PM does a pop culture draft: 1999 edition

Summary

Planet Money: PM Does a Pop Culture Draft — 1999 Edition

Podcast: Planet Money (NPR)
Episode Date: December 17, 2025
Hosts: Kenny Malone, Waylon Wong, Jeff Guo
Episode Theme: In this special bonus episode, the Planet Money team holds a playful but insightful “pop culture draft,” using an NBA-style draft format to pick their ultimate “Planet Money 1999 pop culture team.” Each pick must connect to both 1999’s pop culture and Planet Money’s focus on the economy—sometimes in surprising ways. The hosts debate, defend, and elaborate on their picks in three rounds: Movie, Song, and Wild Card, discussing both the nostalgia and the economic currents beneath the pop artifacts.

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Main Theme and Purpose

The episode is a mix of fun, nostalgia, and economic analysis:

• Purpose: To draft the most “Planet Money” pop culture lineup of 1999, choosing artifacts (movies, songs, wildcards) that exemplify how economic and societal trends are manifested in culture.
• Unique Angle: Each selection is justified through the lens of economic reasoning, business trends, market disruption, or some aspect of financial or social infrastructure.
• Listener Involvement: The ultimate winner is chosen by the Planet Money audience via vote.

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Episode Structure & Key Discussion Points

1. Draft Format and Rules [04:04]

• Draft Structure: Three rounds per person—each must pick:
  • One movie (from 1999’s top 100 domestic grossing films)
  • One song (from the Billboard Hot 100)
  • One “wild card” (any pop culture artifact from 1999)
• Order Determination: Snake order is set by spinning a color wheel, maximizing fairness and drama.
• Judgment Criteria: The “Planet Money-iest” connection—does it tie back clearly/cleverly to the economy?
• Aims: Elbowing fun and nostalgia with a competitive, yet friendly, spirit.

2. Hosts’ 1999 Contexts [07:30]

• Personal Contexts:
  • Kenny: Age 15, obsessed with Star Wars, not allowed to see R-rated movies.
  • Waylon: Age 17, senior in high school, remembers music and school orchestra performing Star Wars.
  • Jeff: 10 years old, “barely had a childhood,” jokes about being “reconstituted” from powder form.

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The Draft: Picks and Economic Logic

Round 1: Movie Picks

Waylon Wong — The Insider [11:14]

• Why: “Very clearly about business… it is my favorite movie of all time.”
• Economic Connection: Corporate whistleblowing, journalism vs. corporate interests, merger pressures (CBS/Westinghouse case), cyclic corporate influence on media.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “Lawyer me. Are you gonna finesse me?” [13:19, Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace]
  • “If you get mad and you get curious, that's actually a very potent recipe for doing some journalism.” [13:07]
• Tone: Passionate and personal.

Kenny Malone — The Blair Witch Project [14:13]

• Why: “It is still one of the most profitable movies ever made.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Micro-budget film with massive profits (~70k to $248M = 250x return)
  • Sparked a new horror business model (Blumhouse model: low-cost, high-reward), directly cited by Jason Blum.
  • Viral marketing before the concept of “virality” existed.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “How is Blair Witch Project not a Planet Money movie?” [17:01]
• Notable Moment: Discusses physical reactions to the film and the impact of its found-footage style.

Jeff Guo — Pokémon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back [20:16]

• Why: “This was the gateway drug for a lot of people for anime and Japanese culture.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Cross-media synergy (“omnimedia”): games, cards, TV, merchandise, making Pokémon a global cultural and economic juggernaut.
  • Intellectual property as export—early sign of cultural globalization and “K-popification” of entertainment.
  • Outsized box office performance, beating adult “prestige” titles.
• Notable Quote:
  • “Culture, intellectual property—a big deal, a big economic deal. And it comes from all over.” [21:49]

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Round 2: Song Picks

Jeff Guo — Backstreet Boys: “I Want It That Way” [24:35]

• Economic Connection:
  • “Height of the boy band economy.”
  • Illustrates “comparative advantage” in labor economics—the right band member for the right musical skill.
  • Lyrics as semiotically unstable: confusion (“What does ‘I Want It That Way’ actually mean?”) reflecting modern uncertainty and complexity in markets/media.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “You can really see an illustration of the concept of comparative advantage… each person should do what they are best at compared to their own skills.” [26:25]
  • “These lyrics… they're very semiotically open, right? Like epistemologically unstable.” [29:23]
• Fun: Serious econ theory applied humorously to manufactured pop.

Kenny Malone — Destiny's Child: “Bills, Bills, Bills” [30:28]

• Why: “An ode to financial responsibility.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Lyrics about financial boundaries, credit, and personal responsibility in relationships.
  • Reflects the rising importance (and pitfalls) of credit cards in late-90s America.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “Most 18 year olds are not thinking about FICO scores. This is amazing.” [31:41]
  • “Bills, bills, bills would not have made sense 10 years prior.” [32:18]

Waylon Wong — TLC: “No Scrubs” [33:01]

• Why: “It speaks to broader dynamics we see in marriage rates, especially across socioeconomic classes.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Scrubs as “deadbeat” partners—a metaphor for growing economic inequality and its social consequences, including shifting marriage patterns.
  • Gender roles, labor, and rising rates of women staying single rather than “marrying down.”
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “I think this song speaks to broader dynamics… marriage rates have been going down as you go down the income ladder.” [34:02]
  • Compares “risk avoidance” (No Scrubs) to the “bad outcome” (Bills, Bills, Bills) [36:21]
• Notable: Continued relevance, even 25 years on.

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Round 3: Wild Card Picks

Waylon Wong — House Hunters (TV Show debut) [37:47]

• Why: “Really changed our entire relationship as a culture with one of the most important sectors of the economy.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Fostered the national obsession with real estate, home ownership, and “Zillow stalking.”
  • Influenced design trends and the “American dream” narrative of ownership.
  • “I think without House Hunters, you might not get Zillow stalking, you might not get this obsession with… judging people’s aesthetic choices.” [38:13]
• Notable Moment: Discussion of mortgage rates in the 1990s and cultural obsession with open floor plans, judging people's taste, etc.

Kenny Malone — Whoopi Goldberg’s commercial for Flooz.com [40:09]

• Why: “A commercial for a company that I think you could argue just sort of is the dot com bubble.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Flooz.com as a “digital currency” before crypto, but built for online shopping (early digital payment experiments).
  • Symbolic of dot-com excess, fads, and ultimate bust (bankruptcy after a credit card scam).
  • Direct echo with recent crypto craze and celebrity endorsements: “There’s Larry David, like, promoting crypto…”
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “So I draft not the whole dot com bubble, right? But I do… Whoopi Goldberg in a flooz commercial telling people they're old and should buy digital currency.” [42:45]
  • “You flew. You lose. That's what happened.” [44:57—Waylon Wong’s pun]

Jeff Guo — Napster (the music file-sharing platform) [45:20]

• Why: “In a way, I’m picking all of the songs. The sum total of songery in 1999 was on Napster.”
• Economic Connection:
  • Fundamentally disrupted the music industry’s economics, leading to iPod, streaming, collapse of the traditional recording industry, and new touring-oriented artist models.
  • Democratized access to music and music production (pirated software enabled a generation of bedroom producers/DJs).
  • “Napster allowed us to seize the means, both of production and reproduction.” [47:21]
• Notable Quotes:
  • “Without Napster, we would not have the ipod. Without Napster, we wouldn't have Spotify.” [45:11]

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Audience Voting and Winner Reveal

• Voting: Listeners (Planet Money+ supporters) voted for who drafted the best Planet Money 1999 pop culture team.
• Result:
  • Winner — Waylon Wong (by a landslide)
  • 2nd place — Jeff Guo
  • 3rd place — Kenny Malone (“I do blame Flooz for that. I think I tanked it with Flooz.” [54:14])
  • Waylon’s Victory Quote: "Thanks so much for believing in me and my picks… I hope maybe I inspired some people to go watch [The Insider] who haven't seen it before." [53:57]

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Notable Quotes & Fun Moments

• On Drafting Strategy:

  • “This is the sportiest I’ve ever been. I’ve never done such a sports-adjacent thing.” — Waylon Wong [03:33]
  • “This is giving me a lot of insight into what your potential picks might be.” — Jeff Guo [08:54]

• Cultural/Economic Theory Mashups:

  • “Comparative advantage just means each person should do the thing that they are best at compared to their own skills… If you look at the song…” — Jeff Guo, applying econ theory to boy bands [26:25]
  • “It feels free.” — Waylon Wong, on streaming in the post-Napster era [46:21]

• Pop Criticism & Satire:

  • “Fight Club really represents the pinnacle of Gen X culture where, oh my god, the worst thing that could happen to me in life is that I have a regular degular job.” — Jeff Guo [49:57]

• Callbacks & In-Jokes:

  • “You flew, you lose.” — Waylon Wong on the fate of Flooz.com [44:57]
  • “Lawyer me. Are you gonna finesse me?” — Channeling Insider’s Mike Wallace [13:19]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:04] — Draft format/rules explained
• [07:30] — Hosts describe their 1999 selves
• [11:14] — 1st movie picks begin (The Insider)
• [14:13] — Blair Witch Project pick & horror business discussion
• [20:16] — Jeff's Pokémon Movie pick & IP global export analysis
• [24:35] — Song picks commence: "I Want It That Way" and labor econ
• [30:28] — Bills, Bills, Bills: credit, responsibility, relationships
• [33:01] — No Scrubs: socioeconomic analysis of marriage and attraction
• [37:47] — Wild card picks start: House Hunters and the home buying obsession
• [40:09] — Flooz.com, dot com bubble, and precursors to crypto fads
• [45:20] — Napster: the music industry turned upside down
• [53:57] — Winner announcement, with Waylon thanking supporters

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Recap of Winners’ Teams

Waylon Wong

• Movie: The Insider
• Song: No Scrubs (TLC)
• Wild Card: House Hunters (TV show)
• Theme: Corporate whistleblowing, class & gender in relationships, the real estate dream.

Kenny Malone

• Movie: The Blair Witch Project
• Song: Bills, Bills, Bills (Destiny’s Child)
• Wild Card: Flooz.com commercial (Whoopi Goldberg)
• Theme: Micro-budget disruption, personal finance in song, the folly of dot-com get-rich-quick schemes.

Jeff Guo

• Movie: Pokémon: The First Movie — Mewtwo Strikes Back
• Song: I Want It That Way (Backstreet Boys)
• Wild Card: Napster
• Theme: Global pop culture as economic force, economic theory in entertainment, digital disruption.

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Final Thoughts

• Nostalgia and Economics Collide: The episode is a clever showcase of how the economic undercurrents of an era surface through pop culture, and how analytical frameworks can offer both humor and insight into nostalgia.
• Listener Participation: The format encourages listeners to reconsider old favorites through an economic lens (and to debate what makes an artifact “Planet Money worthy”).
• Recurring Joke: Flooz.com as Kenny’s undoing and a symbol of dot-com excess; Waylon’s rage-as-journalism thesis.

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Suggested Follow-Ups

• Listeners are invited to suggest a year for next season’s pop culture draft.
• Sign up for Planet Money+ for more bonus content.

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For fans of Planet Money, this episode is a must-listen for fun and insight—especially for anyone who lived through (or just loves) 1999.

Transcript

[Waylon Wong]

Support for npr. And the following message come from freshworks.

[Jeff Guo]

Who believes complexity is the enemy of efficiency.

[Waylon Wong]

Stop wrestling with bloated, expensive software, uncomplicate with fresh service for it and fresh desk for customer support.

[Jeff Guo]

Learn [e-mail] this is Planet Money from NPR.

[Kenny Malone]

Hey, Kenny Malone here, interrupting to some degree your regularly scheduled Planet Money programming because what we have today is a special episode. It's a a sample of one of our recent bonus episodes. You can think of this as a fun little holiday treat made up of some economic insights, sprinkles of pop culture nostalgia and everyone's favorite holiday time competition. A little good natured elbowing between Planet Money hosts. But look, this is the kind of bonus content that you can get when you join Planet Money plus, if you're already signed up, thank you truly. But if you haven't joined, here is how you can get more content like this. Just check out the link below in the episode notes. And with that, here you go. Enjoy. Here, dear listener, Planet Money plus listener is a short list of movies that came out in the year 1999. All kinds of movies that people still talk about today. We're talking the Matrix. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around the Sixth Sense. I want to tell you my secret now. The Blair Witch Project. Fight Club. You do not talk about fight Club.

[Waylon Wong]

The fame thing isn't really real.

[Kenny Malone]

Notting Hill, Star wars, the Phantom Menace.

[Waylon Wong]

Now this is pod racing.

[Kenny Malone]

Being John Malkovich. Malkovich. Malkovich. 1999 is widely considered to be one of the best, possibly the best year ever for movies. But. But was 1999 also the greatest year in economic movies and pop culture? That's what we're here to settle today. Hello and welcome Planet Money plus listeners to the first inaugural Planet Money pop culture draft. Joining me today on draft day are my colleagues Jeff Guo and Waylon Wong. Are you ready for this, Waylon and Jeff?

[Waylon Wong]

Oh my gosh, I've been training.

[Jeff Guo]

Absolutely not.

[Waylon Wong]

Cue the TR Training montage.

[Kenny Malone]

We just did a movie montage. We don't have time for another montage.

[Waylon Wong]

Way you can just picture it then, it happened off screen.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, now we are trying something new for us. In today's bonus episode, we're going to go back to the year 1999 and each of us is going to draft a team of pop culture. Like, you know how an NBA team drafts players. We're going to be doing this with a Planet Money lens, though. Who can draft the most Planet Money team of pop culture artifacts from the year 1999. Now, what does it mean to draft a Planet Money team? Well, well, that is kind of for each of us to argue in our case. Like, have we drafted a movie that is obviously about economics? Or maybe we've drafted a song that is emblematic of a. Of a much bigger business trend. Each of us will have to make our cases to each other, but more importantly to you, planet money plus listeners. And you will ultimately decide. You will vote on which of us has assembled the ultimate Planet Money 1999 pop culture team.

[Waylon Wong]

This is the sportiest I've ever been. I've never done such a. Such a sports adjacent thing.

[Jeff Guo]

Kenny, I have to say, this is like the third time you've tried to explain the rules to me, and I still don't get why what we're doing here.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, we have tried to explain the rules to Jeff a lot, and luckily we're going to do a video.

[Jeff Guo]

I have so many questions.

[Waylon Wong]

I feel like this is Jeff being purposefully naive so he can wipe the floor with us. I'm suspicious.

[Kenny Malone]

Strategy is beginning.

[Jeff Guo]

I just want to understand the rules. You can't play the game.

[Waylon Wong]

The mind games have started long before we hit record today.

[Kenny Malone]

I will say let's get the rules out of the way then. In case any of you listeners have not heard a podcast using the draft format, we did not invent this. This is a. A widely used thing. It's kind of a way to, like, dive back into a specific year and look for specific stories, revel in the nostalgia a little bit, but also, you know, go deep and compete with each other in a loving, friendly way. No hitting, no biting, just making sure those rules are clear. That is rule number one. Do we understand? Silence. I'm going to take is. Okay, great. Here. Here are the basic rules of the draft. All right, so the draft is made up of three rounds. And over the course of those three rounds, in any order you want, you must select a 1999 movie, a 1999 song, or a 1999 wild card, which is anything in pop culture. And again, it doesn't matter in which round you do it. You just must select one of those things over the course of the draft. Okay? Once a pick is made that is taken off the board, no one else is allowed to draft it. So choose carefully. Exciting things that are obvious. You probably want to choose those first because someone else might get them, and then there are limitations. So for the movie, we each have to choose from the top 100 domestic grossing movies in 1999. These are movies that I Suspect a lot of people will have heard of. We've mentioned some already. You got your Star Wars. You got your Matrix, got your Fight club, and then 97 more. For songs, we can only pick from The Billboard Hot 100 Singles of the year. And just to give listeners a taste, let me put on my Casey Kasem hat here. Counting down the top five Hot 100 songs from 1999. Baby, One More Time, Britney Spears, number four, Heartbreak Hotel, Whitney Houston and collaborators. Number three, angel of Mine by Monica. Number two, no Scrubs by TLC. And the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999, do you believe After Love, after love, after love, Believe by Cher.

[Waylon Wong]

I have such a clear memory of it from that time period and just how it played absolutely everywhere.

[Kenny Malone]

It was everywhere. Okay, so that's movie, song, and then Wild card again. Is anything like. It can be a book. It can be a TV show. It could be another movie, another song. It just needs to be pop culture in 1999, and it needs to be Planet Money in some way, shape, or form. Okay.

[Jeff Guo]

Can it be an object or like.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, you better make the argument that it's pop culture if you're gonna do that phenomenon.

[Waylon Wong]

We'll be the judge of that.

[Jeff Guo]

A meme. A child.

[Waylon Wong]

I'll be the judge of that.

[Kenny Malone]

Jeff, if you want to draft a child, we're gonna have a conversation about how that will work.

[Jeff Guo]

I'll check with legal.

[Kenny Malone]

Do you mostly understand those basic rules? I know Waylon does. I'll just ask Jeff.

[Jeff Guo]

Do you basically get that we're gonna pick things?

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. Okay. That's what I heard.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay, great.

[Waylon Wong]

I cannot wait to see what Jeff's picks are. Cause I'm like, did you come into this world?

[Jeff Guo]

This is one of my culture.

[Waylon Wong]

Cause that's how.

[Jeff Guo]

No, look, guys, I barely had a childhood, so I don't even remember 1999, to be honest. Like, it was before I was reconstituted.

[Kenny Malone]

Jeff was already in the school before.

[Waylon Wong]

You were reconstituted, you said?

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah.

[Waylon Wong]

You were conceived in powder form or something?

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah, so I wasn't even, like, fully hydrated at that point.

[Kenny Malone]

Instaguo. Instaguo. Pore and mix.

[Jeff Guo]

But can I just ask, how old were you all? Are we allowed to say this? Is this, like, not kosher? Like what? Like, I just want to. I just want to get a sense of where you all were in your lives in 1999.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. In 1999, I would have been 15 years old. I was not allowed to see rated R movies yet. I Was very excited to see the new Star wars movie. I had bought all of the Darth Maul action figures ahead of time. And that's kind of where I was. I definitely was hearing Cher.

[Jeff Guo]

What about you, Waylon?

[Waylon Wong]

I was 17. I was a senior in high school. So I remember playing that Britney Spears album on a girls road trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

[Kenny Malone]

So fun.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah. And so I remember that very clearly. I was watching Total Request live on MTV every day after school. And I remember also I was in my community youth orchestra and we got to play Star wars for my, like, senior year spring concert. Like, the original music. And that was so much fun.

[Kenny Malone]

Not Duel of the Face. Not Duel of the Face, but absolute drop dead banger from Fantastic.

[Waylon Wong]

Yes. But, you know, like the main title theme and Imperial March and everything. And so that was like a real kind of career highlight for my high school music career, I will say.

[Kenny Malone]

Sounds like both Waylon and I were super cool in 1999.

[Jeff Guo]

I gotta say, this is giving me a lot of insight into what your potential picks might be. Very helpful information, guys. Thank you.

[Waylon Wong]

What if this is an elaborate mislead, Jeff, you don't know.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, I don't know if this is some. Jeff. All right, Jeff, where were you in 1999?

[Jeff Guo]

Cher.

[Waylon Wong]

Cher.

[Jeff Guo]

I believe I was 10. I don't know. I honestly have no memory of being 10. I don't know where I was. I was in school.

[Waylon Wong]

Were you learning fractions? I feel like I Learned fractions at 10.

[Jeff Guo]

I don't remember. I don't. I truly don't remember.

[Kenny Malone]

Did you read Jeff was learning what fraction of a single star to give Star Wars Phantom Menace? All right, so Jeff was 10 and we were all super cool. I think that's what we just learned. Before we can draft, we do need an order to the draft. Viet Le is going to. Our producer, Viet Le is going to jump in now and give us the draft order. This feels very high stakes to me.

[Waylon Wong]

No whammies, no whammies.

[Kenny Malone]

Viet, can you see the screen or you can't see the screen?

[Jeff Guo]

Let's see. Here we go.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. All right. Viet has pulled up a very fun color wheel, right? So we have all of our names on this wheel. This will determine the draft order. Yeah, this is going to make or break my strategy. So let's. Let's see how this goes.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm so nervous. Oh, my God.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, I'm going to first spin of the wheel. Let's see. No, no, no, Waylon. That's my worst fear. That is My worst fear. Okay, Waylon is the first pick. Okay, next. Next spin.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay, now we're just left with Kenny and Jeff. 50.

[Kenny Malone]

50.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay.

[Waylon Wong]

Oh, Kenny, no.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay.

[Jeff Guo]

All right.

[Kenny Malone]

Kenny is next, and then Jeff is third. And just to be clear, a traditional way to do the order is it will go Waylon, then Kenny, then Jeff, then Jeff, then Kenny, then Waylon. It sort of snakes back and forth so that even though Jeff is last, he will get to make two picks in a row so that you are not perpetually last. Okay? Okay. So with all of that out of the way, do you have any final questions before Waylon Wong makes the first draft of the first ever Planet Money pop culture draft?

[Jeff Guo]

Let's do it.

[Waylon Wong]

No, I'm ready. My body is ready. My mind is ready.

[Kenny Malone]

You're up. You're on the clock.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay. I'm gonna draft a movie first. And I'm gonna draft a movie. Are you breathing a sigh of, no, I'm not.

[Kenny Malone]

This is my fear.

[Waylon Wong]

And I'm drafting a movie first because my favorite movie of all time came out in 1999, and it is on the list of the top 100 domestic grossing movies. It is the Insider, directed by Michael Mann. And this is, I will admit, kind of an obvious choice because it's very clearly about business, but it is my favorite favorite movie of all time. For those of you who don't know, this is a journalism movie. Russell Crowe plays a research chemist at a tobacco company. This is based on a true story. He is a corporate whistleblower, or he becomes a corporate whistleblower. And he goes and gives an interview to 60 Minutes about how the tobacco company he works for knowingly added chemicals to cigarettes that were carcinogenic or addictive. And what's interesting to me about this and why I've been thinking about it actually a lot recently is because at that time, CVS pulled the interview from 60 Minutes because it was afraid of a lawsuit from the tobacco company, and they were afraid that the lawsuit would tank and the impending sale of CBS to Westinghouse. So this is actually, you know, it's like everything old is new again because we now with the Colbert show and the Skydance deal, we have CBS caving, seeming seemingly, seemingly caving once again to in the face of corporate pressures. And it's dramatized really well in the Insider. And there's one of my favorite scenes from any movie of all time, which is Christopher Plummer, RIP as Mike Wallace, the anchor of 60 Minutes. And he, like, reads. He reads the CBS corporate lawyer. The riot act. Cause he's so mad.

[Jeff Guo]

Mike, Mike, Mike.

[Kenny Malone]

Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation.

[Jeff Guo]

Doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me?

[Kenny Malone]

Lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession 50 years. You and the people you work for are destroying the most respected, the highest rated, the most profitable show on this network.

[Waylon Wong]

Every once in a while, I just like to, like, yell this at my husband. Lawyer me. Are you gonna finesse me? It's, like, so good. And anyway, I'm obsessed with this movie. Bonus thing I will say is that LOL Bergman, as played by Al Pacino, has this line I love, which I think about also all the time as a journalist, where he says to a source on the phone, he's like, I'm two things. He's like, I'm mad and I'm curious. And he's like, getting really annoyed with the source. And I think about that all the time. Cause I. Well, I don't get mad that often, but I am actually kind of this, like, seething, like, pot of rage. But, like, it's like, yeah, if you get mad and you get curious, that's actually a very potent recipe for doing some journalism. And that's what happens in this movie. My favorite movie, the Insider.

[Kenny Malone]

I'm passive aggressive and I'm curious. Don't worry about it. All right. Waylon Wong selects the Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. I am hugely relieved I'm up next. Because what seemed to me to be the obvious pick for Waylon is the movie that terrified me so much that I would not go camping. And it is the Blair Witch Project.

[Waylon Wong]

This was like, my second choice.

[Kenny Malone]

I was really worried. Okay, now the Blair Witch Project is of course, a movie that is shot on really cheap cameras. And we are witnessing the, like, recovered tapes from these, I believe, three kids who went hunting for an urban legend witch. They disappear, and it's way scarier than it has any right to be.

[Jeff Guo]

Very metatextrin.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm sorry to everyone.

[Kenny Malone]

There's a famous shot with, like, heavy breathing and snot dripping down the lead actress's nose.

[Waylon Wong]

It's all because of me that we're here now. Hungry, cold and hunted.

[Kenny Malone]

And the reason that this is just, to me, slam dunk Planet money pick is because a, this is still one of the most profitable movies ever made. You'll see different, like, numbers on this, but it was maybe cost like between 30k and 70k to like, shoot it. And Then there was like a really viral ad campaign which was, like, really prescient at the time. Um, so it looks like with the shooting, the production, the post production and the advertising, we're talking about like a million dollars in. And it has made $248 million, a 250x return. And that is extraordinary. And you know who cites it as a critical influence? One. Jason F. Blum.

[Waylon Wong]

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was like the OG kind of found footage, you know, with like a marketing campaign that, like you said, like, was viral kind of. Before we had like a word for that. Before we really had a concept of virality. Because I remember this will go back to, like, how cool I was in 1999. I remember reading about this movie in Time magazine, which is where it receives all of my information because my parents had a subscription to Time magazine. And I was like, I'm not a scary movie person, but I was like, oh, I want to see this because it looks so interesting from what I'm reading about it in Time magazine. So my brother and I went to see it and then, I kid you not, I mean, we were scared out of my. Scared out of our minds. To this day, I cannot look at a child's handprint without, like, needing to, like, fall down in fear.

[Kenny Malone]

But there is a handprint on the wall. I don't think Waylon has a specific thing against children.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, yeah. No, but yeah, I think it might be a children's.

[Jeff Guo]

Is it a child?

[Waylon Wong]

I don't know.

[Kenny Malone]

The witch makes you, like, makes you turn away.

[Waylon Wong]

I know. And like, face the corner. It's awful.

[Kenny Malone]

And then what?

[Jeff Guo]

Who knows?

[Waylon Wong]

It gives me such a chill. But I remember we got home from the movie and my brother pulled the car into the garage and then immediately ran to the house and threw up because of all the jittery cam. It was like. It made him. It made us like, both really sick. Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, right.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

Now I will say I didn't see this movie in 1999 because I wasn't allowed to see R rated movies yet. So it was like the idea of it was so scary to me that I wouldn't go camping. I mentioned Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse. Jason Blum is. Has created this business model, or so we. We think he created it where he invests, like a relatively very small amount of money on horror movies, hoping that they can have giant returns. You place a lot of bets and hope that one hits. And there's just like. You can trace all of this to Blair Witch. He has even cited it as, like, if there wasn't this, there would be no Paranormal Activity, which is really the movie, the kind of shot Blum to the public eye. And it has changed the business model of horror so much that we literally did a Planet Money episode about Jason Blum. So there. If the movie that directly traces to Blum and the episode that we did. Like, how is Blair Witch Project not a Planet Money movie?

[Waylon Wong]

Solid film.

[Jeff Guo]

You know, Kenny, I sometimes think of what we do as journalists on Planet Money, kind of like the Blair Witch Project. Like, aren't we just assembling found quotes and things and pushing together?

[Kenny Malone]

I thought you meant it's like we wander into the wild, end up facing a wall and terrified. Yes, yes.

[Jeff Guo]

But just to be clear, I have a little fact check here. Just to be clear, the whole found footage idea, right, of course, was not invented by witch. It goes back to Henry James. It goes back to the Three Musketeers. And so I feel like, you know, we should pay credit to.

[Kenny Malone]

Sure, of course. I'm just saying the thing Jason Blum has mentioned is. Is not. Is this. But yes.

[Jeff Guo]

Business model.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. Okay, so the Blair Witch Project, my number one pick. Jeff, you're on the clock. Let's hear it. Okay, and again, just to clear, Waylon and I have both chosen movies. You do not have to choose a movie. Oh, I can choose any.

[Waylon Wong]

You can choose any.

[Jeff Guo]

You know, if you chose movies, I'll choose movies. I'll join the club. Let me see. Hold on. It's like, top 100 grossing movies domestic or, like, total. Or, like, total profit.

[Waylon Wong]

Wow. Jeff, I just want to say for the record.

[Kenny Malone]

For the record, when the rules were posted in a Slack channel, Jeff was the first one to reply, like, I've already got it. Like, I have already figured out my team, my draft picks, and, like, so I don't know what is happening.

[Jeff Guo]

Well, no, you told me a thing, and then I went and looked for things, and then you were like, oh, no, no, no, there are rules. And I was like, what rules? And then I had to go back.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, okay. All right. We didn't convey the rules.

[Jeff Guo]

Give me one second. Just give me one second. Okay. The movie that I'm gonna pick, which I'm glad neither of you picked it, because it was a really popular movie. It was really big. It was the start of a huge franchise, or rather, a continuation of a huge franchise. It's a movie I'm certain every one of you has watched. Okay, Huge. And it is the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back.

[Waylon Wong]

I was just thinking about that this morning.

[Kenny Malone]

I thought about that. Did you? That is a good pick. An unstoppable new enemy.

[Jeff Guo]

We dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokemon, and we succeeded.

[Kenny Malone]

Is it in fact, the start? Is that the first.

[Waylon Wong]

It's the first Pokemon movie.

[Jeff Guo]

Pokemon movie. It debuted earlier in Japan, but in 1999, it hit the shores of America. And by that time, we were already just gripped by Pokemon fever. The games had come out, the anime television show had come out. And I guess the reason I think it's a Planet Money thing is this was the gateway drug for a lot of people for, like, anime and Japanese culture. And did you guys know that the New Yorker actually had Pikachu on the COVID Pikachu. There was a Pikachu cartoon.

[Kenny Malone]

You gotta see it. If anybody listening has that framed on their wall, please send us a picture or send it to us. We'll take it.

[Jeff Guo]

There are two things that I think are really interesting about it, but I'll just say really quickly. One is that this movie was shockingly successful at the box office. Like, if you look at. Okay, box officemojo.com, if you just look at the movies that grossed less than the movie. Okay, see, Pokemon, the movie is number 24. Right. It did better than American Beauty. It did better than Eyes Wide Shut. So that's one thing. Right. And then the other thing really quick is, you know, obviously this was, like, the crystallization of something that was really important, which is culture as an economic export.

[Waylon Wong]

Right.

[Jeff Guo]

And we're all familiar with that today. Right. Of all the K pop exports that we're getting or whatever. But. But culture, intellectual property, a big deal, a big economic deal. And it comes from all over.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah. And the Pokemon juggernaut is still thriving. It's like people are going nuts for Pokemon again, like, all over again these days.

[Jeff Guo]

Pokemon games. Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Do you think that the Matrix came out in 1999 and also launched a franchise? It seems like Pokemon is way more sustainable at this point than the main.

[Jeff Guo]

You know why? Because they embraced omnimedia. They were a video game. They were a trading card game. There were all kinds of different.

[Kenny Malone]

Was Omnimedia, famously. It was a comic book, it was a video game.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Guo]

But Pokemon, they really embraced all of their diffusion products.

[Kenny Malone]

I think they were for kids who.

[Jeff Guo]

Have time for Pokemon Go.

[Waylon Wong]

Pokemon Go. Remember that? Yeah. Pokemon Go to the.

[Kenny Malone]

Remember, people were, like, tripping over curbs playing Pokemon Go. It was like a real public health hazard. Freaking love Pokemon Go. By the way, just a ripoff of geocaching, frankly. And geocaching, I believe is turning like is having an anniversary this year. Shout out to geocaching. We don't have time to go into it. That's another podcast. All right, so with the third pick of the draft, Jeff's first pick is the first Pokemon movie. What's its official title, Jeff?

[Jeff Guo]

Pokemon the first movie. Mewtwo Strikes Back.

[Kenny Malone]

So this is like Mission Impossible or Fast and Furious.

[Waylon Wong]

Dead Reckoning part one. Yeah. Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

It was ahead of the time on that too. Great use of punctuation, extra points. Okay, that was the first round of our 1999 Planet Money Pop culture draft. Again, this bonus episode came out a couple months ago for our Planet Money plus supporters, which means that at the end of this show, we can reveal who got the most votes in, emerged victorious. Keep listening and find out if you agree. Round two coming up after the break. The order of the draft is now. We reverse the order. We snake back on ourselves. Jeff, you are now the first pick of our second round. And then I will go next and Waylon will go next.

[Jeff Guo]

Got it? Okay. Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

So you still need to pick a song and a wild card.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay, I'm gonna pick a song.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. I will say I'm very nervous about this. Less nervous about song, but I'm pretty nervous about song.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm like, I'm sweating. I'm so nervous.

[Kenny Malone]

I have three options for song, but I feel so much more strongly about one of these three. Okay. And I hope Jeff doesn't take it. Go ahead, Jeff.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay. Okay.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm dying.

[Jeff Guo]

The song of 1999 that I think most epitomizes both 1999 and Planet Money and economics is I Want it that Way by the Backstreet Boys.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. Okay. Great choice. Love it.

[Jeff Guo]

You are my fighter the one.

[Kenny Malone]

Desire Believe when I say I want it that way.

[Jeff Guo]

Great song.

[Kenny Malone]

Just listened to the alternate version today in the car.

[Jeff Guo]

Like, what's the alternate version?

[Kenny Malone]

I didn't know it existed. Is it even real? I don't know, but it seems a little dirtier. I will say. And I didn't mean to play it.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, Jackson, we can talk about that later.

[Jeff Guo]

Tell me, why is it the affirmative?

[Kenny Malone]

I don't. Well, so it just. It seems to be more explicitly about a. I don't know, something seems dirty. I don't know. Go listen to it.

[Waylon Wong]

10 year old Jeff doesn't know anything about it.

[Kenny Malone]

I had my children in the car and my sort of prudish. My prudish sensors Were up. I don't know why, it just seemed ickier. But it's still a banger, I gotta say.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, tell me why, Jeff.

[Jeff Guo]

I have two reasons. I can tell you why. One of them is that of course, this was the height of the boy band economy. And I think if you listen to this song, actually if you watch the music video, you can really see an illustration of the concept of comparative advantage. Because each of these. And I think there's a common misconception that comparative advantage just means that this person is just better at this thing than this other person. But what comparative advantage really means is that each person should tend to do the thing that they are best at compared to their own skills. So if you look at the song, aj, one of the best singers in the band, but he also is one of the best dancers. And so there are these other guys, one of them, I'm gonna call them out. Brian, who is also a great singer, but not as good as dancing. And so by the theory of comparative advantage, aj, you know, they're putting him central. He's dancing, right? He maybe is not singing all the time, but he's dancing because they need him to dance. Whereas Brian, poor Brian, he's amazing singer. He's always in the corner. Cause they don't want you to look at him. Cause his dancing is not up to par. Yes. But his voice is beautiful. So he gets more of the voice parts and they mix it up, obviously. But I think it's a really good illustration of we each do what we're best at.

[Waylon Wong]

I love this. I love this.

[Kenny Malone]

This is a great thesis. And someone, you know what? Free PhD thesis right there from Jeff Kuo, if somebody wants to.

[Jeff Guo]

I think it's already been written, surely. Okay, surely it's already been written.

[Waylon Wong]

You know what's interesting is like what you're describing is kind of the strategy of the corporation that's a assembling this boy band as well. Right. They kind of have to figure out how to slot in who, where. And I feel like this is now what you see with like every like K pop band or like I'm kind of getting into cat's eye and I watched that documentary on Netflix where they like put this girl band together. And yeah, you can see which one is the strong dancer, which one is the strong singer who's like a good all around player. And they have to kind of think holistically about the, the unit, the lanes.

[Jeff Guo]

But okay, but really quick, let me tell you the second reason why I think this is Very plant money. And it's because. Actually, let me ask you, what do you think this song means?

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, well, what is it?

[Jeff Guo]

You want it that way. What is it? What is it?

[Kenny Malone]

The relationship. Tell me why a relationship. Well, ain't nothing ain't.

[Waylon Wong]

Because they sing. I never want to hear you say I want it that way. So it's kind of like, is it about like, I want us to want the same things in the relationship? Like, I don't want to hear you say, I want it like a different way than how I want it.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah, like, is it? I. I only want it my way, not your way. Who know? And here's the thing.

[Kenny Malone]

But doesn't he. Doesn't the band articulate a series of ways that it could be. And then they say, I don't want to hear you say you want it.

[Waylon Wong]

This is like a sad song. This is like a song about a relationship on the. On the fritz, right?

[Jeff Guo]

Or like, it's like a long distance relationship and they're just like kind of falling apart. And then he says, I don't ever want to hear you say I want it that way. And it's like, what is this a continuation of a fight or whatever? And so there's been a lot of ink spilled on what I want it that way actually means, right? And I think famously, I think it was Chrissy Teigen who like, on Twitter was like, hey guys, like, it's been 20 years. What the heck does this song mean? And we were like, we really don't know because. Because this was co written by Max Martin and Max Martin famously does not really have a great grasp of what meanings are.

[Kenny Malone]

So.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, but it like, doesn't. It doesn't matter, you know what I mean? Because it's like the, like, that's the beauty of pop music is like sometimes the lyrics, like, they don't totally make sense.

[Jeff Guo]

I know, but these lyrics really, really don't make sense. They're very semiotically open, right? It's like, like open textured and, you know, like epistemologically unstable. And I feel like that really describes the world that we live in right now and our jobs as journalists.

[Waylon Wong]

Epistemologically unstable. That's true.

[Jeff Guo]

Explain. To explain these things, right?

[Kenny Malone]

I want it that way. Cause I won't it that way. With the fourth pick in the Planet Money pop culture draft, Jeff has selected I want it that way.

[Jeff Guo]

Very good pick.

[Waylon Wong]

Really good pick.

[Kenny Malone]

Especially good. You did not take what I was really hoping you would not take.

[Waylon Wong]

Now I'm nervous.

[Jeff Guo]

All over again.

[Waylon Wong]

Because what if you take what I take?

[Kenny Malone]

Well, I mean, yes, I can. Tank ears. All right. In the year 1999. This is my pick, by the way. All four members of a now legendary R and b group turned 18 years old and. And as adults. Would the first single from their sophomore album be about independence or rebellion?

[Jeff Guo]

I know it's no.

[Kenny Malone]

No, it would not. Becoming adults to this group meant that it was time to sing an ode to financial responsibility. Cue the song. With my second pick of the 1999 Planet Money Pop culture draft, I selected Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills, Bills.

[Waylon Wong]

Yes.

[Jeff Guo]

Excellent. I literally almost picked that. Me too. I'm glad you did.

[Kenny Malone]

Me too. I had no. I did not have a good backup to this. All right, so this is, in fact, Destiny's Child's first song to peak at number one. It ultimately. Yeah, it ultimately wound up at 21 on 1999's year end Hot 100 list. It is mostly about a boyfriend leeching off of a woman's success. It is mostly about phone bills, very 1999. And car bills. Or as we say, automobiles.

[Jeff Guo]

That's my favorite pun ever.

[Kenny Malone]

Best pun ever. But what this song did not need to do, but did was to get this serious about personal finance. Here, here is the clip.

[Waylon Wong]

Now you've been maxing on my car Gave me back credit Buy me gifts.

[Kenny Malone]

With my own name but you better.

[Jeff Guo]

Head into the mall Going on shopping.

[Kenny Malone]

Sprees Perpetrating to your friends that you be falling so just say that again Gave me bad credit Buying me gifts with my own ends. These are some 18 year olds. Most 18 year olds are not thinking about FICO scores. This is amazing. You know who is thinking about FICO scores at 18 years old? Destiny's Child. And that is why they are the greatest Planet money song of 1999. Bill's been saying.

[Jeff Guo]

And you know, the best part about this is that, like, credit cards really became a universal democratized. Everybody has one thing in the 1990s when they were writing the song, right? And so, like before, bills, bills, bills would not have made sense 10 years prior. Mm.

[Waylon Wong]

I got my first credit card in 1999 because I went off to college. And, you know, there's like, some company that's like, set up outside the union handing out frisbees if you sign up for a credit card. So I signed up for a credit.

[Kenny Malone]

Card that will sign up for enough of those free frisbees that will also take your credit. Bills, bills, bills. Maybe that I don't know if that's in the alternate lyrics of the song or not, but. All right. So, yes, Bills, bills, bills. That is my choice.

[Waylon Wong]

Amazing.

[Jeff Guo]

Waylon.

[Waylon Wong]

Yes. It's my turn. I will also stick with song. My pick for song is no Scrubs by tlc because this song, it reminds me of some stuff I was researching and thinking about for an episode of It's Been a Minute that I got to be on. And this, it was all about, like, relationships and money. And, you know, in Scrubs, it describes this, like, broke deadbeat guy. And the TLC ladies don't want anything to do with this guy because he's like, you know, doesn't have a job and he's just, you know, hanging out of the passenger seat of his best friend's ride and everything. So. Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

Trying to holler, trying to holler at.

[Waylon Wong]

Me Trying to holler and like, they're not yet right. Known as a buster Always talking about.

[Jeff Guo]

What he wants and just sits on.

[Waylon Wong]

His broke ass no, no, I don't want your number now I don't want to give you mine and now I.

[Jeff Guo]

Don'T want to meet you nowhere now.

[Waylon Wong]

And I think this song speaks to broader dynamics we see in marriage rates, especially marriage rates across socioeconomic classes. Because it is this, like, well documented, long running thing where marriage rates have been going down as you go down the income ladder, right? That, and there's this notion that for, you know, like, straight women, the marriage pool in their economic class is perhaps less desirable than it was in the past. Like, if you look at, you know, like, working class or lower income classes, you have a lot of men who are unemployed. Like, this is partially an effect of, like, the hollowing out of industrial jobs. In some communities, you have just fewer men because of mass incarceration. And when you have, like, very traditional gender roles still where women are doing more than 50% of the household labor, you get a situation where women would rather go it alone than pair up with someone who isn't pulling their weight either income wise and. Or with the household labor, taking care of kids, helping out at home, all that kind of stuff. So I think that this notion of, like, I don't want no scrubs, it speaks to maybe the desirability of the available men that certain women are seeing out there in the world. And this is something we're still contending with 25 years later.

[Jeff Guo]

It's kind of like how Kourtney Kardashian didn't want to marry Scott Disick. He was a scrub back then. He Was a scrub.

[Waylon Wong]

He was a scrub and Courtney knew it. So she never married him.

[Jeff Guo]

She's never married.

[Kenny Malone]

Once a scrub, always a scrub. Or is there scrub you can change?

[Jeff Guo]

Okay, okay.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. Now, no scrubs. Waylon Wong, second pick. I will say that was my first backup to. Or actually, this is my third backup to Bills, Bills, Bills. Because here was my argument, and that I will give you for free if you want it.

[Waylon Wong]

I don't know.

[Kenny Malone]

It wasn't as good as your argument. My argument was, Bills, Bills, Bills is about someone getting into a relationship with a man who then is running up the credit card. No Scrubs represents what. What we would in our industry call a total risk avoidance, where you are saying, oh, no, no, no. We are. We are mitigating all risk by just saying, no. We're not getting into a relationship so that you can't then turn into Bill's business. So in some ways, no Scrubs is like a path. A path not taken, a better path. And Bills, Bills, Bills is what happens if you do end up in that relationship.

[Waylon Wong]

It's so funny because Bills, Bills, Bills was my backup choice. And I was thinking about the relationship between these two songs, right? And how they describe, like, very similar experiences. But one is like, oh, you took plunge. It worked out badly. One is like, I'm not even getting involved. Like, just keep driving.

[Kenny Malone]

That's the risk avoidance strategy. That's where you go, all right, so no Scrubs and Bills, Bills, Bills. A kind of pop culture couplet, if you will, there on the top 100.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

That was the second round of our 1999 Planet Money pop culture draft. And 1999, by the way, famously great for movies, but shockingly good gear for pop music.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah. All right, final round and winner reveal. Coming up at the break, Waylon, you now get to make your final pick in the draft. A wild card pick is all that's left for any of us now. Again, we didn't have to choose in this order, but it. Wild card makes sense. No one's going to steal your wild card. Probably.

[Waylon Wong]

Probably. But I was nervous about this, too, because I was like, what if we all land on the same wild card?

[Kenny Malone]

I guarantee you are not landing on what I've got. I am not worried about wild card. My strategy was like, I was so nervous about Blair Witch and Bill's. Bill's Bills being gone that I was like, I must. I must reduce the risk of anyone picking my wild card. I will just go obscure.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, well, I can't wait to hear yours. Mine Is not that obscure, but I think it's a strong pick. Obviously, stand behind my pick because I want to win this draft. Okay. My wild card pick. I'm going television, and I am going with a show that debuted in 1999, and I think, you know, really changed our entire relationship as a culture with one of the most important sectors of the economy. I am talking about the premiere of House Hunters.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, this one looks real nice.

[Waylon Wong]

Jane and Mitch Englander are playing beat the clock. With a new baby on the way, finding a larger home is their priority. House Hunters got going in 1999. And if you think about our national obsession with real estate in all forms, right? Like, I think without House Hunters, you might not get Zillow stocking. You might not get this obsession with, like, open floor plans and whatever the heck and kind of, like, this, like, judgment we have over, like, what people can afford and, like, judging people's aesthetic choices. I mean, like, all of these might.

[Jeff Guo]

Not have gotten the subprime crisis.

[Waylon Wong]

I know, right? Because, you know, I was like, what was happening in the housing market in 1990? I was like, everything was great. We didn't know.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, we're mortgage. I was trying to Google quickly what mortgage rates were.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, yeah, no, that was a good Google to do.

[Kenny Malone]

So in the. In the 90s, it looks. It looks like we were between 6.9. 6.9% was the lowest mortgage rate in the 90s according to bank.

[Waylon Wong]

Well, that's actually. That sounds high, but it's like, you know, but then we had.

[Kenny Malone]

Back then, it was whatever.

[Waylon Wong]

That's like pre zerb era, right?

[Kenny Malone]

2%. We must all erase 2% from our brains, I fear. Like, I don't think that was a real.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, we got, like, habituated in this, like, way that's, like, not very helpful.

[Kenny Malone]

But yeah, okay, so perhaps. Perhaps we are seeing some relatively low mortgage rates, which may have been spawning people. But also, these shows were all always really about, like, reinforcing the American dream back to us. And so. So the idea that ownership is the only thing, like, there's no question at all in these shows, like, that it's a game. It's a game of ownership. Like, you must. You get to pick which house you would like? Which of these three would you like? There won't be any problem.

[Waylon Wong]

Embarrassment of riches.

[Kenny Malone]

Choo.

[Waylon Wong]

Choose which house. And like, yeah, now you think about the entire HGTV empire and you have House Hunters International. I mean, it's just. And it all started in 1999 with the launch of House Hunters.

[Kenny Malone]

Great pick, Waylon.

[Waylon Wong]

Thank you.

[Kenny Malone]

So that rounds out Waylon's team of 1999 Planet Money pop culture. I will make my final pick. I regret going this obscure now that I saw how good that pick could be. All right, well, so I figured you're not going to let me argue that I can just draft the entire dot com bubble as a piece of pop culture. Or if you will, I'll just take that.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm gonna say no. And I'm like, that's too broad.

[Kenny Malone]

So in the 1990s, if you're unaware, lucky you, there were lots of these newfangled Internet companies popping up. And man, was there money rushing in. And boy, was it a bubble. And did it ever cause a recession later in about 2001. But we're not in 2001 yet. But we're still in 1999, arguably the peak of the bubble. And so what I will draft is a commercial for a company that I think you could argue just sort of is the dot com bubble. We're gonna play a little bit of the commercial. You're gonna hear Whoopi Goldberg, oh, my gosh. Gotta get a gift for a kid.

[Jeff Guo]

And you don't know what they want.

[Waylon Wong]

Cause you're old. Old, honey. Give them Flues online gift cards. It's just like money. You send it by email, they spend it at some of the website coolest stores, and you come out hip and smart. It's graduation day. Duh.

[Kenny Malone]

Flooz. That is Fl O O Z Flooz. What I forgot to say, Floos was founded in 1999 and the commercial debuted in 1999. That's the 1999 connection.

[Waylon Wong]

I don't remember this company. I thought you were gonna say like pets.com or something. No, I've never heard of flu.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, pets.com is the obvious.com bubble, of course, but flus.com, man, are there echoes of what we have seen over the last five years. So Fluz.com's business model was, hey, we have all these new, like, retailers like Barnes and Noble, Tower Records, like, doing business online. What if our company, like, takes your real money and turns it into fake Internet money that only works on the Internet and can't be converted back. You can just spend it at these online retailers who agree to take it. So some of those retailers that they got to sign up. So it's digital currency. Currency.

[Waylon Wong]

So you have a digital wallet.

[Kenny Malone]

It's not crypto. Right. It's not blockchain that hasn't been invented yet.

[Jeff Guo]

Money.

[Kenny Malone]

But it is just like great. Yeah, well, well, we're. We're going to get to that. So. So some of the companies that took this was like Tower Records, Godiva Chocolates, Fog Dog would accept fluz.

[Waylon Wong]

That's another company.

[Kenny Malone]

I don't remember. But it also reminds me, I believe that is also. I don't know, whatever. It's a very 90s company. In my head. I don't remember at all what they do. So Whoopi Goldberg became their spokesperson. She became. She got paid in. She. I believe she got paid influenz money.

[Waylon Wong]

Oh my God.

[Kenny Malone]

And then also became the largest shareholder outside of the founders.

[Waylon Wong]

I wonder how that went out.

[Kenny Malone]

A few years flews flu's announced bankruptcy. What had happened was a Russian Filipino scam whereby a bunch of stolen credit card numbers were then quickly used to buy a bunch of flus. Like $300,000 in flus. No, was was found out by the credit card companies and they of course canceled the orders. And that just left flus with like, oh no, we just have $300,000 of like E money floating around that we don't get our money back for. They declared bankruptcy. They became known in hindsight as a bit of a canary in the coal mine of the dot com bubble busting and. But like Whoopi Goldberg out there promoting this digital currency. I just kept thinking about like, there's Larry David, like promoting crypto. There's like just like the last couple Super Bowls or whatever where they were all these crypto commercials. It just seemed like such a beautiful little piece of pop culture. So I draft not the whole dot com bubble, right? But I do and not floos. I draft Whoopi Goldberg in a flooz commercial telling people they're old and should buy digital currency. That's what I draft.

[Waylon Wong]

You know what? I like this because I think they were onto something, right? Because you think about 1999, we didn't have like PayPal. I mean, I think we did have PayPal, but PayPal probably wasn't integrated into all of these e commerce sites the way it is.

[Kenny Malone]

For sure.

[Waylon Wong]

It wasn't really a great way probably to shop a lot online or maybe it didn't feel trustworthy. So I respect this company for trying to get into the space because clearly there was a need there and it was just like they had to work out the kinks and it didn't quite.

[Jeff Guo]

Go as you couldn't even pay your bills, bills, bills.

[Kenny Malone]

Can I, can I read one final quote? So this was in an interview with the CEO. When the partnership with Whoopi Goldberg was announced, he. He thought it was a good partnership because, quote, we're both irreverent, hip and fun, but also trusted and respectable brands. And I don't know, like, I don't know that much about Whoopi. Yeah, like, I don't Whoopi. That may all be true for Whoopi, I suppose, but it didn't end up being true for Flus, as the company declared bankruptcy and was an easy target of fraud and a canary in the call.

[Waylon Wong]

You flew. You lose. That's what happened.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, floos. Flooz dot com. All right, the final pick in the 1999 Planet Money Pop culture draft goes to Jeff Guo. Jeff, your wild card pick.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay. And you said I could pick anything. You can pick anything. You got to argue.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, you got to metaphysical going over the project, like, give it a try. We'll make a judgment.

[Jeff Guo]

Vegetable, mineral. Okay. Okay. So we've been talking about songs, right? We've talked about Bills, Bills, Bills, Scrubs, or the absence thereof. And what is the thing where we were getting all the songs from Napster at that time, Napster, which debuted in 1999. So in a way, I'm picking all of the songs. The sum total of songery in 1999 was on Napster. And why does this epitomize Planet Money? Well, number one, this was, of course, a huge economic story. Without Napster, we would not have the ipod. Without Napster, we wouldn't have Spotify. Napster completely changed how the music industry constitutes itself, right? And now everybody's touring because there's no money to be made in music, because music is free and everywhere. And Napster was the start of all that. That's the. That's.

[Kenny Malone]

That's. Of course, I don't know if it's free now. Do you still think it's free now? Like, I pay for a Spotify subscription, which I guess gives pennies back to.

[Jeff Guo]

So it's functional.

[Kenny Malone]

Even the lava chicken scene that we.

[Waylon Wong]

Played, it feels free. It feels free.

[Jeff Guo]

It feels free.

[Kenny Malone]

This is a banger.

[Jeff Guo]

But here's the other thing about Napster, right? Eventually, these file sharing programs led to more than just pirated music. People started pirating all kinds of stuff. And a lot of what they shared was pirated software like Photoshop, but especially. But especially, like, music production software. And so if you go back into, like, the histories of all the big.

[Kenny Malone]

DJs or whatever, they.

[Jeff Guo]

Almost all of them have a teenage basement phase where they Were making beats using pirated software. Pirated Ableton, pirated, you know, FL Loops or whatever. Making beats. That's how they got their reps in. That's how they developed the music, the sound of the next generation. It was all because of piracy.

[Waylon Wong]

That's so interesting. So it's like the democratization of that software allowed, like, lowered the barriers to entry for this generation.

[Kenny Malone]

Democratization is kind. I would say that's more like kleptocratism.

[Jeff Guo]

Napster allowed us to seize the means, both of production and reproduction.

[Kenny Malone]

Ooh, Napster is a great choice. These actually make me House Hunters and Napster now. Make me regret picking something.

[Waylon Wong]

No, but I really liked learning about flus. I didn't know that was a phase. Okay, you guys, we did it.

[Jeff Guo]

Wow.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, Waylon and Jeff, any final thoughts on things that you wanted to draft that you didn't?

[Jeff Guo]

Very much.

[Kenny Malone]

Super quickly while we wrap this up. I can give you one while you think. My. My song backup was Believe by Cher because it famously took this relatively new, dirty little secret tool called AutoTune that helped people sound like they were singing the right notes, but we weren't supposed to know about it, I guess. And it just, like, put it front and center and used it. And it's like, hey, there's this thing everybody's using. And so Cher is given credit for really establishing Auto tune as a. A sound, a kind of sound. And obviously that has shaped music for decades.

[Waylon Wong]

I had that on my list too, for that reason. Yeah. Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

And then the other, like, my real bad backup for movie was Doug's first movie. My argument was gonna be that it really, like. So Doug. Doug's first movie was put out by Disney.

[Jeff Guo]

You may.

[Kenny Malone]

If you're a child of the 90s, you will remember there was a weird switch from, like, Doug was on Nickelodeon, then he was on, like, ABC all of a sudden. That's because Disney had started to do this thing that we just. They're, like, super famous for now. But before they had acquired Pixar and Marvel and Lucasfilms, like, they had bought this little production studio called Jumbo. Jumbo Entertainment or Jumbo Films or whatever that was making Doug. And they're like, I don't know. It'd be useful to have Doug. And. And so I. I was gonna argue that, like, this was the beginning of the modern IP vacuum cleaner.

[Waylon Wong]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Kenny Malone]

Sucks up. Ip.

[Waylon Wong]

That is good. Yeah. I had, like, a spare wild card pick, which was who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Debuted in the US in 1999. And I don't know if you guys remember that. It was on, like, every single day. Like, it was just the. Once it premiered and became a hit, it just, like, it was on all the time, seemingly. And it was like, you know, one of the highest, highest rated game shows in U.S. tV history. And I feel like it. It almost presents this alternative history where there's another pop culture timeline where instead of getting a huge glut of reality shows that are based on dating and stuff, we actually went the game show route and we just had a bajillion game shows. But somehow, like, game shows didn't really take. Despite the huge success of who Wants to be a Millionaire.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yep. My backup pick probably would have been Fight Club.

[Waylon Wong]

Ooh, yeah.

[Jeff Guo]

But I thought it was too popular. But to me, Fight Club really represents the pinnacle of Gen X culture where. Oh, my God, the worst thing that could happen to me in life is that I have a regular deglar job. Like, oh, my God, I'm employed. Oh, so terrible. Now I have to go punch people.

[Waylon Wong]

I almost picked American Beauty for that same reason, with this, like, rant where it's like, oh, like, oh, look at the ennui of, like, the upper middle class, like, suburban white man. Like, oh, I have this white collar job that's so boring. Whatever shall I do? And, like, Fight Club was the same. It was like, oh, no. Like, look at me buying IKEA furniture. And it's like, get over it.

[Kenny Malone]

You know, it's like, pill for IKEA furniture.

[Jeff Guo]

Oh, no.

[Kenny Malone]

We ended up. Despite our best efforts, we ended up in the Fight Club, like, vortex.

[Waylon Wong]

No, I mean, that's.

[Kenny Malone]

Why wasn't that the point we can't talk about?

[Waylon Wong]

I didn't even want to go there. I didn't even want to go there, you know, because, like, I only.

[Jeff Guo]

That's so good.

[Waylon Wong]

I only had a rant, right? And I was like, I don't. That's not the energy I want to bring to the draft, so.

[Kenny Malone]

So let's recap. For the listeners, a thank you for sticking with us through this bizarre journey through the upsy downsy topsy Turvy World of 1999. Jeff, would you like to recap your team?

[Jeff Guo]

Okay. The movie I picked was Pokemon. The movie colon, the first movie slash dash mewtwo back, which introduced anime and globalized culture to everybody. The song I picked was I want it that way. Right? Because of comparative advantage. Because it's sort of a mystery.

[Kenny Malone]

AJ dancing, Brian singing. That's What I read.

[Jeff Guo]

That's exactly right. Yes. Also, what is the meaning of it? It has an unstable meaning. And then the object thing. Other thing I picked was Napster the five star.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, Waylon, you want to recap your team?

[Waylon Wong]

Yes. For movie, I picked the Insider, directed by Michael Mann. Classic corporate whistleblowing tale with strange relevance to today. Also, shout out to Bruce McGill, love his scene in the Insider. For song, I picked no Scrubs by tlc looking at the state of marriage across socioeconomic classes. And then for Wildcard, I picked House Hunters, which debuted in 1999. And without which maybe we wouldn't have so much shiplap in the world. Have you ever thought about that?

[Kenny Malone]

I was thinking about the Gaines's in their shiplap. What are they doing with that shiplap.

[Waylon Wong]

I know they love? I can't get enough of it.

[Kenny Malone]

Is it useful? Can you put pegs between the shiplap boards and hang stuff?

[Waylon Wong]

I think you can, yeah. Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

I mean, all right. So my team consists of the movie the Blair Witch Project, which is still one of the most profitable movies of all time in terms of return on investment and frankly kickstarted an entire business model that we have done a Planet Money episode about the Blumhouse model. For my song, I chose Bills, Bills, Bills, which is includes discussion about credit scores like what do you want? And then finally I chose a 1999 commercial with Whoopi Goldberg for flu's fake Internet. It's real money, I guess, whatever. Flu's Internet money. That was both quite a predictor of the way that crypto is being sold to us now, but also was emblematic of the dot com bubble that was about to burst. Jeff, I still think this was all an act that you didn't know what you were doing.

[Waylon Wong]

You obviously prepared really well.

[Jeff Guo]

I don't know what you're talking about. Does the winner get flus? Is that the prize?

[Kenny Malone]

If we can find some flus, yeah, there's a lot of take it out for a spin.

[Waylon Wong]

Go to Tower Records and buy a Destiny's Child album.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, we can now give you this very, very important update. So back in September, we asked our Planet Money plus supporters to vote on who they thought won this, this draft who had drafted the best quote unquote, Planet Money team of pop culture. The votes and many opinions came streaming into our inbox. I, I. No need to keep you in suspense because there was a very clear winner in a landslide, Waylon Wong. Here is a little bit of what Waylon said when, when we broke the news to her.

[Waylon Wong]

Thanks so much for believing in me and my Pat picks and for, yeah, also voting because, you know, the insider I think I mentioned on the episode is my favorite movie ever and I hope maybe I inspired some people to go watch it who haven't seen it before.

[Kenny Malone]

Congrats, Waylon. And then Jeff Guo came in second and I came in third. I do blame Fluz for that. I think I tanked it with Floos. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed that. We had a a lot of fun doing this. And we have plans for another Planet Money pop culture draft next year. So if you have suggestions about the year we should do, send those to us planetmoneypr.org and of course, to be able to hear that episode and other bonus episodes, you're going to want to make sure that you have signed up for Planet Money. Plus, just go to plus.NPR.org planetmoney that is plus.NPR.org Planet Money. And if you've already joined, thank you.

[Jeff Guo]

Thank you, thank you.

[Kenny Malone]

It really does mean a lot. Today's episode was produced by Viet Le and edited by Alex Goldmark. I'm Kenny Malone and this is Planet Money from npr. This message comes from Kachava. Indulge in holiday cravings with the nutrition you need from Cachava's all in One Whole Body Shake. It packs 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, grains and more high quality ingredients with no fillers or nonsense. Try the newest flavor, Limited Edition Chocolate mint. Go to kachava.com and use code NPR for 15% off. That's Kachava. K A C H A V A Com code NPR.