GIMME FIVE! Celebrate 5 Years of the PCPS!
Unknown Speaker 0:02
Hello World is a song that we're singing. Come on, get happy. A whole lot of love is what we'll be bringing we'll make you happy.
Michelle Newman 0:17
Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who had no limits on their screen time and learned about making love on am radio.
Carolyn Cochrane 0:29
We believe our Gen X childhood gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition,
Kristin Nilsen 0:41
and today we're recording live in front of a studio audience to celebrate what I thought would be a six week project, but instead blew up into five years of weekly podcast episodes celebrating the pop culture nuggets of the classic Gen X childhood.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:00
I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen,
Michelle Newman 1:01
and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists.
Unknown Speaker 1:16
Will make you happy.
Kristin Nilsen 1:19
Welcome listeners, and for one day only, welcome viewers, because for the first time ever, we have an audience sitting right in front of us for the recording of this episode. We might sound a little bit different because we are not in our home studios with our own mics. We are recording in the middle of big hill books, the prettiest bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and you might hear people yes please, and you might hear people chattering. You might hear people laughing or clapping, or maybe book shopping, that would be awesome, too. Thank you to all of you sitting here in front of us who came today to witness our live recording. You are our VIPs. You are the wind beneath our wings. And today is special for a lot of reasons.
Carolyn Cochrane 2:04
Yeah, first, it is special because the three of us are in the same space. We are here together as we've shared some of you might have heard on the podcast Michelle. We originally were all here, then Michelle decided to fly the coop, and she moved to Denver, Colorado, and is living her best life. And I and my husband decided to be wild and crazy, and we moved to Pennsylvania. We live outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania now, so the three of us to be in the same airspace is pretty amazing and incredible. So when you listen to the outro of each of our episodes, it says that we record here, but as I just explained, we're a little everywhere now, so thank goodness for technology,
Kristin Nilsen 2:44
home of wjm studios in Minneapolis. Yeah, but I am still in wjm studios in Minneapolis. That's what I call my attic.
Michelle Newman 2:53
Yeah, that's actually officially what our LLC is called.
Kristin Nilsen 2:58
Is Oh, wjm productions. It's artificial now for all the money we make, yeah,
Michelle Newman 3:06
yeah. Even though we see each other on our screens multiple times a week, often either recording or Zoom meetings, it hits different to be breathing the same air. I think, Don't you guys think? But honestly, we're used to recording apart, because despite our best intentions, we have rarely recorded together. We had one, one disastrous attempt in the fall of 2020, with episode one, where we were all sitting six feet apart. And I don't say disastrous because Kristen got stuck in her bean bag. But she did get stuck in her bean bag. She literally had to roll over on her hands and knees and get up like that. But other than maybe two hasty recordings on a phone post an event like the Barry Manilow Christmas concert was one. Can you remember what the other one might have been? But I think there's been another one. This is the first time this has happened. So you all are witnessing history, people right now and today, you're truly going to get to see how the sausage is made. You will see us probably make mistakes start over. Kristen's already giving you several examples of that. I think we might ask each other, where are we in our notes? Because at the bottom line is, we're all writers, so we research an outline like crazy. So every single episode, every single one of those 250 episodes, has started with a very specific outline where we all have different parts. However, we then take off in a million different organic conversations from it, which you'll probably see tonight as well. We think this is all very scripted, but who knows, but we're so excited, and yeah, we're counting on your energy to kind of fuel this, this really fun fifth anniversary episode. No.
Kristin Nilsen 5:00
Hmm, because, yeah, that is true. Because, most importantly, today is special, because it is a celebration of a milestone that I don't think that the three of us even bothered to fantasize about five years ago, on November 27 2020 in the midst of a global pandemic, when the world was confined to their homes and looking for comfort and distraction wherever they could find it. Three women in their 50s launched the techiest of projects for the most analog of subjects. The first episode of the pop culture Preservation Society took an immense amount of technological research and a strong belief that our subject matter truly mattered before we even sat down at the mics. That was everything that had to happen before we even sat down at the mics. And I have to give all credit to Carolyn for doing the majority of that, because all I can do is, like, talk into this, and she does all
Carolyn Cochrane 5:56
I wanted you to do. I promise. Well, we'll talk about this, but I had to maybe twist some arm, so I'm like, I'll figure out all the technology. Just show up and talk.
Speaker 1 6:05
She was like, I'll take the dog out. I promise. I'll do everything, mom, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 6:09
because Kristen's pretty much like, I'm not learning anything else. That's about it,
Kristin Nilsen 6:17
like, is full. But yeah, it is. We are not digital natives. I don't have to point this out to you. We are not digital natives. We are analog kids and we and we say that proudly, but the irony is so great that we were going to have to enter this digital medium to celebrate this analog life that we had. And it was a huge leap of faith. It was and, well, like I said, I thought it would be six episodes.
Michelle Newman 6:44
And I've said, and we've said in previous anniversary episodes, that we had no clue how much work this would be and how much we were going to have to learn. We really thought we would just show up, grab a mic and have just these really fun off the cuff conversations about topics we would pull out of a hat. We're going to talk about Donnie and Marie today. Great, no research or whatever. But for me, at least it wasn't for that reason. It wasn't so much a leap of faith. I, honest to goodness, felt like it was like a base jump with just a pretty view, like I'm just going to leap off of this and it's just going to be so pretty on the way down. It's not going to be, you know, anything but that. And we learned very quickly that it was so much more than that. Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 7:29
Because you can't just think that you're funny and then think you can sit down and just be funny.
Michelle Newman 7:36
Back to that first episode. We were horrified.
Kristin Nilsen 7:40
We were such we were such babies. We were we knew absolutely nothing. And to say that we've come a long way in in both the recording and the writing and the producing skills is the understatement of the century. And those very first episodes were rough, and we were so nervous. I mean, just like every time we sat down in front of the mic, it felt like you were singing a solo in front of your whole junior high. And we would like do deep breathing and and I'm like drinking chamomile tea, the butterflies were crazy just to sit down and talk to nobody. I mean, at this point, nobody is listening, right? And so we're speaking to nobody, but the nerves were really intense. But over time, it got better and better and better. We learned and we grew. And so we would like to take you back with us to a time when it all began, and play you a clip from that first recording. It's actually not as bad as I remembered. It in my memory, it was just a horror show, but it's still testament you'll be able to hear. It's still a testament to how far we've come. So please enjoy the opening of episode one of the pop culture Preservation Society caught in a teen dream. Welcome, welcome everybody to the very first episode of the PCPs. Carolyn, for those new to the society, can you please tell the good people who the hell we are? Kristen,
Carolyn Cochrane 9:02
I upon a time, there were three little girls, and they were each assigned very hazardous
Speaker 2 9:09
duties. Wait, is this a Charlie's Angels thing?
Carolyn Cochrane 9:12
Yes, Michelle, but just let me finish. And they were each assigned very hazardous duties, like creating a line of pop culture greeting cards, writing TV recaps for Entertainment Weekly and writing about teen idol crushes in novels and on Instagram. But I took them away from all that they work for me. It's Carolyn.
Michelle Newman 9:40
It doesn't sound at all like we're reading,
Kristin Nilsen 9:50
oh, my God. Oh. And then after that, we went on to describe the space that we were recording in and all of the like kitschy items we had brought with it was so
Michelle Newman 9:59
that one episode. Road we did six feet apart.
Carolyn Cochrane 10:04
We had those beads you brought, like, the beads and a lava lamp.
Kristin Nilsen 10:09
We had a carpenter's poster. We talked about his elfin haircut. It was just boring.
Michelle Newman 10:14
The worst, though, I think, sorry, I'm going off script here. But the worst, oh yeah, we, like, had nicknames we gave each other that that's what we were gonna call each other, like. And at one point, we decided the way we needed to do every intro was say like, like, you know how Miss America pageants would go up and they say, like, Hi, I'm so and so, I'm from so, you know, wherever in Georgia, I like this, this and this, we were gonna have to say, like, I'm a shell born in 1969 you're obsessing the street. And we thought that was a really good idea, until, like, it made that. That made it all the way to recording day, Oh, yeah. And as those things were coming out all of our mouths, we were just like, oh, we felt like I, right now have like, I feel like I'm blushing all the way because I'm so mortified that we did it. But we did. We cut it. We we worked that right, that episode for sure.
Kristin Nilsen 11:11
So the other thing that we had in that first episode is both brilliant and super cringy, and that is the PCPs oath. So I administered an oath to Carolyn and Michelle to initiate their acceptance into the society of pop culture lovers. And we directed our listeners. There were none to do the same. So it's stupid and I love it at the same time. And so today, in honor of episode one, we're going to administer the oath once again, and this time, the audience members sitting in front of us, and also the people at home, feel free to join in with us. So everybody, you have Sharla, you're gonna repeat after me. Oh, that's right. Okay. Oh, actually, we can do that. Okay. So everybody, please raise your right hand. Okay. Hands are raised. I state your name,
Carolyn Cochrane 11:57
I state your name.
Kristin Nilsen 12:01
Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear, to search those tubs in my basement. To search those tubs in my basement for pet rocks, Weeble Wobbles and back issues of Tiger Beat for pet
Michelle Newman 12:13
rocks, Weeble Wobbles and back issues of Tiger Beat
Kristin Nilsen 12:17
to call my mom and ask her to look for my Charlie's Angels trading cards
Michelle Newman 12:21
to call my mom and ask her to look for my Charlie's Angels
Kristin Nilsen 12:25
trading cards to sing loudly and with feeling, to sing loudly and with feeling when a Barry Manilow song comes on the oldie station, when a Barry Manilow song comes on the oldie station, and in so doing, and in so doing, we will save the world. We will save the world. So, help me, Fonzie. So help me. Fonzie, congratulations, yeah. And welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society.
Michelle Newman 12:54
It's actually kind of cute and stupid, yeah. So that first episode that finally made it to the air, got about 24 listeners, and nine of those were our immediate family, who we all made listen. But we were having so much fun, and we did have so many ideas, that we just kept talking, and more importantly, we kept trying to make it better. And I can't stress enough that the success of this podcast every single day for the past five years is the direct result of really, really hard work. And maybe what I think is more important than that is the way the three of us work together and support each other. Oh no, but it's really true. We all, you know, the little the little School House Rock song about three right? It's a magic number, and you can't have a table without three legs, right? And there's a whole bunch of other examples I give that I can't think of right. Now, we all have what we like to call our different superpowers that we bring to this podcast. People ask me that all the time, how do you guys work together? I'm like, fabulously, because we all have a different superpower, and it's we support each other, we respect each other, and I love you guys, but we've worked. We really have worked our butts off from day one to make all of it the podcast and the social media society a really soft place for Generation X to land as we all navigate these oftentimes really difficult years for us, not just covid, which is when we started, but our aging and dying parents, our growing children and the chaos in Our country and it's truly, truly been our passion project, and so we have just been absolutely thrilled to see it grow and become what it's become, because little by little, people showed up, people showed up. You all showed up. You all on Instagram, you showed up. You felt the joy in our conversation. Conversations, you appreciated the comfort in these memories and the connections they gave you to happy times in your childhoods. And so did we like? We felt that, and that just kept fueling us. And so we kept on trucking. We sure did.
Carolyn Cochrane 15:16
And you guys about 15,700 minutes later. Oh, you're here.
Kristin Nilsen 15:23
What say that number again, 15,700
Carolyn Cochrane 15:26
minutes of the pop culture Preservation Society, roughly 261 and a half hours. Or if you really wanted to, and you wanted to binge us, it would take you 11 days, no sleep, no go in the bathroom. You would just be listening. Listening, it would be 11 days. So that is, by the numbers,
Michelle Newman 15:44
are you listening to that we have two very new listeners. We met today, Gwen and Cindy. Thank you so much for coming, and they're new listeners. So you have the next 11 days of your life.
Carolyn Cochrane 16:01
So that's 250 episodes that we have done. I will let you know our top five. You might be interested in knowing those so our we'll start with number five of our listeners. Okay, the number five episode that our listeners loved was on your FM dial 1983 where we chose songs that meant something special to us in 1983 and those are really fun episodes to do when we pick one year and kind of dissect it a little, is that the
Kristin Nilsen 16:29
one where we had, I know carita, don't ask me what was on. Okay, there's this song. There was a song called, I know carita, by Quincy Jones, and it was one of the top songs of the year. And we're, like, never heard of it, no what
Michelle Newman 16:43
those episodes we often go and talk about, who won the Grammys. How can there
Kristin Nilsen 16:47
be this popular song that we've never heard of before? Hoosker do like we just we did not know that it was called, that's a, I N, O, C, O, R, R, I D, A. We thought it was saying, I know this person named I thought it was created. I know Rita.
Carolyn Cochrane 17:19
Yeah, we know that. We know is I know Caritas
Kristin Nilsen 17:22
smacked me in the face. You will learn I love that song. I love it and in and we didn't catch it before the recording of the episode, so I feel like such a dumbass in the recording. Never heard of it. Okay?
Carolyn Cochrane 17:34
Number four, you guys ready? It was two good times, two Happy Days, Two Little House on the Prairie, and I don't remember what, September 30, 2024 I'd have to go back whatever. Yeah, I don't know if that was theme song. No, I don't know. Well, look, anyway, that's the fourth most popular. Third most popular. It was kind of embarrassing. A lot. 250 menopause. People really loved when we unpacked Andrew McCarthy's Brat Pack, when
Kristin Nilsen 18:07
documentary, it's just called brats, right? Yes, and it's very
Carolyn Cochrane 18:11
controversial, and we were we liked it, yes, number two afternoon delight TV reruns and the Gen X, yes, very surprising
Kristin Nilsen 18:21
runs we watched
Michelle Newman 18:21
after school Gilligan's Island. I Love Lucy. Those the monsters. That was a fun one, yeah. And this surprised
Carolyn Cochrane 18:28
me too. It's Wait, is
Kristin Nilsen 18:30
it number two now, or number one? No, number one. Number one. Yeah, ready, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 18:35
Andy Gibb Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 18:39
Oh, my God, really.
Michelle Newman 18:41
Well, I bet I know why, according to the number, not only because it's Andy Gibb, but you guys, Peter Gibb, Andy Gibb's daughter, she likes we, it was very important to us for her to sign off on that episode. Kristin tells the story in that episode of how she kind of came to know her, but she we really wanted to make sure that we told his story with the respect and dignity that he deserves. A lot of people don't they just remember the end of his life and the difficult moment. And she not only signed off on it, she had it on the website, the Andy Gibb website, and she was sharing it all over her Instagram and social media posts. So that had to have a lot to do with it, because I thought it would have been our shot interview.
Kristin Nilsen 19:24
So she that, and she's from Australia, so she shared it all over the world, and she she was originally supposed to be on the episode, and at the last minute, she's like, I can't do it. It was too personal. It was too her relationship with her dad was so complicated. She's not just gonna show up and like, let's talk about shadow dancing, like she just couldn't. So then we created an episode for an audience of one. Basically, we created an episode for PETA. We really did.
Michelle Newman 19:52
Yeah, yeah. It is a real it is. It's a really good conversation. It's two parter too. Yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 20:12
I'm astray, alrighty. And lastly, I thought this was a really pretty cool number our social media followers have really grown. And I don't know if any anyone in here has been with us since the get go, but we happen to be together. When we got our 500th Instagram follower, you would have thought we won the lottery. We recorded it, not that that's to be sneezed at 500 was a really big deal for us, but now we have just on Instagram, 37,800 is it? Point eight 3.3? Okay, yeah, not that I check it. So, okay, that's incredible. And then if we add up our Facebook, and our Facebook's over 50,000 Yeah. So all together, all social media, about 104,733 so there you go.
Michelle Newman 21:08
Our social media is a really fun escape from Doom. Scrolling right? That's all
Kristin Nilsen 21:14
100% okay, social media and people will come to me in the be like, Oh my God. I loved your post today. And I was like, What are we doing?
Michelle Newman 21:23
There's, there was a recent episode that I wanted to say, it was only like, two or three weeks ago where Kristen's like, I don't know I was talking about something on social media, and she's like, What? What I was like, Kristen, you should follow us on social media. Preservation Society, check us out. Listen. Thank you. I appreciate that. That shout out. I love it. I love making reels. I love doing all the scheduling. But however, like I said earlier, that's my superpower, okay, so not to that. We all have things we do. They do just as much of other stuff. So none of this would work without all of us doing this together. But thank you. Well, if you would have told us when we began that five years later, we would have chatted with and or met at least 25 celebrities whose posters we had on our walls in the 1970s plus big time authors like Kristin Nielsen.
Michelle Newman 22:28
Son, the biggest if you had told us that we would have met and chatted with but also truly become friends with, like there are people whose posters we had on our walls that if you just said to them right now, Carolyn Kristen and Michelle, they know who we are. Crazy. We would have flatlined. I am not kidding. We would be down out, down and out. And it's always exciting. It's always surreal, right? But we will never ever forget how we felt when we landed our very first celebrity interview, it was Karen Grassley, who was ma Ingles on Little House on the Prairie. And y'all we were literally, I'm using this word correctly, because I can still picture us all doing it. We were literally sniffing essential oils before she came on the Zoom call. And all of us were like we had little vials of lavender,
Kristin Nilsen 23:24
and we were crystals are lined up, and everything we're wearing. Prairie dresses
Michelle Newman 23:30
we didn't wear. Target was selling those prairie dresses that year. We had ruffles going on Calico. Not only were re sniffing essential oils, all three of us had aromatic candles lit all around us like we were sitting in freaking chapels. We truly were and immediately, Karen Grassley was the sweetest. She made us feel so calm immediately, just like ma would have done, we think. But then halfway through the interview, the funniest damn thing happened. Her doorbell rang, and what happened after made us realize that celebrities really are just like us. Listen. Listen to this, our first interview.
Speaker 2 24:21
But I'll tell you something, because of my alcoholism, I took that in, and I took it to myself and said, Well, you know, now I'm a victim, and now I'm going to drink more and I'm going to Oh Christ, right
Carolyn Cochrane 24:49
now, so she goes to the door right here.
Unknown Speaker 25:03
Oh, cinema verite, you guys this day's end. People are listening right now.
Speaker 1 25:11
Grassley talking to her delivery person at her front door where she lives. This is real life, right here. We love it.
Unknown Speaker 25:21
The circle light just took a dime
Carolyn Cochrane 25:26
off to the floor, like a ring light.
Unknown Speaker 25:27
They seem to be hurt. They must be so crazy. I mean, I live such a quiet life. Circle lights
Speaker 2 25:42
now we love it. We certainly feel like we're just at home with you now. It's so sweet, okay, well, it's candid. She
Carolyn Cochrane 25:57
was so sweet. Everybody you know what, we're giving you some numbers. So we've told you how many download our most popular episodes, how many minutes, or whatever. I tried to count the number of times maybe that I've been interrupted by these two and you tried, well, you give up after a time, after a while. I couldn't I mean, it's countless in a single episode or whatever issue,
Kristin Nilsen 26:21
and I really working on it.
Michelle Newman 26:22
We do.
Carolyn Cochrane 26:24
I got a little better as time has gone on. I've really, you know, started to stand up for myself. But there were times, for instance, you'll get to hear one right here that,
Kristin Nilsen 26:33
yeah, this is in our electric Electric Company. Such a
Michelle Newman 26:38
good episode, and my favorite moment ever.
Carolyn Cochrane 26:41
Well, you guys, we've talked about this a few times, you know, these pop culture references that we don't think a whole lot of other people get. And I think about the skit, it's the plumber I've come to fix the sink. And anytime
Kristin Nilsen 26:53
plumber I come to fix the sink, you're so good at that.
Carolyn Cochrane 26:59
Anytime I here? Who is it? I want to say that
Carolyn Cochrane 27:19
over and over again, and he
Carolyn Cochrane 27:27
is becoming he's becoming angry. You dare dub that end, yeah, and I go to start because I had some fun facts about the little, that little part of electric company, and I would get, I can't take a breath to start to say, and then one of them say
Carolyn Cochrane 27:54
they're really good at accents and stuff. I can't really do that. But yeah, that's when we laugh about because he kind of puts it on that show.
Speaker 1 28:01
She was so mad. She was not laughing at all. She was like,
Carolyn Cochrane 28:06
Well, I would start. And it was like, I wasn't even there, and
Michelle Newman 28:09
we're just laughing our asses off.
Kristin Nilsen 28:12
We love it,
Michelle Newman 28:13
we love it, and we love you, okay, well, that's good. Okay, sure. Okay. Well, we asked, she's like, it's okay. She has a therapist that she gets to talk to about us all the time. Well, we asked our listeners to share a favorite episode or memory with us and honor of our fifth anniversary. And you guys sent us the nicest words. Thank you to everyone who left us such nice comments. Honestly, our listeners are the very best, yeah. I mean,
Kristin Nilsen 28:52
we're not just saying that these people are nice, yeah.
Michelle Newman 28:58
Let me just say this, like, like Dax Shepard says that about his listeners. Taylor Swift says that about her listeners, but ours are better anyway. We really appreciate your support more than we could ever tell you, and we wish we could share all of the comments that people left left us, but we can't. But just know we read them all. We wept a bit, and then we read them again.
Kristin Nilsen 29:24
And we literally read everything that comes to us, every DM, every comment, every email. We read everything. And if you don't hear from us, sorry, but we did just know that we read
Carolyn Cochrane 29:36
it, yes, for sure. Well, I was lucky enough to meet one of our listeners in person a few weeks ago in Virginia, when I went and saw this guy, and her name is Erica Cassidy, she just, oh, yeah, sorry, that Sean Cassidy, sorry, that's right,
Michelle Newman 29:51
not a visual medium, not okay.
Carolyn Cochrane 29:53
Yes, we met at Sean Cassidy, and it was so fun because Erica has been one of our OG listeners.
Kristin Nilsen 29:59
She's. The first person to send us a DM, I think, yeah, and say, I really love your podcast.
Michelle Newman 30:09
And we were like, Wait, your daughter's not named Erica. Your son's not named Erica.
Carolyn Cochrane 30:18
So area, if you're listening right now, we're talking about you. So she drove from Charlotte, North Carolina, to outside Roanoke, Virginia, which is where we saw Sean Cassidy. And I had some friends. I used to live in Roanoke, so some friends were with me, and Erica was telling my friends the very her very favorite moment from the podcast. And she said that we made her laugh so hard, and you're going to hear the SEC that in just a minute. And she was walking, so she's laughing as she's walking. She says, that's no big deal. But then it proceeded to get funnier and funnier, and she thought she was going to wet her pants. She had to hold on to the mailbox of its people and, like, squeeze her legs so then she could get home, because she had to go pee so bad. And this is a really, really funny. It's probably my favorite part. I hope you think it's remotely as funny as we do, but we kept it in, and obviously Erica almost wet
Michelle Newman 31:11
her pants, so we got to set the whole episode to this day. It remains one of the our favorite episodes, because it went off the rails so hard in so many different ways. And this was in our first year, and we did an entire episode. We have a friend Martha who who gifted us all these dynamite magazines, all of her old dynamite magazines. So we're like, let's just do an episode where we're just reading from dynamite magazines. Okay, I was recording at the time in my closet. As we're reading and going through this episode, we're realizing it's kind of dumb. We're like, this isn't as funny as we thought, but that that made it super funny to the three of us, because we'd be like, okay, Carolyn, what have you got next? And we would be laughing until we were going to pee our pants, because there was, like nothing to it, I don't even know. But then, as you're going to hear we start, do we need to set up the mime thing? I think we do so because they're going to hear you say meme, and they're not going to know why. A lot of you sitting here know what we're talking about, but maybe some of you listening right now have, haven't heard this episode, or don't know that Kristen's French. She's not really, but we like to get
Kristin Nilsen 32:21
but I know a lot of French words,
Carolyn Cochrane 32:23
yeah, I'm gonna interrupt them both now, because there's really stuff you have to understand. If you remember dynamite magazine, it would feature people on the cover, or whatever the issue I had featured shields and Yarnell. Now, if any of you remember shields and Yarnell, they were like the memes mimes of the 70s, and they did, like the robot thing and milk on each other, yeah. So that's what, how the meme mime conversation gets started.
Kristin Nilsen 32:51
And I said, I corrected her. She said mime. And I was like, it's meme because there, I swear to God, there's an episode of cheers where Diane insists on saying meme because she studied my Marie, I made that in Paris. She's like, it's so huge
Carolyn Cochrane 33:07
with Marcel Marceau, yes, he said I learned that article.
Kristin Nilsen 33:11
Yes, yeah, I was I thought it was being funny, and it just led to lots of confusion. But then do we have to tell about what happened? Like, where the
Michelle Newman 33:19
where you're gonna hear them. So so, so much happened already. It was awful.
Carolyn Cochrane 33:23
He did his little act for a while, solo Robert, but then he met Yarnell of the bowl cut, no Lord Susan Lorene, that's fortunately, when Michelle and Tom grim, who wrote the article, when they went to shield and young to interview, they were married, they didn't stay married. I learned all this. He taught her kind of the mime routine
Unknown Speaker 34:09
because she was actually in dance class.
Carolyn Cochrane 34:17
She wasn't there. During the in depth interview, Robert had to answer all the questions for both of them.
Speaker 1 34:24
Well, she's a meme, so she can't talk you guys.
Michelle Newman 34:37
Can you just imagine the two of them? Though? Like when you're asking, like, what do you want for dinner? It takes, like, 45 minutes, that's right,
Carolyn Cochrane 34:47
Michelle yells, they had a variety show. Like, we loved them so much as a society that they got their own Weekly variety show, and they were people like this. Now Michelle is frozen so she can't see but like, don't. Remember those kind of so She's frozen on our screen characters that they were guess on their
Kristin Nilsen 35:04
variety. There's a cowboy and a lady of the evening.
Michelle Newman 35:22
Okay, we give
Michelle Newman 35:31
Oh my god. She says we just lost our cow. Oh, my God, so funny. So, yeah, so we've been talking, and you could we're just Slappy. We were just Slappy. We couldn't stop laughing. And then you, you could hear me go, oh, and because I so they're still talking, but I was sort of like, so they thought I was being a mime, texting, and she's like, Oh, we lost power, and literally, all my lights were out in my closet, and I was in pitch black, but I was waiting for it anyway.
Kristin Nilsen 36:01
We kept talking. I bet it was we went on for minutes, thinking that she was just pretending to be not knowing that the power.
Michelle Newman 36:08
Because, if you remember, I told you I used to do a little bit of mine as a child. I was really obsessed with them, so I used to really like practice in my bedroom, pulling myself on a rope. You know, we're like, I can't get out of the box. So I told him that. So they thought I was just being a mime. And we freeze all the time on it. And so now it's kind of a running gag, after like, four and a half years of like, oh, is Kristen frozen, or is she just memeing
Carolyn Cochrane 36:41
for letting us share that moment, because honestly, I probably could put my pants up too. So we all we got a lot of comments like you guys shared. One other comment we got that we really appreciated was Stevie crochets. So you have to remember when people send us their messages through social media, we just see their little handle, like CB day, so it's like their Instagram names or whatever. So Stevie, hi, Stevie, if you're watching She must crochet. Must crochet. I don't know they must crochet. That's There you go. And Stevie says, Congrats. I absolutely love this podcast. Love is in all caps. So you know, I could listen to the misheard lyrics episode on repeat. I've already listened to it too many times to count so many times that my fart is weak,
Kristin Nilsen 37:32
which is a reference from the episode. And so, just so you know, you'll hear the word monda green. Monda green is the official term for a misheard lyric.
Carolyn Cochrane 37:42
See, you're just getting smarter.
Kristin Nilsen 37:47
I was going to call this episode my fart is weak after Christopher crosses declaration of fatigue and read like the wind, because it was the night his fart was weak. He was on the run. There was no time to sleep. I mean, even his heart was weak, you guys.
Carolyn Cochrane 38:15
Okay, and so there was another one that people will come up to us at events, or they'll DM us about they'll never hear a particular song the same way ever again. So here you go. I won't either. The Bee Gees gave birth
Kristin Nilsen 38:28
to the best monda green of all time. This comes from my friend Martha. And the Bee Gees told us over and over again to do it in your neighbor's butt.
Speaker 1 38:44
In the song, you should be dancing. You should be dancing. Wait, hold on, dude in your neighbor's butt. Why? I
Michelle Newman 39:08
think for me, the Bee Gees, I couldn't even get a monda green out of BG songs. It was odd. For that one, I would have just been like, I always sing that song like I'm
Kristin Nilsen 39:24
you, yeah. Oh, my God, that's my favorite one. Thank you, Martha for that one.
Michelle Newman 39:28
But every time I hear that song, now that's what goes
Carolyn Cochrane 39:39
probably closest with
Kristin Nilsen 39:48
Doris. We met Doris in person at a very fortuitous event, and that meeting would have profound results for her and her squad, her group of friends, because it turned out that we had something in common and. Our podcast inspired them to do something radical, and Doris says, speaking as 1/3 of the Sean squad society podcast, I will say that the PCPs has been a true inspiration. We met you in Chicago after a Sean Cassidy concert, and we were instantly impressed what you three were doing and doing very well gave us the confidence to just try. We could not be happier for your success. And now Doris and Cindy, Lynn and dame, who were all at that concert, and they now have their own podcast devoted to all things Cassidy, and they are the Sean squad society, and we're really proud
Michelle Newman 40:37
of them. They're real sweet, yeah. Okay, so here is a comment we got from Carolyn Perry. She said, I found you all through your Are you there? God, it's me. Margaret episode and I was hooked, no pun intended, forever. So that episode might be my fave. My other two are the letter writing episode that gives me super nostalgic warm and fuzzies, and a day in the life I have listened to all of these more than once when I need something calming to listen to, and it's so interesting to all of us that of all the I like to call them sexy episodes we've had, like the really popular, good ones, like an interview with Sean Cassidy, perhaps conversations about blockbuster movies like purple rain or Saturday Night Fever yacht rock was a really big one. These are all like our sexy episodes, right? People love those episodes, but of all of those, the episode people tell us, time and time again is their favorite, is the one where we just took a day in the life of each of us in fifth grade, and we just described it from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed. And that's crazy, but
Kristin Nilsen 41:53
people so love that it was so very unexpected, because it wasn't about a celebrity or a pop culture nugget, it was about us, and we worried that no one would care, and we were wrong. We were so wrong. So like Michelle said, A Day in the Life. We walked the listeners through one day in our lives as fifth graders, which all took place at different times. Yeah, it was one year for Carolyn, it was one year for
Michelle Newman 42:17
me, it was one year and it returned. We actually, when we went into that episode, remember we thought it was going was going to be like, Oh, I remember who I'm going to talk about, who my teacher was, and what maybe I had in my lunchbox, and what I did after school, and if I went to dance class. And when we each started writing it down, it turned really poignant for all three of us. I got very personal all of a sudden. I was talking about, you know, my stepfather and my sister, maybe arguing at the dinner table, you know, and me with my stomach and knots, trying to please everybody. I mean, it was sort of like a little bit of therapy for all but all three of us shared very kind of poignant moments taking ourselves back to
Kristin Nilsen 42:56
that that I think is the secret sauce, yeah, I think the response that we got to that episode speaks to why we found a loyal audience, because it was very personal. And in each of our personal stories, people found their own stories. So everybody found somebody or something to identify with in our day in fifth grade, whether it was Carolyn and Kristen racing through the SRA reading quizzes as fast as we could to get to the next color you got to get to Aqua.
Carolyn Cochrane 43:26
Olive was a big one too. I can't remember the order,
Kristin Nilsen 43:29
but we should do it again. We should that's out there. We should get it or maybe it was Michelle playing flower shop after school. Listeners thought that our day sounded an awful lot like their day, and we often hear from listeners who say that they identify with one of us most strongly, and I think that's probably because something came out of our mouths that mirrors their own experience. So I got an incredible note, handwritten note from a listener named Liz who heard me talk about my love for Francis, the little badger in bedtime for Francis, a bargain for Francis, a birthday for Francis that was in our picture books episode, and she wrote to me and told me that she used to pretend to be Francis, and she even ran away to underneath her dining room table, just like Francis did. But I think the one that was most moving, the most moving message that we got from somebody ever saying that they were identifying strongly with one of us was from Andy Gibb's daughter Peeta. It was really, it was very emotional. Actually, she talked about how she felt so seen by Michelle, because Michelle's relationship with her father was one of longing, of not enough. It was very elusive. It was very complicated. And that was what PETA was feeling about her own father Andy Gibb I mean, that just stops you in your tracks for a little bit. And that's when we started to understand that we were doing something that wasn't just do it in your neighbor's butt.
Michelle Newman 45:02
Me, it was Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 45:07
and we hear a lot from people whose families mirror one of ours, and we talk about our families because we're talking about our growing up, and we often talk about how much we moved, and it's not very often. I mean, we all move. Everybody moves, and we all moved our kids every it's just something we all have to do, but we are able to go back in time and talk about how those moves were difficult for us. I was the new kid. I didn't have any friends yet. It was Halloween, so I didn't have anyone to go trick or treating with. And so a lot of people are picking up on that because it mirrors their own experience. So it's it's interesting, you we do this funny little podcast, but it's not unusual to hear from people who are going through something difficult. And Mark D'Amico said, Your episodes are so much more than nostalgia, the deep dives, the details you unearth, the joy and often sadness that you feel is palpable. I have turned to you in times of duress to bring me back down to earth. You three are like friends that I get to visit once a week, and that is more than I see any other friend. I have been with you since day one, and I am not going to leave you. We love you from the bottom of our bell bottomed hearts. I love that. And Mark's favorite episodes were about Christmas specials. And there's still an ongoing dispute about which is the worst Christmas special of all time? Is it the Star Wars Christmas or is it the Dance Fever Christmas special? And here's what Tracy said about her favorite episode, the episode about all the books we read in the 80s. Introduced me to you, and I'm hooked. I knew I'd found my people when I heard you talk about Jacob. Have I loved so? Jacob? So Jacob have I loved is one of the very first young adult books. I think it's from 1981 written by Katherine Patterson. It's about twin sisters who are coming of age on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. And I loved it, and so did my friend Colleen. And so when Colleen and I went on a college road trip with our friend Martha. We went to an island off the coast of South Carolina, which looked exactly how this island and Jacob have I loved was described. And we we lost our minds. Colleen and I lost our minds. We're like, Oh my God. Look. It's just like, Jacob have I loved. And this broke Martha. It broke her. And she went, Jacob, faith, love Jacob. And I just remember her like turning around in the car, just going, Jacob. And I was like, is she book, man? But it's just so funny when sometimes you can drop one reference, but it triggers something in somebody else. They forgot they had read Jacob. Have I loved and they loved it?
Carolyn Cochrane 47:46
Well, the next comment has to do with maybe one of the highest highlights for me of this whole podcast journey. And this comment comes from someone named Michelle, not that Michelle. And this Michelle
Michelle Newman 47:58
19 719, late 60s. Your name?
Carolyn Cochrane 48:01
Yes, that's right, we were talking about this earlier with some of our friends here. There are some definite Gen X names, and they're all followers, the Jennifer's and the Michelles, Amy's, Jenny's and, yeah, the Christie's. Well, this Michelle wrote A friend sent me your link after my impulse blurt at the free to be you and me sing along with Marlo Thomas, earned me a mention on your show. I have been enjoying you guys so much, even if my sister is getting sick of me constantly sending her nostalgia photos from your posts, I hear the term hoosker Dude being thrown around, and I understand it in context, but would love to hear how this term came into being. We're going to get to the hoosker Dude part in a minute, but first I want to walk you through the free to be you and me event last April. That's where we met Michelle. And if you follow us or listen, you know that the three of us went to the Eric Carl Museum of picture book art, where they had had an exhibit of the free to be you and me, art from the Marlo Thomas book and from the TV special. And we were asked why the museum if we would come to their last day of the exhibit. And there was going to be a sing along. Sing along. We were there. We were there. And we had some listeners, some here in the audience that flew from here to Massachusetts to see, well, I guess to see that. So anyway, it was a pretty powerful moment, and I'm going to share with you what I share with our listeners in our recap episode of this visit, because it affected me so deeply, and I hope you'll humor me by listening to this a little bit long, but it really kind of sums up what that trip was about. I am not exaggerating when I say that this past weekend was a spiritual experience for me. There were super sized Manilow moments. And innumerable zaps of joy. I wish there was some kind of instrument out there that could measure the energy that was created by the collective joy that was being alchemized in that auditorium. I wish I could have it bottled up, and I've taken it home with me between the rally on Saturday and hanging out by a fire with followers and the colonial and every single second of our experience on Sunday at that museum, I know with 100% certainty, without a doubt everybody that no politician, no ego maniacal jerk, no idiotic government policy can take away what I experienced. There's no version of artificial intelligence that could ever recreate the energy and the connectedness of those moments that we shared with new friends and perfect strangers. That magic is not for sale. It cannot be purchased. It cannot be taken away from from us. It's available to everyone, if we are just willing to look. And my quick lessons that I can share with you guys for where to look for this. You don't have to travel to Massachusetts. You can find it because life is really all about the connections. It's about your connections with others, as well as being the catalyst of connecting others with each other. I cannot begin to describe the overwhelming joy of witnessing friendships being formed this weekend and knowing that we were the reason that these people were meeting each other. And I want you all to look for opportunities to experience others, experiencing joy, witnessing that auditorium full of people with arms around each other, strangers and friends, singing and crying, singing the words like, take my hand and we'll be where the children are free. And we were doing that. Those moments are the glimpses into what heaven on earth meets watching Michelle come with emotion as Marlo Thomas autographs her free to be human being. Seeing Michelle read that message that Marlo Thomas wrote to her was priceless. Witnessing Kristen getting to belt out her sad and grumpy down in the Dumpy with an auditorium full of people. There are no words that can describe these moments, except maybe this, what I felt was a deep, peaceful connectedness and a deep, peaceful contentedness, annoying in my bones. This feeling is what life is all about. Okay, yeah, that was a little much, okay,
Michelle Newman 52:22
a little much, but seriously, I should run for office. We need that. But it was so beautiful. And are so beautifully, said Carolyn, because you put into words what all of us there, yeah, what we were all feeling, but it's also, it's just, it's just such a basic truth that that connection, right, yeah, could solve so much.
Carolyn Cochrane 52:48
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a pretty powerful moment. And, yeah, and that's what this podcast has been able to provide for us. And like I said, it's not, you don't have to go to, you know, Massachusetts, to a museum to find these things. They're right around us. And again, they can't be bought, and no one can take them from us. You just need to keep an eye out for them.
Kristin Nilsen 53:09
And poor Carolyn, after she recorded that, she the next day, she's like, I should really re record that, because I cried through the whole thing. And we were like, No, you were not re recording that. But I remember
Carolyn Cochrane 53:21
also there was a lot of I edited. A lot of the snot out
Michelle Newman 53:26
there was. I also remember when we were recording that we each had said, Okay, let's come to the recording with how this trip and because also you guys, Marlo Thomas just starts walking down the hall, and we were like, wait, I think that's Marlo Thomas. I think that little lady is, you know, and we have video of the three of us, and I got to tell Marlo Thomas how much free to be you and me meant to us. It was incredible. So we come to the episode with at the very end. Let's all maybe say how, how this visit impacted us. Okay, so we get to that point, we're like, Carolyn, you go first. And Carolyn comes out with what y'all just heard, and she's done. And Kristen and I looked at each other, and we're like, we're done. That's it. Let's wrap it up. Let's go to the toaster.
Unknown Speaker 54:24
I like, look at what I wrote. And I was like,
Kristin Nilsen 54:26
No, it was good. Yeah.
Michelle Newman 54:29
Do you want to explain real quickly what hoosker do?
Kristin Nilsen 54:32
Okay, so who screw do? Michelle asked about what hoosker do is she understood it in context, and she even gave us some ideas. And yes, Michelle, you are correct. It is a term that comes from the game that you had in the 1970s called hoosker do. It was a memory game. It also does come from the the 80s thrash punk band, hoosker do. So she's right about that, but the way that we use it is, it's a term that we. Use to refer to a moment when you were come face to face with something that you haven't even thought about since 1975 like it was gone. It was buried so deep in there you had no idea. And then somebody was like Weeble Wobbles. And you go, I haven't thought about weeble wobble since 1975 that's it's also a Swedish word for, do you remember? And that's that we tried last night to find the episode very first time where we said, we need a word for this phenomenon when you come when you're smacked in the face with something you've forgotten about. And a listener named Gail commented somewhere and said, I think you should use the term hoosker do so Gail is the one responsible for that. We literally spent an hour last night scrolling, looking for when we
Michelle Newman 55:50
loaded first 1000s of Instagram posts. We went through 1000s, because we post every single day, and we started, we went all the way to the to the first Instagram post, which was in October of 2020, and we started scrolling, and we scrolled through two years of posts, and we couldn't find it.
Kristin Nilsen 56:07
And then I didn't tell you this today, but today, today, on this day, the day that we're celebrating our fifth anniversary. This happens to us all the time. I think we're witches. I listen on Saturday mornings. I listen to a show called teenage kicks on the current you can stream it at the current.org and on teenage kicks, they play songs that one would hear when they were teenagers. And today they were featuring the music of hoosker do today. When was the last time you heard a hoosker do song? I'm not looking at you Mike, because you probably did it yesterday. When was the last time
Michelle Newman 56:42
you has AirPods in right now? Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, we're going to share a comment from someone, another person who has been a listener since day one, and such a huge cheerleader for us. And that's our friend Shane. He started calling our listeners Pop Tarts early on, which we think is super cute. He sent us this sweet message. He said, I have thought long and hard about what my favorite episode would be, and I can't decide on just one. Each episode is like a conversation with friends, and for the most part, like our closest friendships, those conversations run together and leave heartfelt feelings instead of exact details, I am truly fortunate to have found three new friendships based on similar 50 year old memories the superpower of these three brilliant witches love that is Creating an amazing community, a community that is appreciated and needed at this point in history, I so enjoy communicating with my like minded Instagram friends and even a few live ones my friends. Congrats on the milestone. Much love. And as a wise man once said, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching
Kristin Nilsen 58:00
and Shane is like our he's like our watchdog, he's like our Protector. And when I said that, we have nice followers and commenters, no joke, we have such a clean Instagram account. There are no trolls. There are no assholes that show up in that account. And it's in this day and age. How does that even happened. It's unbelievable. And I think in the very beginning somebody got a little dickish in there, and Shane was on that person so fast and shut it down, yeah? And it's never happened again.
Michelle Newman 58:34
No, we were like, he's our security too, yeah, but even the really bad comment wasn't terrible. But he was like, I don't like, I don't like him talking to you, to you guys like that. I'm not gonna, you know, stand for that.
Kristin Nilsen 58:46
And so it's really remarkable how kind, and we get lots of comments. The engagement is really good. It's unbelievable how kind all these people are. It's really amazing. Another person who has been with us from the very beginning is Sherry from Massachusetts, and she says, as the PCPs number one fan, I have so much to say in honor of your fifth anniversary, I discovered the PCPs in 2021 that was a lonely time for me with pandemic induced anxiety having narrowed my world and also dealing with an empty nest. But then I found you like minded friends with whom I could spend time on my neighborhood walks wrapping me in a warm embrace of sweet and soothing 70s nostalgia. I remember when you surpassed 1000 followers on Instagram, and today you have over 37,000 and now you have brought me many like minded friends, both online and in real life. I'm so proud of you and your hard work, and now I'll end this tribute with my apple podcast review from October 2021, and she says, I am not alone. There are people out there like me, and they make this gem of a podcast. The topics and their chemistry together are wicked groovy. You had me at swooner or later, swooner or later, of course, is a refer. Points to our episode on the made for TV movie sooner or later, starring Rex Smith and that girl from fish, featuring the song, you take my breath away.
Speaker 1 1:00:11
And I don't know what to say.
Michelle Newman 1:00:17
You know, what's really cool is, like I said, Shane referenced it. Sherry referenced it. We have a lot of people that have become friends through commenting on Instagram posts or meeting up. And they met because one of them commented on, you know, I don't know, post about the Fisher Price a frame and and then the other ones start and they start talking back and forth, and then over time, have become friends in real life that now do stuff together. Travel together, you know, go to events together. Go to several of them on the East Coast. All met up to go to the Sean Cassidy concert. Last month,
Kristin Nilsen 1:00:57
they met at a book event for a worldwide crush at a goat farm in Maine, sunflower farm Creamery in Maine. And as you heard Sherry say, she was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time, and she really had difficulty driving just a few miles from her house, but she wanted to go see us at this book event for worldwide crush in Maine, which was a few hours. And when we saw Sherry drive that car in knowing she had gotten over her anxiety to drive three hours. We were jumping. We were like the parents so happy. And at that event, she met more in person friends that now we're going to her with concerts all over New England. Yeah, and she was at the free to be you and me event with those people too, yeah, just really, yeah, no.
Michelle Newman 1:01:42
It's amazing. It is. It's very fun. Took me
Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:01
long rocky beaches. We started we start a story.
Michelle Newman 1:02:05
So Joanna and Laura, the next two, I'm going to read these two comments came to us from Patreon. They're patrons. Joanna says it's a Sophie's Choice. I can't possibly choose a favorite episode. With each episode, the conversations deepened and we're so earnest. I am always talking to you and with you each and every time we find that a lot. And Laura Larson said, Absolutely, my favorite has to be the episode where you talked about going to visit the Brady Bunch house. It was so exciting to hear your stories about it all and see the photos later about it all too that that that was just a year ago. It was last September. We were just fortunate enough to go to the the Brady Bunch house. It's an exact replica. The exterior shot is an actual home in Burbank, and they've now made the inside look exactly, exactly. If you guys remember the HGTV show, that's where they originally did it. We've now become friends. Carolyn, very good friends. Now, if you wanted, yeah, with the owner, we will, for sure, be doing more events. They're hoping to in 2026 for sure, that was one of the coolest things. I think, I think if you would have told us five years ago that we would have been hanging out in the Brady Bunch house, that would have blown our minds. But now to know that anytime we want to go back and have other people come with us, we can, that was such an incredible experience.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:03:30
And walking through that door into that, I mean, that door we've all just talk about, yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 1:03:39
walking into your TV, and walking
Carolyn Cochrane 1:03:42
up to the house, she's starting to cry already. I mean, we're all like, you can sell like
Michelle Newman 1:03:49
has bought the exact replicas, the exact make, the exact model of the cars, and those are parked in front. It was so cool. You can if you go on our Instagram, it's pinned at the top a really cute reel of us at the Brady Bunch house. So that was, yeah, I'm glad Laura mentioned that, because that was,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:04:10
yep, Michelle, I know Heather, you know this and you know this, but I don't think I've told thanks a lot. Heather knows. I'm pretty sure I said that. Maybe I saw this before you got there. But anyway, long story short is I landed. I flew from Pennsylvania here, obviously, and turn on my phone as soon as I land. And I have several text messages from Tina, the owner of the Brady Bunch house. And if you follow us at all on social media, you might have seen that recently, the home was being looked at to become a la historical cultural landmark, and it had to go before the cultural commission of the LA City Council. And I get these series of texts from Tina, and one of them is, would you like to join the LA City Council? Meeting virtually and speak about how important the house was to you. I didn't do it because I had to get writing group with you guys, but I thought, In what world am I being asked to speak city council about how special the Brady Bunch house was, and I have good news to report. It passed the first thing yesterday, so now it is on to the next level, and so it might get a little plaque and everything. Yeah, yeah. Pretty fun. So, yeah, all right. Well, another comment we got from a friend we have now been able to meet in real life. Erin, lives in North Dakota, right? And is a professor. She sent a message to us, and she said, again, like a lot of people, oh, gosh, how to choose. I love the episodes that do a deep dive into a film series. Purple Rain and little darlings are two of my favorites. I'm also jazzed that my comments and voice have been shared on a few episodes. But I think I was most excited for you when you got to host the event where you all met Jimmy and Christy McNichol. Christopher Atkins and Wesley yer. It was such a kick to hear your reactions. And like Joanna said, I'm forever talking to you and with you on so many parts of your episode, you have created such an incredible, incredible community, and I'm thrilled to be part of it. Yeah, talk about surreal. I tell you
Michelle Newman 1:06:19
what everything we've ever done that teen dinner where I sat next to Christy McNichol at dinner I will never I still am not sure it happened like and then Carolyn's big crush, James Vincent McNichol, look over and he's just got his arm around her, putting his number in her phone right now.
Kristin Nilsen 1:06:46
He's like, I'll give you, I'll give him. And he's putting, he put his number in, and Carolyn grabs my arm like this, yeah, I thought she hurt me.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:06:57
I bet really, I still feel really bad things. I just I didn't know what to do. And it was I was showing him this picture on my phone that my sister had sent me, and we refer to it in an episode, I'm sleeping in my bed, and I have, like this, my National Honor Society, like certificate, the crucifix, and then all these pictures of Jimmy mcnick
Michelle Newman 1:07:19
describes who Carolyn was at that age so perfectly,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:23
Jesus and Jimmy, yeah, so I'm showing him that, and I think that's when he, like, grabbed the phone. And just for those of you didn't know, we were asked to emcee this dinner, which minute, yeah, it was crazy. That was really crazy, and it was in California. So that's how we ended up in this situation where we got to, yeah, hang out. And then we didn't a so I was running around with this microphone to in the audience, like I was Oprah,
Michelle Newman 1:07:49
okay, we'll come Chris, because, you know, we can. He had already been on the podcast, and then at the end of the night, he's like, oh, there's my Charlie's Angels. And you're just sort of like, did Christopher Atkins just call us his Charlie's Angels? Yeah. It was really very surreal, yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 1:08:18
And then we heard from Lisa, who's in the front row, and Lisa provided bullet points, which was so great. And she says, our trip to the Eric Carl museum for the free to be you and me event has to be my favorite. I will also always imagine Kristen leading the no kings march in the park across the street from the boltwood Inn, leading it, leading our visit to the Eric Carolyn museum coincided with the first no kings event, and it just happened to be taking place outside our hotel, like in the park right across and the mayor of the town was trying to encourage people to, like, march around the square. Nobody was doing it. So I'm like, come on. It was definitely memorable. And Lisa says she loved the episode with Anne Moses, who is the editor of Tiger Beat magazine. At the age of 21 she loved Anne's book and loved getting to talk with her on one of our zoom happy hours. And this is in this happy hour is where Anne revealed that she had a very secret love affair. Should we reveal it? Yes, we could, with Morris Gibb I know, I know, Lisa goes on to say, love the community you've built for all of us. Congrats on the five years, and cheers to the next five thanks. Thank you so much.
Michelle Newman 1:09:40
Singing. And of course, when we first met Sean, that would be Sean Cassidy, our listeners were so thrilled for us and Mary Beth, who's also here. In the first row left, said my favorite episode is Sean Cassidy, he was so calm and so normal and happy to talk with you guys. Your whole thing makes me smile. I love this part. Mary Beth, she said, this isn't the cool girl lunch table. It's the fun girl lunch table. I know I can come sit with you three, and you'll scooch over and let me in scrolling through your Instagram feed just lowers my blood pressure and gives me smiles. And it's true. Did you guys know that nine out of 10 doctors agree social media page is really good, yeah. But for real, getting Sean Cassidy to come on and chat with us and have such a deep and meaningful and thoughtful conversation, which was kind of unexpected, was insane. We often are like, go back and tell your 1978 self that you know, Sean Cassidy just sent me a private DM telling me happy birthday or whatever.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:11:05
It's crazy. I mean, he's the real person, yeah, for sure, yeah. And I think we were surprised. He sees us as professionals. I mean, I don't think you know we're not throwing our bras at him or whatever. We asked really good questions when we met, when we mean it well.
Michelle Newman 1:11:18
And that's what I think we're about to hear too, is he's going to say something that he he said in our episode with him, which was in June 2023, so a little over two years ago now, and basically he's going to speak what I'm speaking to about how it's It's surreal, but it's normal. And I don't know we like to think that this conversation was a catalyst for this North American tour he's on right now.
Speaker 3 1:11:44
Hi. This is Sean Cassidy, and you were listening to the pop culture Preservation Society with Kristen and Carolyn and Michelle and Sean Cassidy, which is not one word. Sean Cassidy, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:02
So you guys, was never okay. So here's another just little this is
Kristin Nilsen 1:12:06
me introducing him. Yes, unbeknownst to him, he is the reason this podcast exists, and he has inspired at least one novel. It is beyond surreal for me to utter the words Sean Cassidy, welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society. I'm 57 years old, but when he says, My name, you just go.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:34
He says, Thank you, Kristen.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:37
So yeah, why don't introduce
Kristin Nilsen 1:12:38
the last so then this last part, why don't you introduce don't you introduce so this next clip is just really important, because it it speaks to the reason he came on our podcast. It is the basis, the foundation of why we needed to talk to him, and we believe it is the reason that he is now on tour. He's not in the spotlight anymore. Oprah is having her very last season of episodes, and she has invited Sean Cassidy to come on the show. And he's like, no, why do you want me? I'm an old man. And he went, and they
Speaker 3 1:13:16
asked if I'd sing on the show, which I hadn't done. So I said, Well, get me a little piano. I'll just do kind of what I do in my living room at Christmas, you know, and and I loved it. But most importantly, again, your question, Kristen, I walked out on the stage, and there you all were, except you in your mid 40s or whatever, a throng of women and some men who had been Hardy Boys fans or whatever, but I suddenly saw this look in the faces of the audience that felt so authentic and pure I could not be cynical about Whatever effect I had on these adults when they were kids, and I realized that I'd had the same feeling, and felt like we'd had a shared experience that was unfinished and needed resolution somehow, and I didn't know that until that Moment,
Kristin Nilsen 1:14:19
yeah, can you hear us, and they're going,
Speaker 4 1:14:21
Yeah, gasping on the subject that you're talking about, Sean Cassidy. So I've been listening to songs, yeah, getting ready for tomorrow. And in that song, my first crush, I was listening to it, your podcast episode about the book, yeah, where you know, you talk about the importance if there's questions what they mean, you'd have, like, a child psychologist down or whatever, yeah. How is that all stitched together? Because that lyric in his song,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:48
we know, when I heard him sing that in real life, in my friends do just what you did, they're like, that's those are Kristen's words right out of that podcast and from that. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what it felt like to me, but I didn't know what came first. We're gonna say us.
Kristin Nilsen 1:15:05
I think, Well, I think it's a symbiotic relationship, right? Like we our conversations inspire our creativity. And I think he, he had certain feelings that he revealed right there that were supported by the things that we said and and he it validated for him what he what he was feeling. And so I think chicken or the egg doesn't really matter as much, but he could run with it. When he heard what we said, he was like, let's go.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:32
I think when you gave it like, these aren't silly little that's what he says in that song. These aren't throw away silly things. These crushes, that they're kind of your, you know, springboard into what's next. And he kind of says that, which I think, I think that came from you personally. I mean,
Speaker 4 1:15:50
in my mind, he was listening to that episode, and he got inspired by you and wrote that
Kristin Nilsen 1:15:54
song, yeah, and it would be the greatest honor, wouldn't it? Because it's like, it's acknowledging an important part of your growing up. It means that the things that you experienced when you were growing up were important, even if people were even if your parents thought it was silly. So this song that we're talking about, it's a new song by Sean Cassidy called my first crush.
Speaker 5 1:16:17
Post a buzz and pin up girls relics in a modern world, pictures in a scrapbook fading fast, but scotch tape heroes like the fire pave the way for true desire and gift us with a present from our past. My first crush is a starry night.
Michelle Newman 1:16:40
Well at the beginning of this episode, I spoke about our initial why, how it was our intention to spark connection and joy through all of these shared memories. And over the past five years, we've gotten countless messages from listeners who tell us how they save our episodes to listen to while they're in chemo, how it's gotten them through a divorce. And like this comment, I'm going to read that we just got from Christina, who is one of our patrons, the death of a parent. Christina Marshall said, I found the podcast in 2023 after the loss of my dad, when I was searching for the comfort of nostalgia, you gave me that and more. You don't know it, but this year, you walked alongside me during my mother's final illness and passing. Thanks so much for a weekly dose of joy. I knew that no matter what else was happening, I could count on a reason to smile on Mondays. I'll always be grateful to you for helping me focus on the happy memories of growing up in the 70s and 80s. You guys this. This is our why in real life, and after the loss of my own mother just a year ago, I now get more than ever how sitting with these memories brings a comfort and a unique kind of peace. We feel so, so honored to provide that comfort, that peace and that joy to others. Do you guys? I think, I think our work here is done
Kristin Nilsen 1:18:17
for the first time ever. We will do this face to face with our listeners with champagne in hand, everybody, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Three's Company and our Godfather, Sean Cassidy, and the beloved listeners and supporters of the pop culture Preservation Society. Two good times,
Michelle Newman 1:18:34
two Happy Days, Two Little
Carolyn Cochrane 1:18:37
House on the Prairie. Cheers. Everyone. Cheers. Cheers,
Kristin Nilsen 1:18:45
happy. Fifth, the information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin and May the Force Be With You. You.