, The FermentedSavior and An Angelic Folly. He also writes poetry. Based in Bedford Falls, New York, he received a Master's Degree from Fordham University.Support the showFounded by playwright and filmmaker Bernadette Armstrong, Open-Door Playhouse is a Theater Podcast- like the radio dramas of the 1940s and 1950s. The Playhouse launched on September 15, 2020. At the time, Open-Door Playhouse provided Playwrights, Actors and Directors a creative outlet during the shutdown. Since its inception. Open-Door Playhouse has presented Short and One-Act plays from Playwrights across the country and internationally. In 2021 Open-Door Playhouse received a Communicator Award for Content for the Play Custody and in 2023 the play What's Prison Like was nominated for a Webby Award in the Crime & Justice Category.Plays are produced by Bernadette Armstrong, Sound Engineer is David Peters, sound effects are provided by Audio Jungle, and music from Karaoke Version. All plays are recorded at The Oak House Studio in Altadena, CA. There's no paywall at the Open-Door Playhouse site, so you could listen to everything for free. Open-Door Playhouse is a 501c3 non-profit organization, and if you would like to support performances of works by new and emerging playwrights, your donation will be gratefully accepted. Your tax-deductible donations help keep our plays on the Podcast Stage. We strive to bring our listeners thoughtful and surprising one-act plays and ten-minute shorts that showcase insightful and new perspectives of the world we share with others. To listen or to donate (or both), go to https://opend...

This week, we jump back a bit to a movie we skipped initially to make sure it was discussed at an appropriate time of year. And since its 2025 (happy new year!), lets kick it off by watching Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall in love in Bedford Falls. It's a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra.

In this episode, Josh, David, and Garrett discuss Frank Capra's 1946 classic "It's a Wonderful Life." The hosts explore how the film's themes of community versus greed remain remarkably relevant today, Jimmy Stewart's post-WWII comeback performance, and why this holiday favorite continues to resonate with modern audiences.Highlights:[01:40] - The film's surprising initial box office performance and later success[16:00] - Discussion of the movie's political themes and modern parallels[24:35] - The emotional impact of the community coming together[29:50] - Final thoughts and perfect 5-star ratings Become a VIP with the So Many Sequels Pod Squad!

One Christmas night, in the little town of Bedford Falls, a man named George Bailey contemplates throwing away God's greatest gift...but through the prayers of those who love him dearest, George learns that he truly lived a wonderful life. In the meantime, the angel Clarence earns a pair of wings. This Christmas, Sophie and Raymond discuss one of the most beloved Christmas classics of all time, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. What makes George Bailey's life wonderful? How do we convince those who are despondent (including ourselves) that life is truly worth living? How is It's a Wonderful Life like the book of Job? Is the idea of angels "earning wings" in Heaven theologically accurate? The answers the Unreliable Narrators come up with may not be what you were expecting, but who said we were reliable? Stay tuned for our next episode, where we talk about William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/UnreliableNarratorsPodcast Questions? Comments? E-mail us at unreliablepodcasters@gmail.com, visit our website at unreliablenarratorspodcast.wordpress.com, or say hi on Instagram @unreliablenarratorspodcast. Theme music is "New Moon" by Caleb Klomparens. Check out his music athttps://soundcloud.com/kappamuse Access the 2024-2025 Stoa Mars Hill list here: https://stoausa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Mars-Hill-Topics-2024-2025.pdf

HEE HAW! Grab your lasso and get ready to pull down the moon, because we're going to Bedford Falls for Christmas to celebrate Frank Capra's inspiring classic, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE! Along the way we discuss the utterly insane cognitive dissonance that happens around Christmastime, the exciting behind-the-scenes innovations that won the effects team an oscar, and the crazy story of how this film ruined showbiz friendships in order to get made! Head to our PATREON to watch video episodes, hear ad-free episodes, and more! Insta & TikTok: @FilmBrosPod

"Send us a Fan Mail Text Message"Ever stumbled upon a film so late in life that it feels like discovering a hidden treasure? That's exactly how many of us felt with "It's a Wonderful Life." Join us as we explore the journey of George Bailey and the enchanting world of Bedford Falls. From its rushed 1946 release to its eventual ascension as a holiday classic, we dissect the film's cultural impact and the many reasons it resonates across generations. From nostalgic childhood tales of sledding adventures to the Spanish flu's historical parallels, this episode is a rich tapestry of history, cinema, and personal reflections.Picture yourself back in time, immersed in the innocence of youth and the landmarks of your high school days. Our conversation shifts between the adventures of George Bailey and our own past escapades. We unravel the layers of love, sacrifice, and community spirit woven into this cinematic masterpiece, alongside a dive into the socio-economic dynamics of the Bailey household and their timeless relevance. There's humor, warmth, and a touch of nostalgia as we revisit iconic scenes and ponder over the ethical dilemmas faced by our beloved characters, drawing surprising connections to modern-day societal shifts.As we trace George Bailey's transformative journey, we can't help but marvel at the film's exploration of alternate realities and timeless themes. The episode takes a fascinating detour into the world of copyright intricacies, colorization controversies, and the evolution of villainy in film. With insights into Jimmy Stewart's military background and the film's eventual rise to iconic status post-copyright expiration, we wrap up with heartfelt personal stories and reflections on the movie's enduring legacy. Whether you're a long-time fan or a curious newcomer, "It's a Wonderful Life" continues to be a source of inspiration, reminding us of the power of community, redemption, and hope.Support the showSounds:https://freesound.org/people/frodeims/sounds/666222/ Door openinghttps://freesound.org/people/Sami_Hiltunen/sounds/527187/ Eerie intro music https://freesound.org/people/jack126guy/sounds/361346/ Slot machinehttps://freesound.org/people/Zott820/sounds/209578/ Cash registerhttps://freesound.org/people/Exchanger/sounds/415504/ Fun Facts Jingle Thanks to The Tsunami Experiment for the theme music!!Check them out hereSUPPORT US AT https://www.buzzsprout.com/1984311/supporters/newMERCH STORE https://ol-dirty-basement.creator-spring.comFind us at the following https://oldirtybasement.buzzsprout.com WEBSITE ...

This week on The Square, we're back with our annual tradition: unpacking two iconic films through a design lens. What do "Die Hard" and "It's a Wonderful Life" have in common? At first glance, maybe not much—one's a high-octane action flick, the other a sentimental holiday classic. But dive deeper with us, and you'll find surprising parallels in their themes, characters, and even architectural settings. Join Brandon Carmichael and James Adams as they explore how these two films reflect their eras, from the suburban dreams of Bedford Falls to the towering corporate ambitions of Nakatomi Plaza. We'll discuss how architecture plays a role in storytelling, the emotional impact of design, and the subtle messages about community, sacrifice, and redemption. Plus, we settle the ultimate debate: Is "Die Hard" really a Christmas movie? (Spoiler: Yippee-ki-yay, yes it is.) Whether you're here for the design insights, the holiday spirit, or just a little Bruce Willis and Jimmy Stewart love, this episode has it all.

The lads do battle with Mr. Potter for the heart of Bedford Falls as they cover Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas classic: It's a Wonderful Life. Topics include the pernicious myth of “Capra-corn”, the art of the Jimmy Stewart impression, and what it takes to be a George Bailey in a system designed to turn you into a Henry F. Potter.   REMINDER: SUBMISSIONS FOR OUR ANNUAL CALL-IN EPISODE ARE OPEN! Call +1 347 857 9523 and leave us a voicemail letting us know what the show meant to you this year and/or what your favorite moments were. We look forward to hearing from you!   Media Referenced in this Episode: It's a Wonderful Life! Dir. Frank Capra. 1946. 'Young George Bailey' Took Some Hard Hits by Stephen Cox. Los Angeles Times. December 15th, 1996. What ‘It's A Wonderful Life' Shows Us About The Weird History Of Building & Loans by John Wake. Forbes. December 31st, 2021.   TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com   Interstitial: “Jimmy the Raven” // Written and Performed by A.J. Ditty. 

Send us a textWhat if you could bring the charm of a 1940s radio play to the stage, all while presenting the venerable classic, It's A Wonderful Life? On "Steps to the Stage," we explore this intriguing blend with director Chris Diehl and actors Philip Kasinski, Lourie Deards Chase, and Danny Chase as they breathe new life into "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play." Our guests share how this innovative format allows theater companies to capture the magic of the beloved film without the need for an extensive cast and elaborate settings. Listen in as we discuss the fascinating dual-layer narrative, where actors portray both their radio personas and the iconic characters of George Bailey and his circle.Step into the small-town charm of Bedford Falls as we delve into the characters that make this story a timeless favorite. Our talented actors reveal the challenges and joys of bringing characters like George Bailey and Mary Hatch to life, capturing the heart of their journeys. Danny Chase offers an insider's view into the art of voice work, portraying an impressive eleven characters within the radio play format. This multifaceted storytelling approach not only captures the essence of the original but also adds fresh layers of creativity, inviting audiences to experience the beloved tale anew.Beyond the stage, our conversation opens up on the crafting of authentic soundscapes and engaging period-appropriate commercials that enhance this radio play experience. With the Chino Community Theater's upcoming season on the horizon, we shine a spotlight on exciting productions like "Steel Magnolias" and classics such as "A Raisin in the Sun." This episode promises a rich exploration of community theater's creativity and the passion that fuels it, setting the stage for a memorable season ahead.It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play runs weekends Dec. 6-22ndPurchase tickets at:  https://chinocommunitytheatre.seatyourself.bizor call 909-590-1149$15 Student/Senior/Child$18 General AdmissionFind STTS:Steps To The Stage (@stepstothestage) | InstagramFacebookSteps To The Stage (buzzsprout.com)Steps To The Stage - YouTubePlease follow on your favorite podcast platform and we appreciate 5 Star ratings and positive reviews!

Today I interview author John Theo, author of the short story "Christmas in Bedford Falls" which was read in our last episode! Now, John stops by to chat about his story and the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", his article about the history of Santa Claus and St. Nicholas, his books, and more! Find John and his books online at: https://www.johntheo.com/ Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 01:20 It's a Wonderful Life Discussion 13:20 Santa Claus & St. Nicholas 25:49 Favorite Christmas Films 28:08 Favorite Christmas music 31:34 Christmas Memories and traditions 39:02 Concluding thoughts   Ways to support the show: Rate and review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-cozy-christmas-podcast/id1523423375  Buy me a coffee? www.ko-fi.com/cozychristmas  Ornaments, Mugs, and Notebooks: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CozyChristmasPodcast  Logo shirt designs: http://tee.pub/lic/edygC_h4D1c    Contact Me: facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cozychristmaspodcast  instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cozychristmaspodcast/  twitter: https://twitter.com/CozyXmasPod  youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCikiozEbu0h9pKeI1Ei5TQ email: cozychristmaspodcast@gmail.com           #Christmas #christmaspodcast #podcast #christmasstories

Have you ever wondered what happened to some of the characters in Bedford Falls after the events of "It's a Wonderful Life"? My guest today is author John Theo, and he wondered the same thing and has written a piece of fan fiction exploring that very thing. Get ready for a wonderful new cozy story, and then stay tuned for Friday, as I have John Theo back on the podcast as a guest and we talk about this story and more.  Find out more about John Theo at https://www.johntheo.com/  Ways to support the show: Rate and review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-cozy-christmas-podcast/id1523423375  Buy me a coffee? www.ko-fi.com/cozychristmas  Ornaments, Mugs, and Notebooks: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CozyChristmasPodcast  Logo shirt designs: http://tee.pub/lic/edygC_h4D1c    Contact Me: facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cozychristmaspodcast  instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cozychristmaspodcast/  twitter: https://twitter.com/CozyXmasPod  youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCikiozEbu0h9pKeI1Ei5TQ email: cozychristmaspodcast@gmail.com           #Christmas #Podcast #christmaspodcast

Paul Gottfried joins the podcast to talk about the current lay of the political landscape and what must be done to turn Pottesrville into Bedford Falls again. To Support the Podcast: https://www.worldviewconversation.com/support/Become a Patronhttps://www.patreon.com/worldviewconversationFollow Jon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonharris1989Follow Jon on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldviewconversation/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yes, we are late. Yes, Christmas is almost over. But yes, if anything can save Christmas, it's the Christmas Specials We Love podcast! Kev and Anne give us a preview of what specials and movies they hope to cover this season until they digress. The duo also covers Santa's Village in Jefferson, New Hampshire vs. Candy Cane Lane in Woodland Hills, CA. Vintage bubble lights and the messiness and flammability of real Christmas trees. Is there such a thing as Christmas Porn and would it call for 'pornaments.' The alleged real Bedford Falls and their diminishing annual celebration. The few locations left from 'It's a Wonderful Life.' Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo as Ebenezer Scrooge. The Christmas documentary that plays like a horror movie, featuring the greatest reality Christmas villain of all time. Why the holiday season has been extended over the passing decades and how the Rockefeller Center tree should be up by now. How Anne works harder doing research for this show than she ever did in college and how Kev's only true studies were watching TV. Text us your thoughts. Tis the season. Talk Shawtly. 

Mass Movement Presents…Episode 69: It's A Magic Number - In which the middle age crew chat about Disneyland's 69th Birthday, Hardcore Gold Coffee, Tiana's Bayou Adventure, The Black Cauldron, The Boys, The Acolyte,the Doctor Who finale, Positive Reaction's new EP, Lou Koller, the Welsh scene and get down with an in depth comic book round up. There's also tunes from Positive Reaction, Level Threat and Bedford Falls.  Tune in, turn it up and geek out. This one's a doozy…

Where There is Life There is Always Hope (Sequel To It's A Wonderful Life) by Neil MitchellIn 1960 Henry F. Potter died and left his fortune to his only living relative and heir, a poor Texas rancher named Jack Curtis. Jack refuses to sell his business interests to those who might continue Potter's ways and strives to improve Cayuga National Corporation. (formerly Potter Industries). Meanwhile, George Bailey retires and turns the Building and Loan over to his son Pete, who enlarges and renames the business However, enemies are conspiring to destroy the wonderful improvements Jack and Pete have brought about. Also, the economy of the 1980s was in free fall with many thrifts becoming insolvent. Jack and Pete have to find a way out of the dilemma to save their businesses as well as the town of Bedford Falls.About the Author: Neil Mitchell is a retired writer who has traveled extensively during his life and enjoys telling a good story. Born in Mississippi he enjoyed concurrent careers as a teamster and Tax Preparer after acquiring degrees in political science and accounting. It is a privilege to write the sequel to one of the world's favorite stories (It's a Wonderful Life.)https://www.amazon.com/Where-There-Life-Always-Hope/dp/B0CYSF3H6Zhttps://www.neilmitchell.media/https://mainspringbooks.com/http://www.bluefunkbroadcasting.com/root/twia/8824msb1.mp3  

The Bailey Effect: Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life This week Ibrahim & I re-watch a classic (Thank You - Anonymous Donor, Someone), Frank Capra's 1946 Jimmy Stewart/Donna Reed Classic It's a Wonderful Life. Few films have captured the public's hearts and imaginations like Capra's look at the life of Bedford Falls' George Bailey - A man with big dreams hobbled by the responsibilties and challenges of life. A kind of Christmas Carol re-telling from the Bob Cratchett point of view, Capra's look at pre-war thru World War II Small Town America, is a film that has been honored, cribbed from, parodied, and beloved by American audiences and audiences throughout the world. A financial failure upon it's 1946 theatrical release, Wonderful Life was re-discovered in the late 1970s when it's copyright expired and it was gobbled up by UHF and other public television stations, airing nearly round the clock during the holiday season. A paint-by-numbers story of goodness and American values, Capra's "little story" of one man's life and the effects it has had throughout his community is magical, touching, and - ultimately - inspiring.  Thank you for your continued support. As always we can be reached at gondoramos@yahoo.com.  For those of you who would like to donate to this undying labor of love, you can do so with a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/watchrickramos - Anything and Everything is appreciated, You Cheap Bastards.

Episode Notes Joe Amodei, President of Virgil films joins Rob as some more of the usual suspects of Bedford Falls bring their fortunes to help save George.

Episode Notes Rob is back with Amanda of Hollywood Consumer as George is overjoyed to be back in 'Good Old' Bedford Falls.

Episode Notes Curtis Bloise of The Better Off Dead Minute and Time Bandits Minute returns with Rob as the damage to the oldest tree in Bedford Falls is inspected thoroughly.

Aaron Renn joins the podcast to discuss his new book "Life in Negative World." They discuss the three worlds of evangelicalism and then discuss adapting to the hostile anti-Christian and anti-created order regime we currently inhabit. #aaronrenn #negativeworld #americanreformerSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

►► Download the 20 Ways To Start Writing A Song Cheat Sheet here: http://songwritertheory.com/freeguide/ In this episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast, we're talking about another factor leading to or signpost indicating how good a song is. This time we're talking about honesty. A song doesn't have to be literally true, but it definitely should be communicating truth. Often, our songs are touching on themes and exploring different stories to try to glean some meaning from life. Our songs, like any other art, should represent reality. Again, not literal reality, but the reality of the nature of the world and creatures with free will. Just as Tolkien used fantasy characters to explore core human truths, so should we be writing with core human truths in mind. Are you characters consistent? Do your stories represent what is likely to happen in the real world? Do your characters seem like they would or could be real people? A part of what makes art great is the illusion of the lack of the hand of the artist- but yet art is completely created by an artist. But if the art feels honest and real, we don't see the hand of the artist. We do see the hand of the artist when the artist makes characters do things out of character so the rest of the plot can happen, or when they present a world that bears no resemblance to what we know of the reality around us. So let's talk about honesty as a factor leading to great songs! Transcript: In this episode, we are continuing our conversation about what makes a song great. It's a difficult conversation to have. It's not something that is super easy. It's not something that can just be made into a simple math equation. But we all have this sense that there is such a thing as one piece of art or one song being better than another. We all think, "How do I make my song better?" Which implies the existence of better. So, it's important to talk about what are the factors that lead to that. When I say that I want to make my second verse lyric better, what are some of the underlying principles or factors that go into making it better versus maybe making it worse? And we can apply that to all different parts of any given song. So, we're going to talk about things philosophically today, but we're talking about what makes a song great. But to... Hello, friend. Welcome to another episode of the Songwriting Theory Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Joseph Adala. I'm honored that you would take some time out of your busy day to talk songwriting with me. I could be listening to Rogan, but instead, you are here. And I'm sure that Joe Rogan is more entertaining than I am, given that, well, we are talking about things that are largely informational. So, as entertaining as I may or may not be as a human being, this podcast is no Joe Rogan show. Joe Rogan experience, I'm sorry. What's wrong with me? Goodness. That being said, I know that, you know, probably we have time for one, two, maybe three podcasts to actually keep up on in the fact that any podcast talking about songwriting, the craft of songwriting, and learning more about songwriting makes the cut for you, means that songwriting as a craft is really important to you. And that pumps me up, because it's important to me. That's why I do this. That's why we're 251 episodes in, something like that. I care about the craft of songwriting, and the fact that there's anybody out there listening at all, of course, means that other people care about the craft, too, which is the best. So, thank you for being here. I appreciate that. If you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide. I always do always to start writing a song. We're talking philosophical today. So, makes sense to offer you something for free. That is purely practical, basically. It is, if you want to start a song, do this, or this, or this. And it's not a comprehensive list. But I think too many of us just kind of default to one way to start writing a song and never even entertain the idea that there's a bunch of different ways to start a song that can inspire us in different directions creatively, or can get us out of our creative rut. Too many times, I think we think that, "Oh, the muse hasn't visited me," or, "My creativity's just run out. I just can't write a song right now." But it's not because our creativity ran out. It's because our creativity with that specific thing has run out. Maybe right now, if I were to try to come up with a piano riff, I've just kind of run out for now, because I've done too many in the last several months. And I just need to go try to start a song with a bass line, or start a song with an interesting drum part, or perhaps start with a song title instead, something on the lyrical side. Start with what I think is a compelling story, and then figure out, "Okay, how do I tell that story via song?" So if any of that seems interesting to you, be sure to check out that guide, songartethery.com, slash, free guide. We guide 20 different ways to starting a song, whether from a lyrical standpoint or from a musical one. So in last week's episode, if you missed it, I would encourage you to go back and probably go back to the episode before that as well. In general, if you're new here, this probably isn't the episode I would recommend you start with. Probably start with something that's a little more hard teaching. This is, again, getting kind of philosophical, which I think is important sometimes. And here I think it's super important because this is foundational. If we can't even begin to have a conversation about what some of the factors seem to be of making art in general, things in general, but particularly songs better, then we can't really talk about how we can make our songs better, right? How can we possibly even have the audacity to say anything or ask any question about, "Well, how do I make this verse better?" Or, "How do I write better songs if we don't agree to some premise that better exists and then therefore there are factors that lead to whether something is better or not?" When I write the first draft of my lyric and I think this is deeply flawed, but, you know, hours of work later, rewrites, edits, and then finally I'm like, "Oh, this version compared to my first version is better." And most of us could look at the A and B and be like, "Wow, yeah, the edited version way better." How do we know that? And that's sort of the question that we're trying to answer with this series, where we're getting into what I think are some of the central factors. And last week we talked about sort of the cohesiveness or cohesion or synergy, if you will, of all the different parts in a song that they're all moving in the right direction, that theoretically there is no such thing as a perfect song, but if the perfect song existed, the melody alone would tell you the whole story. And then the lyrics would tell you the whole story perfectly. And also the music, the background music, just if you heard the chord progression alone, it alone would tell you the story. Now, of course, that's impossible, right? We can't have a chord progression tell a whole story. But the closer we can get, where just by listening to the chord progression, just by listening to the melody, just by reading the lyrics, they all are in agreement and push us towards feeling the same emotion and telling the same story, such that if you just heard the melody and you were to write down what you think the song is about, you would be correct. Again, that's impossible. Perfection is always impossible. But I think the closer we get to that, the closer we are to at least in one factor making our song better. So we're talking about a second factor today. And don't think this is in any particular order. For example, I'm not sure that I probably don't think that this is maybe even a top three factor. We'll see as I work through the list. But I do think it is an important factor. And I think it's one that's not talked about enough. And that is honesty. Now, when I say honesty, I don't mean honesty about literal truth. Literal truth, I think, doesn't matter much at all. For instance, if you write a song about something that happened to you, and you take artistic liberties and make adjustments to what acts you're doing, and you think that actually happened in your real life, or you're singing a song that's loosely based on your life, it's not factually accurate, who cares? That doesn't matter. Unless, of course, you identify who the person is and then you throw them under the bus publicly and say, "This song is about this person who broke my heart." That's crappy, right? But that's more of a moral issue than anything else. But it's important that it gets at real truth. And so, we can utilize real truth to tell a lie, and we also can tell the truth through fiction, which you could see as a lie, but it's not really a lie, right? Because it's not pretending to be literally true when it's fiction. Think of a parable would be an example of something that is factually not true. Whatever the parable is about, it's not even claiming that that thing literally happened. The purpose of the parable is a story to teach you a lesson, right? So, let's say the tortoise and the hare, right? It's a fable, right? But a fable and a parable are essentially the same thing, but a fable is designated for kids is maybe the difference. But essentially the same idea, right? The tortoise and the hare communicates a core human truth, even though the actual story, of course, never happened. Never in the history of the world has a tortoise and a hare talked to each other and raced. That's never happened. But the core truth of that, which is the idea that steadily making progress and not being arrogant, even if you're less talented or you're slower in that case, right? If you stick with it and you're the one who's more dedicated and take it more seriously, you can win. And then on the other side, you know, the hare, there's a bunch of different ways to interpret it, right? Which is a part of what makes it great, whether it's, you know, the talented versus the untalented, literally the fast versus the slow, sticking with something. And it being more important to be consistent than it is to be good or talented, or I feel like I'm going back to the talented thing. But there's many different ways to take that in a way that is communicating a core human truth. Or the boy who cried wolf, right? Why do we still talk about that? Because even though that is not a real story that happened, I'm sure it has happened in some form somewhere in the world, but it's just a story, right? That is meant to communicate a core human truth, which is absolutely true in your life or in our lives. If we ever do something where we claim something over and over again, and we've shown that when we say it, it's not true, then eventually people don't trust us. That's how it works, right? If you, this is maybe a weird direction to go, but if you falsely sued five, six people on the seventh time you sue, nobody's going to believe that they actually wronged you, right? Because you just keep making up reason to sue people, so nobody's going to trust you. And they shouldn't. They're right to do so. Because the evidence is what the evidence is. Or if you're on RoomMate 10, because none of them worked out, probably the problem is you, right? You had ten different people that you could live with? It might be you probably, right? Same thing with relationships, right, Taylor Swift? But I don't know why I did that. I actually planned on giving a compliment to her in one of these episodes, so I don't know why that, but also seriously. If I had a friend that had literally a third of the significant others of her, I would have an intervention. But it's a celebrity, so I guess slightly different rules, but silly. Anyway, not the point. So we're talking about real, core human truth, not factual truth. Now, factual truth, of course, becomes important if you're telling a story that is presenting as if it's actually true, especially if you were naming names or something, which you should never do in a song. It always comes across like classless at best. Whenever there's like diss tracks, it's always like, "This is gross." It's so petty and pathetic. I don't know. Anyway, so you can tell a fictional tale about anything and get at a human truth much better than some literally true stories. One example of this would be Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is literally in a fantasy world that does not exist. It has creatures of all different kinds that do not exist. There's no such thing as elves. There's no such thing as hobbits or dwarves or orcs, right? None of those things are real as presented in Lord of the Rings. And that has nothing to do with whether Lord of the Rings is communicating this core human truth. And part of the reason, I think, that Lord of the Rings is like one layer beneath legend status of... And when I say legend status, I mean stories that at this point are going to probably last for the rest of time because it lasted for so long. So if you take Arthurian legends, right? Or Homer and the Iliad and Odyssey, those stories are so just... Or anything Shakespeare, basically. Those things are so entrenched in culture and have been for so long, or even like Aesop's Fables type stuff. A lot of that is so entrenched in culture and has been for so long, there's no reason to believe it would ever fade away. It's just so entrenched. Lord of the Rings, I think, is that level right below where, you know, there's other fantasy series that I really enjoy. I'm a big Brandon Sanderson fan. I think he's a great author. But I don't know. Are people going to be reading Mistborn 200 years from now? I hope so. But I don't know. People will absolutely output tons of money that people will still be reading Lord of the Rings 200 years from now. Absolutely. So it's in that, like, status right beneath clear legend that is at this point just a part of the lore of humanity, basically. Which things like Arthurian legends and things like that are already in that category. So the question is why. And there's a bunch of reasons why, of course. But one reason, and a very important one, I think, is that it communicates core human truths that will never go out of date. So talking about, you know, redemptive suffering, the idea that Frodo to do the right thing to save all of Middle-earth had to suffer, right? There was no, oh, he just prances into Mordor and is like, "See ya!" to the ring. No. Like, he had to go through a lot. He bears a great burden on his soul because of the draw of the ring, which does affect him. And there's just, I mean, we could talk for hours just about the core, like, human truths that Lord of the Rings gets at. But, you know, the real pull of humans to, like, this lust for power is a core thing. That, like, Frodo has to be the one to go do it and be the hero, even though he's the most unassuming, right? We have powerful elves, we have powerful cool dwarf guy. I forget his name. Gimli? Is that his name? I'm sorry. To all the Lord of the Rings fans, I probably take it. Is Gimli his name? I feel like that's right, but I don't want to double down because everybody's gonna be like, "Ah, Jesus, that's from a different thing!" But... That's gonna bother me. But I'm also now worried, like, are all these names of these different species correct? But it's a Hobbit, right? Not the magical elves or humans, which seem to be portrayed as sort of the, like, the best middle ground sort of, like, they're pretty average for power, they're pretty average for intelligence. Elves are always super OP in all fantasy, for whatever reason. I'm always like, "Why are elves..." Like, shouldn't the elves be the bad guys who are in charge of everything? Because they're, like, smarter, live longer, more powerful, both magically and, like, just somehow it seems like there's... I don't know. Anyway. But it gets a human truth, right? This, this, this, this, the allure of power. That even Frodo, who is good, has a draw to. And Frodo has to be the ultimate hero, rather than say Aragorn, who seems like he would be the traditional hero we would all think of, because he's a man who's drawn to that power. So it requires Frodo, somebody who's much more unassuming that nobody would think of when they think of a hero. Right? And no hero poster, do you imagine somebody that looks like Frodo, you imagine Aragorn. And yet he's the one that has to actually be the hero, which communicates a core human truth, too, right? Like, sometimes heroes, or the hero we need, is not what it appears. And even Frodo, in the end, wasn't totally strong enough, because he needed Sam to save him in the end, his friend. But Sam's not the real hero. Some people say Sam's the real hero of the... No, he's not. Because he didn't bear the burden of the ring the way Frodo did. Frodo needed help because he spent this whole journey bearing the burden of the ring. So anyway, there are so many, like, core human truths that are communicated in Lord of the Rings. And it's not preaching anything, right? It just is telling a story that feels like, yes, this has a lot of truth in it. Not that Tolkien sat down and was like, "Oh, I'm gonna make the hero be not the human because of..." Like, it's not preachy, it just is getting at core human truths via fantasy. Maybe a better example. I just decided to start with one that, like, is obviously not true, because it doesn't even take place in the real world. And it has species that literally don't exist, elves don't exist, much to all of our chagrins, sort of. But it's a wonderful life. It's a wonderful life is probably the epitome of what I'm talking about here. And don't worry, we'll get back to songs. But movies is an art form that I think everybody can relate to. Even if you're new to songs, you've never heard a song before. Like, it's just in the West. And any form, if you're anywhere in Western culture, movies, for better or for worse, are sort of the art form of the time where everybody tends to know some of these core movies. Whereas that's probably not true for paintings or sculptures or even books. But it's a wonderful life. So George, the main character, in the end, does not get what he wants. You might have watched that movie every year of your life and you could be 70 years old and never picked up on that because it doesn't make a point of it. But he doesn't get the thing that he spent basically the whole movie wanting. He wants to get out of that darned town of whatever it's called, Bedford Falls. And he wants to go be an architect and do amazing things, building huge, impressive buildings. That's who wants to do. I'm pretty sure that's right. He wants to be an architect, right? So he wants to go out and do great things in that sense. He wants to get out of Bedford Falls. But his whole life, they show us how he puts other people before himself. And we could go through all the different things, right? He risks his life to save his brother, loses his hearing. Which, by the way, even right there is getting at a core truth. It's not a Hallmark movie where he saves his brother and pays no consequence for his sacrifice. He actually sacrifices something. Hearing out of one ear. That's pretty significant. I don't know about you. I've actually, for a variety of reasons, I've had this ear blocked for the last couple of days. It's the worst. I hate it. It's the worst. That guy lived his whole life like that because of a sacrifice for his brother. Now, of course, any decent person would still do that all over again to save their brother's life. But still, he actually suffered a realistic consequence of doing the right thing. And the same thing happens with his boss when he's a kid at the drugstore or whatever he works at, where he saves his boss from essentially unintentionally committing manslaughter because he's sad about, I think, his son had died in the war. And this trend continues, right? He takes over the family business, not because he wants to, but because it's the right thing to do and it would help his family. And his father passes unexpectedly. And he puts his brother through college, and the deal was supposed to be that after that, his brother would support him so that he could go to college and go off and be the architect and get out of bed for falls and fulfills his dream. But because of the father passing and all these things, he ends up basically just sacrificing for his brother again. And his brother gets to go do the great things that he wants to do. If memory serves, I might have that part wrong. But regardless, again, he's sacrificing. The whole movie is him making sacrifice after sacrifice, putting other people before himself. And the Hallmark movie version, which would be intellectually dishonest, would be in the end, not only is all his problems solved, but somebody comes in from New York or Chicago or wherever he wanted to be an architect and says, "You've got a free, free ride scholarship to go learn what you wanted, go to college, learn that architecture stuff, and I want you to design the new tallest building in the world because I heard you're a good man." That's the Hallmark stupid, probably half of Hollywood movies today would do that sort of ridiculous thing. But that's not reality. Reality is sometimes even when you do the right thing, life doesn't turn out the way that you thought it would. Or you don't get this, you know, sometimes the dreams you receive are not the dreams you had in a way. He's shown that he has lived a wonderful life or a meaningful life, might be more precise. He is shown that the whole town he's from would be in shambles if it were not for all of his different sacrifices. That's what matters, the fact that he touched all those human beings' lives via unselfishness or selflessness. Not like, "Oh wow, you built a tall building, congratulations." And I'm not diminishing that, of course that's great and cool. But he doesn't get the thing he wants in the end, he doesn't. He evades going to jail for a crime he didn't commit because people give him money that frankly they owed anyway or that he had given them before. But he just avoids going to jail, his life still looks the same otherwise. Nothing about the life that he was miserable about changes in the end, he just learns to see it differently. And to know that he's blessed with the life he has, even though he didn't see it that way before. So that movie is fiction, right? But it communicates a lot of human core truths. It's an intellectually honest movie, it doesn't give us the hallmark, "ridiculous ending." That would actually really undermine the whole movie. It doesn't get or Potter, right? Portrayed as the bad guy. You know, it's one of those where like, when you really think about it, is he that? He's just kind of a business guy doing what he's doing. He's a little overly greedy and all that, sure, but he's a little caricatured admittedly. But generally the bad guy, right? And he doesn't get any comeuppance. Didn't think I was using that word today, but... He doesn't get punished for the fact that he's a selfish bad guy. He gets nothing, right? And he actually stole the money, if you remember, basically. And he was going to put George in jail basically falsely. And did it intentionally, and he could have bailed him out. And should have, because he knew that he took the money. That was like, he's the bad guy, and he doesn't get any punishment for it. And that's also reality sometimes. So that movie, through and through, seems like it's concerned with truth. What would really happen? Not with a "wouldn't it be nice if", which to me is that core, one of these core factors, that separates great art or good, better art versus worse. To go to songs, I think a great example of that would be "Casts in the Cradle". Where, again, it's something where the story itself is not true. It's loosely based on the songwriter's stepfather. It's loosely based on the songwriter's wife's stepfather. It's some, like, connection. But it's not overall a true story, nor is it pretending to be. But it gets that core truth, and it doesn't back away from the most likely consequences. Basic summary of that song is, man keeps putting off prioritizing his son until it's too late. And then son shows him largely the same amount of care and respect as he got. Or, you know, basically the son does back to him what he did to his son. Which is, most of the time, probably what would happen. The Hallmark version is the son just unconditionally is like, "Oh, but I'm still gonna put all this effort into spending time with my dad anyway." And sometimes that happens, and I think there's even a way to write the song in an intellectually honest way where that happens. You probably would have to tell the story from the son's perspective, and maybe the son has a specific reason, perhaps a religious belief or some other moral belief where he believes that despite what my father did, the right thing for me to do is to be a better son to him than he was a father to me. That could make sense and would be intellectually honest. He could be intellectually honest to explore it from a standpoint of the son feels that maybe even for his children's sake, he wants his children to have a relationship with his grand- with their grandfather, his father. So despite the fact that his father doesn't deserve it, and despite the fact that a little part of him resents that he's giving this to his father, but he knows it's the right thing to do so he doesn't anyway. So I think there's different ways to end the story differently that are also intellectually truthful and honest. You know, this isn't- this isn't- don't hear me say that like, oh, everything has to have a semi dark ending for it to be intellectually honest or true. I don't think that's the case. Although I do think that almost all true, like happy endings of like happily ever after, almost all of those are artistically not good just because it's just not- that's never true. I just as a side point, I have the side theory that you can have great art that is on the spectrum anywhere from like super depressing sad all the way to- if it's a spectrum sad happy and then in the middle, you can have art that's all the way- all the way to the far sad depressed and you can have real art that gets pretty decently into the happy, but still acknowledges, you know, that things aren't perfect. But I don't think you can have a 100% just straight up happy song that has any merit at all. Just because it's like- it's not real. There's no real thing in this world that doesn't have some level of sacrifice had to be made or- I don't know. This is just a side theory. That's not what we're talking about today. But I do think there's something to be said for like, I don't know, has anybody ever seen like truly just happy happy movie that everything's happy and great and there's any substance to it at all? Because even the happiest things in life are this conflict, right? The best thing ever happened to me is my daughter. But the idea that it's all positive is ridiculous. No, I now have new worries that I don't- that I didn't have before, right? I have a young life that I love more than anything in my hands. That's a burden to bear. It's a burden I'm super happy to bear. But it is like it's not all rainbows, right? I love her so much. Anytime away from her sometimes is excruciating and I hate it. But like I have to, right? I have to work out. So even the most blessed things, there's a bit of ying and yang to the thing. But anyway, so Castle in the Cradle to me is just intellectually totally honest. Fast Car would be another example. It's a bit tragic, right? The person that was supposed to be her ticket out of a life of, you know, poverty, essentially, and hopelessness does sort of end up being the ticket out, but then he doesn't complete the ride with her, right? He ends up becoming a deadbeat just like her dad. And, and, you know, that's tragic, but also makes sense. It's alluded to from the very beginning. That that's probably where that story is going. And it doesn't just have this, oh, and it miraculously turned everything around and everything worked out and happily ever after. Which maybe can be done in a way that's artistic and intellectually honest to a degree, maybe. But it's just harder to do. When you when you see, when you read Fast Car, you feel like this could be a real story. This feels intellectually true. It feels like if these characters were real people, this is more often than not probably more or less how the story would go. And a part of this, a big part of this, I think is, well, let's talk about the opposite. The opposite of this is if we ever are prioritizing message over truth, that basically by definition is propaganda. And propaganda, I think, is basically just anti art. It's like the antithesis to art. It's the opposite because art usually should be some form of exploration, right? You're exploring a theme, you're exploring a topic, you're exploring a character, you're exploring a what would the consequences be of X. It shouldn't be you sit and you're like, how do I convince people of my worldview? Or how do I convince people of certain political thing, I believe? Or how do I convince, you know, and obviously, when you think of propaganda, you mostly think of the most overt form, right? People think of things like from, you know, Soviet Union, that would portray like, oh, life is great here, even though like 100 million people died of starvation because, you know, we took out all the farmers and the productive members of society in the name of, you know, whatever. So we took away all the producers, so then there was no production, so then everybody died. Like, that's the reality. But, you know, in the propaganda, it possesses like, no, we're the good guys and the whole rest of the world is evil and horrible. And that is propaganda, right? But I think there's two things that people forget about propaganda. One is propaganda is still propaganda, even if you agree with it, or even if it's, I don't know if propaganda is ever true, per se. I think you can even have true propaganda, and it's still be propaganda. And you certainly can have propaganda you agree with, that is propaganda. In fact, probably most of the things I could throw onto the bus that I think are propaganda, not most of the things, a lot of things, are things that I might actually agree with some, a lot of the premise of the thing. But at the end of the day, I feel like it's approached in an intellectually dishonest way. And therefore, it's propaganda, it's not art. And so the opposite of pursuing something honestly and trying to get at the truth and being exploratory in nature is for you to be exploitative sort of, and to purposefully wield your art as a weapon to manipulate people essentially, and to presumably your way of thinking about any given thing. And I think something that's misunderstood is something can be true and be propaganda. Just like you can tell something that's true, like whenever people say numbers don't lie, like, well, that's partially true. But true numbers can be used to lie. Right? So just by omitting certain elements of the truth, you can effectively lie, even though you did tell the truth. Let me give an example. Let's say JFK. Right? JFK. You can make a movie about JFK that, you know, tells something about the story of his life, or how he got to the presidency, or, you know, maybe a Lincoln-esque movie where it ends with the assassination. I don't know. Maybe that even exists. And you could address him as a person and as a character in a way that appreciates the good parts, or shines a light on the good parts, which of course there are plenty, and also shines a light on the not-so-good parts. So for instance, if a movie portrayed JFK as a great husband to Jackie Kennedy, that's just a lie. Right? Like, he was an awful womanizer. I mean, he makes Bill Clinton seem like a decent dude when it comes to women. Maybe. Heavy maybe there, maybe. But JFK is like, and this isn't like, well-known. Right? Well-known. I think I saw a number that he might have cheated on his wife some like 20 times just while he was in the White House. Something ridiculous. That dude was not a faithful husband. And it has nothing to do with, you know, how much you like him as president or any of that other stuff. But it would be intellectually dishonest to have a movie that portrayed all the good parts of him, again, of which there are plenty. But not also, but you also, I guess, could just omit that part and be intellectually honest. But if you do show him as a husband and kind of pretend like, oh, he's just a great loving husband. No, no, that's just not true. And you can say the same thing and we'll keep it the same era with Martin Luther King, right? One of the greatest historical figures in American history. Super important. Great guy. A great man. Great guy. I feel like has different connotations. We're going to get to that part. But like, he also is like any other historical figure. We're all, we all have pluses and minuses, right? The greatest people often have some of the greatest flaws as well. And he's no different, right? I mean, again, for some, we're keeping with the cheating, but like also cheated on his wife. I think a lot. Certainly he did. And seemingly a lot. So yes, it's true that he was a very important historical figure. Did a lot of great things for the United States. One of the most important non political figures in the United States history, right? Non like politician figures. I Have a Dream is one of the greatest speeches certainly in American history and presumably is one of the great speeches, maybe of all time. All of that is true. Also true, terrible husband when it comes to faithfulness. So if we had a movie where we're like, Oh, but Martin Luther King was a great guy. So we have to like, a great man. So we have to portray him like he's flawless. No, no, that's intellectually dishonest. Just like with the JFK thing. And this can be applied to basically any historical figure, right? You got to take. Be honest about the whole person. That also makes it more compelling, right? It makes him a good thing, right? But in the context of a movie, it actually makes a more compelling movie when you're a little split about like, Hey, this Martin Luther King guy did a lot of great stuff for the world. But he did a lot of bad stuff for his family, namely his poor wife. You know, that's actually a really interesting conflict. That's more interesting than just hero for the world. Like, okay, that's good. But like, it's not as compelling as this interesting juxtaposition that you can play with of like, you know, his own family. Not good, especially faithfulness with his wife. But for the world, great. That's just it's interesting. That's way more interesting, way more artistic. And again, honest. It's honest. So what's an example of a dishonest song? A lot of you are gonna love this. Imagine. Imagine is overt propaganda. Overt. Like, it doesn't even remotely pretend how it is that this isn't just accepted reality that everybody agrees on is so beyond me. I think it's because people don't pay attention to lyrics. A lot of people just don't pay attention to lyrics. But, but before you are like start typing some hate comment about how it's not, let me read you a quote quote from John Lennon to help you avoid embarrassment. It's a quote from his biography. Again, by John Lennon himself. So he talked about imagine as is anti religious, anti nationalistic, anti conventional, anti capitalistic, but because it is sugar coated, it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey that this is what we do to try to change the apathy of young people. He literally is saying that he is sugar coating and in the other quote, using a little honey with his political message specifically targeted at young people. This could not be more. The short version of that is it is propaganda. It is. It's also not. It's one of those weird like it's like the worst form of propaganda ever, but also like so many people buy into it. That's like, I guess it's effective. But boy, if you read the lyrics, it's like laughably bad and ridiculous. I mean, the whole thing is just absurd on its face. He's basically the whole lyric is wouldn't it be great if there were no countries and nothing to live for except today and there was no God and there was no religion and there was like, oh, so like before all those things became a thing, partially because back when it was just a bunch of tribes or different human beings without even a tribe, tribalism. Yeah, that resulted in me right now would have to be nervous that my next door neighbor was staging a coup right now and there would be no punishment for it because it's just anarchy like dude, this is why we made society because it's horrible. It doesn't work and we know that and that's what like that doesn't mean there aren't flaws in what exists now, but the idea that it would be better without those things is nutty. It's nutty. It's like even the core says you may call me a dreamer like no, John, I'd call you a moron like you're basically saying wouldn't it be great if for a bunch of things where it's like if you know anything about humans or human history at all or about like how things have gone in different countries, you know for a fact that everything you just outlined is no, it's horrible. It ends horribly 100% of the time. So no, it's not like I'm not going to imagine and be like, Oh yeah, wouldn't it be great? Not to mention always hilarious guy who who passed being worth 200 million, which would be 620 million in today's money. So over half of a billionaire talking about specifically mentions wouldn't be great if there were no possessions. Well, John, you were more than welcome to give up all of your money in possessions. Little thing, though, notice you didn't do that with that in today's money over half a billion net worth classic do as I say, not as I do, which of course doesn't reveal an overt hypocrite or anything. Also, he could have moved the USSR, but he didn't. Can't imagine why. Can't imagine why. So regardless of how you feel about the message he's trying to put across, it's propaganda, right? Like it's not even slamming it to call it overt communist propaganda. It literally is that he actually says it. He actually says it. So it's like, I'm sorry, it's just the idea that we're supposed to all buy. It was a brilliant. No, it's not. I could write a song that's like, wouldn't it be nice if fairies floated through the sky and just gifted us with pixie dust that always kept us high? Like, that's the level of delusion in that song is just like, what's no, not to mention, sad thing, because this drives me crazy. So if you're one of those people, I just want you to reconsider this. So many people will say in a discussion as if it means anything at all. Like, wouldn't it just be nice or we just need to get along? Would it be nice if everybody just left each other and got along? Yes. What is your point? Like, do you think if you just say that loud enough, everybody will be like, oh, you have a good point. And it will just like all turn out. Like, have you been alive on the planet? Like, just just as a frame of reference, if you're watching this, you probably can scroll down if you're on YouTube and see a bunch of hate comments, because I dared to like call out the obvious truth that like imagine is is straight up a communist propaganda song. You can like it, but that is what it is. And people are going to be so mad about and these are probably the people that are like, Oh, peace, love, man, wouldn't it be great if we had no and these are the people that are probably calling me cussing at me in the comments because I dared to point out that a song that they like is exactly what it is that the guy who wrote it himself admits it is right. So anyway, don't be that person that's like, wouldn't it be nice if we all just love each other? Like, yes, of course, we all agree that as nothing to the discussion. Of course, everybody thinks that would be nice. But that's not reality, which goes back to the main point here. Honest, right? Gonna be honest about how humans actually are. Most people, I think, generally have a pretty good flag of when when something is being presented to them, that's not real. Admittedly, in today's world, I'm starting to question that because there's a lot of stuff. It's like, wow, that's overt. Just the world is not like that. It's just not. But people are like, exactly how my life is. Just speaks to me. It's like, what? What kind of delusional fairyland do you live in? The world is not like that at all. So there is a lot of that, unfortunately. But I think I think most people I think most people have a firm, a decently firm grasp of when something is presented to them. That just is not true. And, and whether people have that sense or not, I think it's just irresponsible as an artist to we should be explorers of thought, not people who try to shove our message, no matter how good the message might be, no matter how important we think the message is. It's irresponsible to weaponize art, because it's just propaganda, then. Right? That's exactly what you're doing. And even if you think it's propaganda for the good, everybody who makes propaganda thinks it's for the good. Right? Like the USSR thought it was for the good. So, you know, it's the whole like everybody thinks that the good guy, right? They're the hero. So that doesn't make an aim better. So last point on this. I know this one's going long, but highly connected to this idea is the idea that I think as you approach great art, the hand of the artist should disappear. Which means a lot of art, I think, could come down to the premise of you start with a premise, you start with a character, you start with a situation, and then you ask what would actually happen from here. Right? Start with a premise and then tell the truth. Cast in the Cradle seems like a good example. Starts with a premise and then tells the truth about what probably would happen. What makes sense. This is why the Star Wars sequels in general suck, and especially Episode 8. It's obvious, if you know anything about the character of Luke Skywalker, that the director, the writer, just decided that Luke Skywalker would just be a totally different human being that operates completely out of character with the Luke that we knew from three movies. And he's just like, well, this is a story I want to tell, so I'm going to shoehorn Luke into a character that just isn't Luke. He didn't start with what would Luke do, which is what you should do. We already have the character of Luke. It should be intellectually honest about what would Luke do. Because a part of art, and I think the tension that is inherent within art, is of course art requires the hand of the artist. We're literally creating something from nothing. But I think a way to look at art and somewhat measure it, to a degree, is how much you don't see the hand of the artist. Propaganda would be an example of you can see the hand of the artist all over it. But a part of what makes something great is if a character in a movie or something feels like that would be a real person. And it feels like the decisions they make are an actual human making decisions. Not that the writer is like, I need this to happen in the plot so the character makes that decision. We've all seen the movies where somebody makes a totally out of character decision, and we can tell and are immediately bothered. We're taken out of the fantasy of the thing because we saw the hand of the artist being like, well, I need the plot to happen. So even though we established that this girl is brilliant, it doesn't make this sort of mistake. She's going to make the single dumbest decision in the whole movie just so I can make the rest of the plot happen. And we're all like, no, that doesn't make sense. You showed that she's super smart for like two hours, and then you decided all of a sudden she's going to do the dumbest thing imaginable. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. So the hand of the artist is attention that I think is just always there. It's an interesting one. But art is of course the hand is there. We're creating something from nothing. But a factor, I think it's connected to this honesty thing, is theoretically you need to let the story go. You need to let the song go to a degree where we can maintain the illusion that the story you're telling in your song is a true story. And that character would actually do or that character would actually say, Luke Skywalker would do this thing, you know, based on what we know of the character of Aragorn who would make this decision in the third movie. These are the important things because it allows us to continue the idea that the hand of the artist isn't actually there. That's an indication that it's well done and it's being honest and truthful. If we can see the hand of the artist, that's an indication that it's not being honest and truthful. And we certainly don't like it in movies. We shouldn't like it in music either. Anyway, hopefully this was helpful to you. I know that these are philosophical and all that. But again, I think it's important to talk about because philosophical matters. This is the underpinning to everything we talk about, really. So if you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide, 20 Different Ways to Start Writing a Song. I appreciate every single one of you. And I will talk to you in the next one.

"My intention was to write about my experiences, obviously, but also I felt that there was a little bit of a counterintuitive approach, which is to talk about some of the inner experiences of the creative process and being a director, being a writer, and I felt that that would open the window a little bit wider. I liked that it wasn't just a behind-the-scenes look. It is that, and I think it's full of fun anecdotes and little reveals, but it is to be a real book. It presumes to be a memoir, like many of the memoirs that I have loved of creative people in the past."Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. "My intention was to write about my experiences, obviously, but also I felt that there was a little bit of a counterintuitive approach, which is to talk about some of the inner experiences of the creative process and being a director, being a writer, and I felt that that would open the window a little bit wider. I liked that it wasn't just a behind-the-scenes look. It is that, and I think it's full of fun anecdotes and little reveals, but it is to be a real book. It presumes to be a memoir, like many of the memoirs that I have loved of creative people in the past."www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage Courtesy of Dick Thomas JohnsonCreative Commons 2.0

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. "Actors are remarkable teachers. They are often brilliant in their unique way, often not in a way that is schooled necessarily. They often don't have the language some of us who are more academically inclined have, but you underestimate their brilliance at your peril. And, in fact, you are missing an opportunity if you presume that they are just reading words. They are performing a very particular kind of magic in their process when they are great. And they save you constantly. They find solutions to your weaknesses in the words. They help you make implausible situations more plausible in your staging.""I've, like anyone, always had a fascination with movie stars, an attraction to the romance of who they are, men and women. So I wasn't immune, but what I realized very quickly is that I could acknowledge that and try to take those things that had always drawn me to the movies and provide them to the audience and have them really lift up these stories that I wanted to tell because finally, it was the stories themselves that I was trying to serve. There were ideas in those stories. Some of the ideas were about the characters and personal, but some of the ideas were a larger canvas. They were often about subjects. And the subjects could have been historical, they could have been political, they could have been social, cultural subjects, but they had some other agenda in them. And yet, that's not why people go to the movies. They go to the movies because they want to see relationships. They want to see - whether it's beautiful people or powerful people - they're drawn to relationships. In some sense, you're creating a kind of stew where you're doing more than one thing at a time."www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage Courtesy of Dick Thomas JohnsonCreative Commons 2.0

"Actors are remarkable teachers. They are often brilliant in their unique way, often not in a way that is schooled necessarily. They often don't have the language some of us who are more academically inclined have, but you underestimate their brilliance at your peril. And, in fact, you are missing an opportunity if you presume that they are just reading words. They are performing a very particular kind of magic in their process when they are great. And they save you constantly. They find solutions to your weaknesses in the words. They help you make implausible situations more plausible in your staging.""I've, like anyone, always had a fascination with movie stars, an attraction to the romance of who they are, men and women. So I wasn't immune, but what I realized very quickly is that I could acknowledge that and try to take those things that had always drawn me to the movies and provide them to the audience and have them really lift up these stories that I wanted to tell because finally, it was the stories themselves that I was trying to serve. There were ideas in those stories. Some of the ideas were about the characters and personal, but some of the ideas were a larger canvas. They were often about subjects. And the subjects could have been historical, they could have been political, they could have been social, cultural subjects, but they had some other agenda in them. And yet, that's not why people go to the movies. They go to the movies because they want to see relationships. They want to see - whether it's beautiful people or powerful people - they're drawn to relationships. In some sense, you're creating a kind of stew where you're doing more than one thing at a time."Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"My intention was to write about my experiences, obviously, but also I felt that there was a little bit of a counterintuitive approach, which is to talk about some of the inner experiences of the creative process and being a director, being a writer, and I felt that that would open the window a little bit wider. I liked that it wasn't just a behind-the-scenes look. It is that, and I think it's full of fun anecdotes and little reveals, but it is to be a real book. It presumes to be a memoir, like many of the memoirs that I have loved of creative people in the past."Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. "We often talk in our work about the octane of truth, when you're at the gas station and they say, do you want low octane, middle octane, or high octane, and it's a very interesting set of decisions that one makes because it's actually not hard to know the truth of any circumstance or the truth of any story, but to actually partake of it, to actually come closer to it, and still be respectful of the audience's experience. Because obviously, 100 percent octane, we would fall asleep within five minutes because nothing happens. You know, it's about trying to reconcile the compression of drama, the reductionist nature, how things stand in for other things. And in that regard, screenwriting and film are much more like poetry than they are like prose.Things stand in for other things. A close-up, as someone looks at someone and things change, could have been three pages of an introspective narrative in Proust. A little bit of action that takes place in three minutes could have stood in for a war in Tolstoy. So some of it is sleight of hand, but it becomes about trying to understand how to use compression so as to give the simulacrum of real life, so as to give an approximation of verisimilitude.And often that's something you learn because audiences do want to feel that they're seeing something that's real because when it's just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, then it's comic books without exposition, without introspection, without internal sense. So it's trying to find some middle space between those, some liminal space."www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage Courtesy of Dick Thomas JohnsonCreative Commons 2.0

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. "I went to film school, But at the end of two years, I think you've only begun the learning. I think it's very hard in school, and particularly in graduate school, to take in all that's coming at you because you're being barraged with information, and you're trying to listen, and you're trying to internalize. At the same time, you're very anxious, and you're very fervent, but you're also furtive about what can I do and how do I get ahead and how do I do this?And I think those things are in contradiction, and what happens After you get out of school, as you begin to try to put into practice some of those things that they've been talking about, especially as you try and fail, unbelievably important to have somebody there with you or on off whom you can bounce ideas.And notions or with whom you can analyze the thing that someone else has done, or you can analyze your own failures. It's a kind of continuing education that happens with a collaborator that as you grow, he grows. You grow together, and you have an observation about something, or he does, and you begin to work, and then you. It was never our intention to work. Our intention was just as friends. It never became about my idea or his idea, but it was the creation of a third idea that somehow evolved."www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage Courtesy of Dick Thomas JohnsonCreative Commons 2.0

"I went to film school, But at the end of two years, I think you've only begun the learning. I think it's very hard in school, and particularly in graduate school, to take in all that's coming at you because you're being barraged with information, and you're trying to listen, and you're trying to internalize. At the same time, you're very anxious, and you're very fervent, but you're also furtive about what can I do and how do I get ahead and how do I do this?And I think those things are in contradiction, and what happens After you get out of school, as you begin to try to put into practice some of those things that they've been talking about, especially as you try and fail, unbelievably important to have somebody there with you or on off whom you can bounce ideas.And notions or with whom you can analyze the thing that someone else has done, or you can analyze your own failures. It's a kind of continuing education that happens with a collaborator that as you grow, he grows. You grow together, and you have an observation about something, or he does, and you begin to work, and then you. It was never our intention to work. Our intention was just as friends. It never became about my idea or his idea, but it was the creation of a third idea that somehow evolved."Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"My intention was to write about my experiences, obviously, but also I felt that there was a little bit of a counterintuitive approach, which is to talk about some of the inner experiences of the creative process and being a director, being a writer, and I felt that that would open the window a little bit wider. I liked that it wasn't just a behind-the-scenes look. It is that, and I think it's full of fun anecdotes and little reveals, but it is to be a real book. It presumes to be a memoir, like many of the memoirs that I have loved of creative people in the past."Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage Courtesy of Dick Thomas JohnsonCreative Commons 2.0

Ed Zwick is a writer, director, and producer who's been active in the film industry for over 40 years. He has been nominated for two Golden Globes for directing the films Glory and Legends of the Fall and received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love. Zwick continues to work with his longtime friend and partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls, where they created the widely loved TV show Thirtysomething. His memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions details many of his greatest experiences in the film industry. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ed-Zwick/212290077https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001880/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Be kind. This episode might one of my first solo episodes that I recorded at length after much reflection going into 2024. And believe it or not, I was nervous every time I got in front of the mic. It is not perfect, but it is real. And it is me. It is probably indicative of the energy many of us went into 2024 with - slightly nervous and holding breath. Happy 1.11 after a year that ended 123.123. It was 555am when I recorded this episode to kick off the 2024 Season of the Coffee & Change Podcast. And in about a week, this podcast celebrates its 8th year of connection, content, curation and production. Happy Early Birthday Coffee & Change Podcast. It feels a bit strange saying that to be honest. And when I hear it in my head, I hear the trebled timeless words of Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey running through the streets of a snow blanketed Bedford Falls. Something to the tune of “Merry Christmas you old Bailey Building and Loan.” I guess you could say I am grateful to be here. As a podcast host, newly published author, and ever curator, I am leaving this takeaway for anyone listening: “Create your own distinct, compelling content.” Thank you again for joining me on this journey. I'd love to hear from you on who you'd like to hear from on this podcast. Who inspires you. Whose story would you like to grow from? You can always reach me via the Podcast's LinkedIn page or on Instagram. Just search for Coffee and Change and the Instagram handle is coffee.and.change I am looking forward to your recommendations and reviews as we celebrate another year of stories in change. Till next time. Be well.

After discussing a modern tale last time, we decided to rewind much farther back than our childhoods for this week. To finish off the Christmas season and our very last film review, we're watching It's a Wonderful Life (1946). George Bailey's life has been a series of horrific experiences, accidents, loss, and turmoil for as long as he can remember. Every big dream shattered, every hope dashed as he discovers himself more and more wrapped up in what he feels are mediocre responsibilities to his community of Bedford Falls. After one disaster too many, he contemplates taking his life until his guardian angel Clarence shows him that if he'd never existed, this sleepy town and the people in it would be miserable without him. We have to ask: has this so-called classic earned its wings? Or do we wish it, too, had never been born? Let's find out together!

Dirigida por Frank Capra, “Que bello es vivir” (1946) es una de las películas navideñas por excelencia. Cuenta la historia de George Bailey, un hombre honesto y solidario que se dedica a ayudar a quienes más lo necesitan. Sin embargo, arruinado y asediado por el dueño del pueblo, desea nunca haber nacido. Un ángel le concederá aquel ese deseo, que lo llevará descubrir el verdadero carácter de Bedford Falls y sus habitantes.

On the tenth episode of All the Film Things I am joined by my good friends, Cole Echevarria and Joshua Smith, to celebrate the holiday season by talking about Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. This episode is spoiler- filled. Not only is this episode on a Christmas- focused film, this episode has a very Christmas-y feel. The holiday season is a time where friends and family come together. In enjoying each other's company, family and friends share meaningful moments, deep conversations, and maybe a dispute or two. This episode has all of that. The three of us analyze the film while discussing the deep themes... with some minor arguments throughout. It's a Wonderful Life is a fantasy, comedy film in which James Stewart plays the main character, George Bailey, a man with aspirations of seeing the world outside his hometown building skyscrapers and becoming wealthy. His big dreams are continuously put aside to allow him to help others which often, by extension, positively impacts the entire community of his hometown, Bedford Falls. His impact on so many people isn't realized until towards the end of the film, thanks to his guardian angel. It's a Wonderful Life was surprisingly not a success at the time of its release but has over time it has become regarded as one of the most widely celebrated Christmas films of all time. The film also stars Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers, and Gloria Grahame. Cole is back for his third appearance on this wide release of All the Film Things, making this his 14th appearance in total. This is Joshua's fifth time on ATFT. Joshua was the one to suggest we talk about this film, since it's his favorite. I then asked Cole which he preferred of the two options (this film or Home Alone) and he agreed with Joshua. This was my first time watching It's a Wonderful Life in its entirety. Joshua has been watching this film since he was a kid while Cole had only seen it twice. They both regard It's a Wonderful Life as their favorite Christmas film. This episode was recorded on December 8, 2023. In this episode, between the banter, we go through the film beginning to end discussing the admirable qualities of George Bailey, trying to better understand certain moments, and much more! Cole shares his personal connections to the film and why the film resonates with him deeply. I made a film comparison that is teased by both Cole and Joshua throughout this episode. Follow All the Film Things to never miss an episode and interact with the ATFT community on Instagram @ all.the.film.things! Deck The Halls (Jazz Version) by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

It's a wrap! In what is traditionally our ‘least listened to' and ‘most unhinged' episode of the year, we're celebrating the festive season with some reflections on the biggest talking point in L&D: the emergence of generative AI. And we're joined by special guests, ChatGPT (our first AI guest!) and Bedford Falls' own George Bailey (making his annual appearance). Ross Garner is joined by Owen Ferguson and Ross Dick to discuss: ·       How have tools like ChatGPT and Bard evolved over the year? ·       How are we using them? ·       What's coming next? ChatGPT then asks its own questions, with a spattering of festive zingers. And George shares his observations on the prevalence of AI, and provides an insight into the Baileys' favourite drink at this time of year. In ‘What I Learned this Year', Ross Dick recommended two newsletters: Platformer and One Useful Thing. And Ross G wanted to provide the phone number for Samaritans: 116 123 You can also visit their website: samaritans.org For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.    You can also email rgarner@mindtools.com Connect with our speakers    If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers: ·       Ross Garner ·       Owen Ferguson ·       Ross Dickie

Welcome to the Multiverse Report, a weekly recap of your news across all the fandoms with Mike Gibson and Steve Haller!   Check us out at https://www.themultiversereport.com/   Check out our friends at Funky Town Comics and Vinyl!   TMR Rundown: The North Pole to Bedford Falls, to Whoville, to the sea of swirly twirly gumdrops, to The island of misfit toys, to the future grave of Ebenezer Scrooge   Rundown Preview: Business: Collector's Con. Simon Birks   DC Jason Mamoa talks his future as Aquaman Matt Reeves's The Batman could have been part of the DCU, but the Arkham series is! DC Movies will stream on TUBI / James Gunn responses   MARVEL Marvel announces an animated Black Panther spinoff series Eyes Of Wakanda What If S2 episode titles revealed: Spider-Man Freshman Year gets a new title   COMICS COMIC REVIEWS:   THIS WEEK Alien 2 ASM 40 Animal Pound 1 Batman Off World 2 Batman Santa Claus Silent Knight 3 Batman Superman WOrlds finest 22 Canary 2 Daredevil Black Armor 2 The Deviant 2 Doctor Strange 10 GI Joe A Real American Hero 302 GReen Lantern War Journal 4 Harley Quin BWR 6 Hawkgirl 6 Incredible Hulk 7 Jay GArrick The Flash 3 JL v Godzilla V Kong 3 Nightwing 109 Original Xmen 1 Spawn 348 Spider Boy 2 Star Teek 15 SW Darth Vader 41 SW Revelations 1 Superior Spider Man 2 Superman 9 Undiscovered COuntry 27 Wolverine 40 Wonder Woman 4   ONE SHOTS: Wheel of Time movie finds a director Captain America Brave New World gets new writer before reshoots   Subscribe:   Apple Podcasts, Spotify or search The Multiverse Report on your podcast app of choice!   ###   #TMR, #MCU, #DCEU, #StarWars, #Fandom, #LOTR 

Why didn't the folks of Bedford Falls come after George with torches and pitchforks once the arrest warrant was issued? Why did Luke want to draw our attention to Mary, the cave-barn, and the shepherds in the field the night Jesus was born? How was Jesus informed by his own birth narrative? What does this mean for how we live our lives as people of faith?

Ever wondered what our world would look like if one person never existed? This episode of our podcast takes you on a journey through Frank Capra's beloved holiday classic, "It's a Wonderful Life", and the life-altering experiences of the film's protagonist, George Bailey. While examining the profound impact George had on his family, friends, and the entire town of Bedford Falls, we uncover the incredible power held by a single individual's actions.As we navigate through George's sacrifices, financial struggles and emotional turmoil, we bring to light the power of family, community, and individual actions to shape the lives of others. We stumble upon George's despair and the transformative influence of a celestial visitor. Fasten your seatbelts as we navigate the eye-opening sequence where George sees the world without him. We'll explore how this revelation alters his perspective, giving you a fresh appreciation for this timeless holiday favorite.Finally, we rejoice in George's journey of redemption and the uplifting ending of "It's a Wonderful Life". By touching upon the film's core themes, we highlight the massive ripple effect one person's actions can have on the world around them. This episode promises to instill in you a newfound admiration for this enduring classic and inspire you to consider the difference you make in your own community. It's not just about analyzing a film; it's about recognizing our value in the lives of others. Experience "It's a Wonderful Life" like never before as we unravel its depth and resonance in this endearing episode.Own It's a Wonderful Life today! If you'd like to own your own copy for when this film isn't streaming, look no further! Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showPlease subscribe, rate, and review! Thank you for listening! Hope you enjoy!Website: https://moviestheyreprettygood.comInstagram: http://instagram.com/moviestheyreprettygoodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087938154530Twitter: https://twitter.com/moviesgoodpodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8iGT7riyJ_K2DFLwfbTemg

This week is a bit movie review and a bit Bible study.  With the famous Christmas movie, It's A Wonderful Life as our backdrop (the BEST Christmas movie BTW), we look at the spiritual applications of our own lives (the presence or absence thereof).  George Bailey got a rare chance:  to see what it would be like if he had never been born.  Do we consider the weight of our lives and would there be a void if we were not in the world?  Furthermore, who has heard the message of the Gospel because we are alive and able to tell them?  Listen in today as we discuss the movie and draw some Biblical applications we can make.  

'Tis the season for familiar stories.  George Bailey returns to the battle of Bedford Falls as Charlie Brown continues his search for the perfect Christmas tree.  And Mary and Joseph journey once again to the little town of Bethlehem.  The true Christmas story of the birth of Jesus is the story bizarre.  It is a mysterious, wonderful gift that invites equal parts ponder and scoff. Jesus came down from heaven and stepped into our story.  His story seems bizarre to us because we have often made a mess of our own.  We chase a story perfect in denial of our own version of the story bizarre.   Welcome to today's special Advent table featuring Ellie Holcomb's song, "Hope Is Alive"  (Used by Permission).

In the 1947 classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life!, George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, goes through a tough time during Christmas in dealing with two serious financial problems caused by someone else. This most beloved and joyful man in all of Bedford Falls is overcome with depression, anger, hopelessness, and despair. In the midst of all this, George's wife, Mary, steps in and shows us how to help the people we love when they are in a dark place, especially at Christmas  It's what today's episode is all about. But before we get into today's episode, here's what this podcast is all about.   Welcome to You Were Made for This If you find yourself wanting more from your relationships, you've come to the right place. Here you'll discover practical principles you can use to experience the life-giving relationships you were made for. I'm your host, John Certalic, award-winning author and relationship coach, here to help you find more joy in the relationships God designed for you. To access all past and future episodes, go to the bottom of this page to the yellow "Subscribe" button, then enter your name and email address in the fields above it. The episodes are organized chronologically and are also searchable by topics, categories, and keywords. Christmas is all about relationships Of all the times of the year to find joy in our relationships, can there be a better time than Christmas?  Christmas only exists because Jesus wants a relationship with us, and he came to earth to make that really clear to us. There's certainly joy in this relationship, and also in our relationships with friends and family. But sometimes things get in the way of experiencing the kind of relationship God designed for us with the people we love.  We see this so vividly in what I think is the greatest Christmas movie ever made, It's a Wonderful Life!  The film is overflowing with many different kinds of relationship struggles. But in the end, it leaves you feeling good about being alive in community with other people.   I like this movie so much that I did an entire podcast on seven relationship lessons we learn from It's a Wonderful Life!  It's episode 045 and I'll have a link to it at the bottom of today's show notes. It's a Wonderful Life! in a nutshell If it's been a while since you saw the film, or if you've never seen It's a Wonderful Life!, here's a brief summary of the plot: The main character, George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, grew up in a small town by the name of Bedford Falls prior to WWII. From the time he was young, George was a very popular, engaging person, well-liked by everyone.  Small-town life was not for him, however. He talked often about his dream of traveling to far-away places where he would work as an engineer to build big things, like skyscrapers and bridges.   George grew up in a loving family where his father and uncle ran the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan, a business in competition with the bank in town owned by the antagonist in the movie, Henry Potter. “Old man Potter” as he was called. At one point George's father, Peter Bailey, died suddenly and George took over the Building & Loan. The plan was that once George's brother Harry graduated from college, he would take over the Building & Loan, so George could leave Bedford Falls to pursue an education and his dreams. But things didn't turn out as planned. Harry returns from college, not just with a diploma, but also with a wife and a job out of town with his father-in-law.  All this leaves George with the responsibility of running the Building & Loan, causing him to feel all the more trapped, which is a major theme of the movie. Money set aside for a honeymoon George ends up getting married to a woman named Mary. On their wedding day and on their way out of town for their honeymoon, there's a run on the bank. This was not unusual during the Depression of the 1930s, which is when the movie takes place.  Everyone wanted to withdraw their savings in cash, but there's not enough money to pay out the withdrawals.  Mary sees what's going on and turns over to George all the wedding money and savings she and George have saved for their honeymoon. George then uses it to pay out the cash withdrawals. This is the first example we see from Mary of how to help the people we love when they are going through a rough time. How many women do you know would sacrifice their once-in-a-lifetime romantic vacation to help her husband solve a problem at work?  Not many.  Most women would say something along the lines of, “This is our wedding day and we're leaving for our honeymoon. Let your co-workers deal with the problem. They'll understand. Aren't I more important than your job, your business? But that's not Mary. She sacrifices her desires and her resources to help the person she loves. Sometimes to help the people we love we have to set aside our dreams. And sometimes to help the people we love will cost us financially. Investing in relationships This run on the bank that George and Mary are dealing with is an interesting metaphor for relationships. Just as deposits we make with our money into financial institutions, we also make “deposits” in our relationships. George Bailey had certainly done that with the relationships he developed and fostered in Bedford Falls. The movie shows how he invested in people, and the things he did to help people who needed help. Watch for it the next time you see the movie. I'll comment more on this in a few minutes. But I wonder about you and me. To what extent are we investing in relationships, where we pour ourselves into being there for other people?  Will we have enough in our relationship account that there will be something to withdraw when we need help? Another problem at work After the problem with the run on the bank is solved. Another work-related problem arises like the whack-a-mole game you play at the fair. On Christmas Eve Uncle Billy misplaces $8,000 worth of deposits right as a bank examiner shows up for an audit. In today's dollars adjusted for inflation, this would amount to about $110,000.   If the money isn't found, it will mean bankruptcy, scandal, and jail time for George. He's beside himself with fear, and it brings out the worst in him. The rest of the film shows how George goes about dealing with this problem, and how others deal with George. If ever there was a movie about relationships, this would be it. For example, at one point in the film George tries to help Uncle Billy remember where he left the money. But he gets impatient, roughs up Uncle Billy, and calls him “a silly old fool.”   George then comes home in his irritated, fearful state and yells at his kids. He makes one of them cry, in fact. At which point Mary steps in to protect her children. She positions herself in front of the kids and confronts George very sternly with “George, why must you torture the children? Why don't you…” A change in behavior Before this scene, Mary observed this marked change in behavior in her husband and asked him “What's wrong?”  George doesn't answer, in part because I think he's trying to protect his wife from work problems, and in part because he's confused by his own anger and rage. Mary is puzzled by George because it's not like him to be so angry. But she doesn't give up on George when he doesn't answer her “what's wrong?” question.  She reflects in her mind what might be the problem. George didn't go to work that morning angry at the world, so it's logical to consider that maybe something happened at work to set him off. George isn't any help in figuring out the problem, so Mary logically and wisely calls someone who works with George to see if he might know.  It's one thing you can do to help someone you love. She picks up the phone and asks the operator to call Bedford 247. And guess who answers?  Uncle Billy. Now we don't hear what Mary says to Uncle Billy. But by the end of the movie we find out. George gets help for dealing with his problem After George walks out the door after yelling at his kids we see him encounter Clarence Oddbody AS2 (Angel 2nd class). He's sent by God to help George put his problem in perspective and to realize the impact he's had on people. It's interesting that God doesn't send Clarence the angel to solve George's problem, but rather that despite his problems it truly is a wonderful life that George has been living.   God still works like that today. Often not solving our problems, but always putting them in perspective in light of eternity and God's purposes for our life. Bold action to help the people we love  Getting back to Mary and her phone call to Uncle Billy. After George's encounter with Clarence Oddbody, Angel second class, he returns home a new man. Oh so grateful to be alive and even at peace with the potential consequences of the misplaced $8,000 of deposits. It's here we see what Mary and Uncle Billy talked about in their phone call. She now tells George, “It's a miracle, George! It's a miracle!” Then Uncle Billy walks through their front door with a large wicker laundry basket, sets it on a folding table, and tells George one of the key lines in the movie in an excited tone. “Mary did it, George! Mary did it! She scoured all over town telling people you were in trouble…” With that, crowds of people come pouring through the front door with cash to put in the basket. What a bold action on Mary's part. Sometimes to help the people we love we have to step out of our comfort zone and ask other people to help us care for the one we love. Sometimes we have to make withdrawals from our relational bank account. It's just how it works. What we've learned from Mary in It's a Wonderful Life! Mary shows us that we can help the people we love who are going through difficult times by first observing any change in behavior. What's different about them now, and when did the change happen? Often knowing when will give us further clues to help those we love. We also learn from Mary how it's important to reflect upon what might be causing the distress in the people we love. Be direct and ask them. They may not know themselves, but don't give up. Probe further.  Take action as Mary did. Ask other people who may be in a position to know what the root of the problem is in the angst our loved one is experiencing. Call someone. Don't text.  And then when you finally understand the heart of the problem. Take more action. Evaluate what you can do to help, and what you need from other people. Finally, we learn from Mary that helping the people we love going through a really bad season is done behind the scenes. I love behind-the-scenes-people. They have no hidden agenda and they want to bring out the best in people. It's never about them So what does all this mean for YOU?  How can you use what you've heard today to help you find more joy in the relationships in your life?  Make it a goal to be a better observer of the important people in your life. Notice any changes in behavior. Then reflect upon what might possibly be causing those changes. Finally, take action. Do something that tries to help. And like Mary in the movie, do all this behind the scenes. Be a behind-the-scenes person.  It's pretty fulfilling helping the people we love this way. Closing In closing, I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about today's episode. I hope your thinking was stimulated by today's show, to consider how you can help the people you love this Christmas - behind the scenes. For when you do, it will help you experience the joy of relationships God desires for you. Because after all, You Were Made for This. Well, that's it for today. As we close up shop, please don't forget to spread a little relational sunshine around the people you meet this week. Spark some joy for them, kind of like Mary did and all the people of Bedford Falls. And I'll see you again next time. Goodbye for now. Other episodes or resources related to today's shows 045: Seven Relationship Lessons from the Greatest Christmas Movie Ever Made 021: The Most Important Relationship of All A prior and most recent episode 206: Thankful for the Stories of Others All past and future episodes    JohnCertalic.com Our Sponsor You Were Made for This is sponsored by Caring for Others, a missionary care ministry.  Donate Please consider making a donation to help cover the costs associated with this podcast and the other services we provide missionaries around the world. You can make a tax-deductible contribution to Caring for Others when you click here.  You can also contribute by clicking on the yellow "Donate" box in the upper right corner at the top of the first page.

The most wonderful time of the year can often be the saddest time, too. So our first episode for December is the holiday classic, "It's A Wonderful Life."Despite the cheery title, this is a pretty sad film. So while we touch on the topics of suicide and financial ruin, we also discuss the feared communist message in the story; Iguana Jesus; time traveling former presidents; high-waisted pants; the conversation rate of Wakandan dollars in Bedford Falls; and the futility of planning one's future.Want to contact the show? Email us at cheerupbuddypod@gmail.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for connecting with us! We are so excited that you took the time to be here with us wherever you are in the world. It's December! Join us for a brand-new series, A Cautionary Christmas Tale. The holidays always seem to bring out the best and the worst in us. But why? Is it really a season of giving? Is it a season of selfishness or is it something more? Join us as Pastor Craig teaches us on one of the most dangerous attitudes to have during any season of life. Worse than a humbug in the center of Bedford Falls on Christmas Eve...this week we look at the dangers of control. Need to vent? Advice? Or someone to pray for you? Text us at 833-270-5456, we have team members standing by for you! We just finished a series called Wild! Never saw it or missed a week? Watch it On-Demand at the link below! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_HYGu93uTnHl0ZCVzx4ID6U39mXd87f9 Need to vent? Advice? Or someone to pray for you? Text us at 833-270-5456, we have team members standing by for you! Follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southpointtv Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southpointtv/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKlJo30wp8Qw0vfteDUchQ

Whether you watched it at 18 or 8 or never watched it at all, My So-Called Life was a part of yours. So how could it have only lasted one season? You may not believe us that it did. But that's just you making assumptions and we don't have time for your preconcieved notions around here.   Whitney Powell Sulia Altenberg DerickArmijo @SingleSeasonTV singleseasonrecord@gmail.com

Welcome to Off the Beaten Clef! This week, we spike our hair, get our chain wallets out, paint our nails black, and grab our skateboards - cause we are talking punk music. We talk all facets and subgenres of punk with the help of our audience submissions! Thanks to everyone who contributed, and check out the playlist below! To listen to the Peak Punk Playlist on Spotify Audience Submissions: Chaz - Fuck Authority by Pennywise, Sammi - Salvation by Rancid, Tommy - Shhhh! Golf is On by Hot Mulligan, Cody - Where Do We Go When We Go by Neck Deep, Louie - Ruby Soho by Rancid, Ben - I Fought the Law by The Clash, Mason - Rally Cap by The Story So Far, Tyler Burnside - Sober by FIDLAR, Hoyt - California Über Alles by Dead Kennedys Dil's Picks: Understatement by New Found Glory, The Beach Is For Lovers (Not Lonely Losers) by Neck Deep, Bedford Falls by Knuckle Puck, Montrose by Man Overboard, Color Me Impressed by The Replacements Kev's Picks: Dig Up Her Bones by Misfits, Banned in D.C. by Bad Brains, Mean People Suck by NOFX, Black Friday Rule by Flogging Molly, Wendy Clear by Blink-182 Songs of the Show: Dil - Dumb by Nirvana  Kev - The Price of Smokes by The Chats OTBC Social Media: Merch - offthebeatenclef.com Instagram - @offthebeatenclef Twitter - @OffClef Email - offthebeatenclef@gmail.com Discord - Link HERE Thanks for listening!