Eurovision, Chapter One: A Ridiculous Origin Story -- and A Smash Success

Summary

Podcast Summary: Ridiculous History

Episode: Eurovision, Chapter One: A Ridiculous Origin Story—and a Smash Success

Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown

Date: April 14, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Ben and Noel dive into the origins and evolution of the Eurovision Song Contest, exploring how it began as a post-war experiment in European unity and has grown into the world's most extravagant, bizarre, and political singing competition. With humor and historical detail, the hosts discuss Eurovision's unique rules, early scandals, soft diplomacy ambitions, and its rise into a cultural phenomenon—setting the stage for an in-depth two-part exploration.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

What is Eurovision? (01:17–03:18)

• Ben and Noel introduce the basics of Eurovision, likening it to “American Idol” but on a pan-European scale.
• Emphasis on democratic, participatory voting—distinguished from American TV judges dictating results.
  • “[Eurovision] is a much more democratic process rather than Simon Cowell or Randy… just telling you he's not feeling it, dog.” (01:38, Noel)
• Eurovision seen not just as entertainment but as “soft diplomacy”— a cultural tool for bridging post-war divides (03:18–03:41).

Early Influences: Sanremo Music Festival (03:58–05:36)

• Sanremo, Italy: The model for Eurovision, with the Sanremo Music Festival kicking off in 1951, focusing on composers.
• Marcel Bezençon, Swiss journalist and European Broadcasting Union director, spearheads the idea to amplify Sanremo’s format across Europe.

---

The State of Postwar Europe & Rationale (06:03–09:37)

• Europe still reeling a decade after WWII, with infrastructure and morale shattered.
• Eurovision envisioned as both a cost-saving broadcast solution and a unifying project:
  • “…more than a neat television program. This is a way for us to unite the nations of post-war Europe again.” (07:05, Ben)

---

First Eurovision Contest (10:03–14:08)

• Inaugural event: May 24, 1956, in Switzerland. Groundbreaking as a major international live broadcast.
• Only 7 countries participated: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland.
  • “…1956, Germany, like the main bad guys of World War II... And now they're going, well, let's see if we can sing a song.” (11:07, Ben)

Controversial early rules:

• Only solo performers (no groups).
• Each country submits two songs.
• Must be original compositions; under 3.5 minutes.
• Backed by a live 24-piece orchestra.
• Jury rather than audience voting—leading to bias and conspiracies from the very start.

---

Early Scandals and Bias (13:27–18:25)

• Voting manipulation: Jurors voted for their own countries, opening the door to immediate suspicion about legitimacy.
  • “There is a conspiracy that begins in the very first year of Eurovision.” (13:59, Ben)
• Notably, Luxembourg’s votes were cast by the Swiss jury, raising further doubts.

---

First Winner & Early Performance Style (18:47–21:48)

• First winner: Lys Assia (Switzerland), dubbed “Grand Dame of Eurovision”.
  • Winning songs: “Das alte Karussell” (German) and “Refrain” (French).
  • Hosts play clips and note how early Eurovision sounded more like classical music with a touch of jazz.
  • “You can already see how this is, like, much more like a classical piece.” (19:43, Noel)
  • “This one kind of bops... it’s a little sweeter.” (21:34, Noel)

---

Evolution of Rules and Competition (21:50–26:47)

Modern Format:

• Over 40 countries now participate in various knockout rounds leading up to the Finals night (maximum 26 acts).

• Key rules include:

  1. Original song: Music & lyrics must be new.
  2. Song length: No longer than 3 minutes.
  3. Live performance: No lip syncing allowed.
  4. Stage presence: Initially only one performer, later up to six.
  5. Apolitical content: Supposedly, though often ignored.
  • “No good pop song worth its salt should be [over three minutes]…” (23:54, Noel, jokingly)
  • “You cannot do lip syncing. So vast apologies to Kid Rock... All the songs must be sung live.” (26:03, Ben)

Importance of Live Singing

• Eurovision’s requirement for live vocals sets it apart from other music TV programs, e.g., Top of the Pops (UK), where lip-syncing was the norm.
  • “So the live singing aspect is super important and relatively rare for live music television shows in Europe.” (33:41, Noel)

---

The Selection Process & Country Representation (29:07–31:32)

• Each country typically conducts its own selection contest or appoints a popular act.
• Winning the Sanremo Festival gives entrants “first right of refusal” to represent Italy in Eurovision.
  • “…not the same as American Idol… Eurovision… is seen as a representative of that particular nation.” (30:19, Noel)

Expanded Acts:

• Since 1957, rule changes allow duos, bands, novelty acts (even dancing puppets), and broader performance variety.
  • “You might see... a phenomenal dancing turkey puppet, which, weirdly enough, was from Ireland.” (32:15, Ben)

---

The Grand Spectacle & Show Production (35:27–37:37)

• Modern Eurovision is a massive three-night event, with heavy curation for pacing and spectacle.

• Countries are randomly assigned semifinals and performance slots are dictated by producers for best show flow.

  • “They want to pace it out. They want to put in their dancing turkey puppet to liven things up.” (36:27, Ben)

• The final night is a kinetic, high-energy celebration, famous for pyrotechnics, elaborate staging, and wild creativity.

---

On Politics, Voting, and Controversy (27:12–28:54; teasers for Part Two)

• Despite the “no politics” rule, Eurovision is rife with political voting, bloc behaviour, and national grievances.
  • “Whenever there’s voting involved, I mean, it’s called voting. It’s politics, baby.” (28:41, Noel)
• The scandals and manipulations around voting set up deeper discussion for the next episode.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It is a way of reaching across geographical and ideological barriers in order to mend fences and to make peace, not war. At least in theory.” (03:41, Noel)
• “Bling, bling. Every time I come around your city.” (10:03, Ben, joking about Eurovision profits)
• “There's a conspiracy that begins in the very first year of Eurovision.” (13:59, Ben)
• “The live singing aspect is super important and relatively rare for live music television shows in Europe.” (33:41, Noel)
• “You cannot do lip syncing. So vast apologies to Kid Rock.” (26:03, Ben)
• “Whenever there's voting involved... It’s called voting. It's politics, baby.” (28:41, Noel)
• Running joke about “dancing turkey puppets” (32:15, Ben & Noel)
• Repeated comparisons to sports/Olympics: “…you kind of have to be the best pole vaulter in Poland to get into [the Olympics].” (31:14, Ben)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:17 — Introduction to Eurovision: Basics and U.S. comparisons
• 03:18 — The concept of “soft diplomacy”
• 04:27 — Sanremo Festival influence and Marcel Bezençon’s vision
• 06:03 — State of post-WWII Europe—and Eurovision’s unifying mission
• 10:03 — First Eurovision: rules, format, and participants
• 13:27 — Allegations of voting bias and first Eurovision conspiracy
• 18:47–21:48 — Debrief on first winner Lys Assia’s performances (clips described)
• 21:50–26:47 — Eurovision rules: then and now; the role and importance of live performance
• 29:07 — The national selection process and how acts are chosen
• 35:27–37:37 — Modern show production and spectacle
• 27:12/28:41 — On politics, voting, and preview for Part Two

---

Conclusion & Teasers for Part Two

Ben and Noel conclude with enthusiasm, setting up Part Two to delve into Eurovision’s voting systems, political controversies, and the show’s wildest moments. The love for Eurovision’s unique blend of music, competition, and cultural drama is evident, and the hosts pepper history lessons with irreverent humor and pop culture riffs.

“It makes a whole lot of sense to pair the voting part with the controversy part because they are quite related, as we've already alluded to, with some of the biased voting. And boy, oh boy, are we going to get into how this has been incredibly politicized and weaponized in part two.” (40:22, Noel)

---

For anyone new to Eurovision or wanting a fun, detailed understanding of its wild history—this episode is both an excellent primer and a source of delightful trivia, from post-war idealism to dancing puppets and banana songs.

Transcript

[A]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth, our super producer, Max. Think about things, Williams.

[B]

Max.

[C]

The more you know Williams. Wait, no, Ben, you were referencing a daddy Freyr.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, yes. Ardati. From the Nordic climes of Iceland. Wait, no. Iceland's the green one, Greenland's the cold one.

[A]

Ah, yes, classic bait and switch. I am Ben Bullen. For the purposes of this show, that is Mr. Noel Brown. We are talking about something that is very exciting for us and may well end up being a two part series. Guys, guys.

[C]

Eurovision is this like a special pair of glasses that makes everyone look like they're eating bars of chocolate and smoking cigarettes?

[A]

I mean, I think we're still in the brainstorming phase. That's pretty cool. I like that bitch. We also know it as the Eurovision Song Contest.

[C]

Yep. Folks stateside who maybe aren't familiar, maybe the closest analog over here might be something in the neighborhood of American Idol. A talent show extravaganza featuring performances by various artists, in this case singing original songs and then they are judged. But I believe in Eurovision, Ben, it is a much more of a democratic process rather than Simon Cowell or Randy what's his face. Just telling you he's not feeling it, dog.

[A]

Oh, democratic. What an interesting word to use for this.

[C]

This is an I heart podcast, Guaranteed Human,

[A]

Also known as the Concou Zoo Revision de la Chanson. It's a huge deal across the pond. Almost every since 1956, various countries, not all of which are in Europe, submit an original song that is supposed to represent their culture. And it is performed and broadcast live via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks. Noel, this thing is nuts. It is way before the outre spectacles of American performance shows like the Voice or America's Got Talent or that other one you mentioned. What was that again?

[C]

American Idol, which I've always found funny. The idea of a pop idol, it just seems very inherently sacrilegious. Especially being that we are such a, you know, religious country these days. We're not supposed to worship idols, right?

[A]

Right. Now, far before these American performance shows, Eurovision brought this stunning, electric, occasionally downright bizarre music to the masses. And we're gonna argue that it has gone far beyond your typical songwriting or talent show natur. Now, it is an acknowledged example of what we call soft diplomacy.

[C]

Soft diplomacy, indeed. It is a way of reaching across geographical and ideological barriers in order to mend fences and to make peace, not war. At least in theory.

[A]

In theory. In theory, right. Yeah. Just like communism. It's great in theory. Let's get into it. While Eurovision officially launched way back in 1956, we can argue the real story begins a few years earlier in San Remo, Italy, or San Remo, Italy, if you want to be that guy about it. That is the home of the San Remo Musical Festival, or music festival.

[C]

I do love a good music band, Ben. The Sanremo Music Festival, the first edition of this fest in San Remo, Italy, was held between the 29th and 31st of January in 1951. And ever since then, it has happened more or less every single year, making it the longest running annual television music competition and one of the longest running TV programs overall in the world.

[A]

Isn't that crazy?

[C]

It's pretty cool, man.

[A]

I think it's pretty cool.

[C]

The Italians did it first.

[A]

The Italians did it first.

[C]

Italians do it better.

[A]

And in a more stylish way. The Italian contest highlights composers rather than singers themselves, and it captivated regional audiences. It also inspired a ton of people in the media landscape, especially a guy named Marcel Bezencole. He's a Swiss journalist, he's a media mogul, he's top brass. He's the director of the European broadcasting union between 1954 and 1970. So he's kind of like their Lorne Michaels.

[C]

Well, it's interesting, Ben, because the idea of the early versions of what we're talking about today featuring composers makes a whole lot of sense. In the 50s, especially in Europe, but even in the United States, I mean, composers were kind of the first rock stars, kind of the first pop stars. And classical music, even contemporary classical music, was occupying a similar space to what we think of today as the top 40 hits, right?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Just so.

[B]

And if I can jump in here real quick, I've just gone down a rabbit hole recently of watching old Simpsons clips, and it's really enjoyable because you remember how great the show is. And there's one from, like, I guess it was like they saw Spinal Tap play and there's a riot afterwards. And the natives reporter Kent Brockman's like, so, like, you know, here's my two cents on this is rock concerts. Why we have riots. No, people were rioting for Mozart back in the day. So my solution, let's ban all music.

[A]

There you go, Right? Classic Ken Brockman.

[C]

He walked down the street for that one. But, I mean, no, he's referencing, of course, the riots that took place like during the Rites of Spring by Stravinsky, which was famously such a alarmingly outre and outlandish piece of modern classical music that went against all of the kind of traditional standards that people were used to for classical music, like atonality and having a lot more dissonance and, you know, just kind of aggressive, you know, music that also had some pretty aggressive dancing that went along with it. It did lead to riots when it was premiered.

[A]

Right. It also calls to mind the phenomenon of listomania. Shout out to Phoenix, another European France. Yeah. And in 1954, the year our pal Marcel becomes the director of the European Broadcasting Union, he arrives at this new position with a preloaded pitch. He says, why not take what they're doing at San Remo, go bigger with it? Now, to Marcel, this has a huge profit motivation, because if they can make a show like what's happening in Italy and they can broadcast it throughout Europe, then they're going to save a lot of money. Because now they have the same program, right? So they don't have to pay extra one per one. They just have to send this thing out to wherever they can. And he also, he got a little bit on a soapbox about this, and he was saying, hey, guys, we're going to make a lot of money. We're going to save a lot of money. But this is more than a neat television program. This is a way for us to unite the nations of post war Europe again. 1954. Right. So World War II has already happened, but we need to keep in mind that even a decade past the end of World War II, Europe was still pretty much wrecked. Like, it was not ideal.

[C]

No, no, it was definitely. Yeah. When they say post war, they ain't kidding. It was in a shambles. The infrastructure was, you know, very, very significantly damaged, as was morale. So people needed something, you know, something peppy and upbeat to focus on and something that could potentially unite the different countries in Europe that maybe had some beef with one another.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to recall that unlike the United States, which managed to preserve the vast majority of its infrastructure and economy, the Great War of World War II left a lot of Europe just absolutely wrecked and demolished. People are still trying to rebuild by the mid-1950s. And there are countries that have been enemies during the war. There are countries that had also historically been dicks to each other for centuries before. It's not as if an official peace treaty suddenly made all these folks BFFs.

[C]

No, no, absolutely not. A lot of these simmering resentments of course, remained. And what better to get some folks to simmer down from some of those resentments than to unite them through song? At least that's what Marcel was thinking. He was looking at this situation as a kind of win win there of power and unifying people through the shared love of music. And of course, he was not blind to the potential profits that there were to make.

[A]

Bling, bling. Every time I come around your city. Right, so the first official Eurovision contest. Oh, spoiler. Marcel's plan works. So the first official Eurovision contest takes place on May 24th in Switzerland in 1956. And this is historic for multiple reasons, the chief of which is that it was one of the earliest attempts in all of history to broadcast a live televised event to a huge international market. Now, this is not the Eurovision that you're going to see in 2027 or anything like that. There were only a few countries that took part in the contest, Noel. And there's some of our favorites. There's Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg. What are you guys doing, you scamps? The Netherlands and being rich. I know, right? Also, but we gotta think about this. 1956, Germany, like the main bad guys of World War II.

[C]

The bads. They were the baddies. Yeah.

[A]

And now they're going, well, let's see if we can sing a song.

[C]

They can, yeah. The German has a lovely tradition of songs.

[A]

So the first edition, again, is so different from the spectacle we know today. You could not have a musical group. So if Max, Noel, yours truly and all our fellow ridiculous historians get together and we have a banger song representing the Netherlands, they're not going to let us in. It can only be for the first year, a single singer. The song cannot be longer than three and a half minutes. And as sort of a fig leaf or an olive branch, you get a 24 piece orchestra accompanying you. You also get two chances. You get two chances. Yeah.

[C]

This is also back in the days where, like, you know, you had symphony orchestras associated with different broadcast companies and, you know, like the RCA Radio Orchestra. And so much of this stuff was performed live. And again, we are very much in the heyday of classical music being king, you know, And I mean, a lot of times, like these pop songs or early sort of proto versions of pop songs were kind of looked down upon. So we're starting to kind of see a combination of those things and we're starting to see the earliest emergence of the singer, songwriter, solo pop kind of Persona. Sure, yeah.

[A]

Again, the demigods, the idols. Right. In a secular World where, you know, spirits and gods are not necessarily real. What do you worship? Celebrities. They took that position in society. You Also, in your 1956 inaugural Eurovision, you get to submit as a country two songs, but they don't have to be performed by the same artist. So I could have Max Wogenflu. Name I made up for you. Max. Especially Max.

[B]

That actually is my birth name. Chances are so low. But you know what? Good on you, buddy.

[A]

Oh, so we could have. You're welcome, buckaroo. We could have. We could have Vogue and Flute do two songs by himself with the orchestra. Or we could have Max do one song and then we could pull another, you know, up and comer to do a second song. And the contestants originally get evaluated by a bunch of reps from these different countries and they give you points for each performance. Each country sends two jury members over to watch the show in Switzerland and they cast their votes in secret. Noel. But it's super biased, for sure.

[C]

And I'd love to just correct a statement that I made earlier, lest any American Idol heads out there yelling at their podcast device. There is, of course, a voting, a viewer voting component to American Idol. I made it sound like it was all about Randy and, and Simon and, you know, whatever. Paula, you know, making the call. Ultimately, they are the ones that cull the herd, let's just say, you know, and they're the ones that are kicking folks to the curb who don't have what it takes to make it to the finals. Once we have that, you know, crew assembled of the finalists, then I believe every episode involves in the ability to vote from home.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Also to jump in here since we're talking about American Idol. Can y'. All. Because, you know, they just revived American Idol. Can y' all name the. The judges?

[C]

Hell, no.

[A]

No. Why?

[B]

Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie.

[C]

Who is Luke Bryant? They're both country people. Two thirds of these are country folks.

[A]

Is that a real name?

[C]

Luke Bryan is a. Is a famous country singer.

[A]

Yeah. On purpose. Huh?

[C]

On purpose.

[A]

Oh, cool.

[C]

Lionel Richie, though. I'm not. This is. I don't know if that's. I don't have the greatest confidence in this panel of judges, guys.

[A]

Yeah, he's been, he's been doing a lot of stuff as young Lionel.

[C]

It just, it just feels like a bit of a half hearted reboot is what I'm getting at.

[B]

I mean, Ryan Seacrest is still there and I don't know if I've told you all this, but I, I graduated from the same high School that Ryan Seacrest went to, that's like.

[C]

He's our co. He's our co worker, by the way.

[A]

Them. Technically.

[B]

Technically, yeah. That's like. That's like my high school's, like, one claim to fame. They hit Brian, at least when I was there. They had his football jersey up in the lot in the weight room. People like, when he played football and, like, yeah, I honestly think he was the kicker.

[C]

He is a handsome man with the gift of gab, I'll give you that.

[A]

It's. It's cool to find success in entertainment. It's difficult. So in 1956, these seven participating countries and their broadcast arms, they're saying, we're going to cast our votes. We're going to cast our votes in secret. So at this point, the audience is not chiming in, even though this is a televised event. And get this, our lovable scamps over in Luxembourg are not able to make it to the show. I think they were too rich or something with their scheduling. So their friends, the Swiss representatives, voted on Luxembourg's behalf. This was very much a biased affair because these jury members were allowed to vote for their own entries. And as a result of this, there is a conspiracy that begins in the very first year of Eurovision. People still wonder how the votes went, how they should have gone. Was the voting rigged? The winner was a question that's going

[C]

to continue into the present. We're going to get to that in part two of this series. But, Ben, what was the issue up front? They're already having scandals. It's literally year one of Eurovision and there's already a problem with this whole idea of soft diplomacy through song.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, hypothetically, think of it this way. We have a country named, in a burst of humility, Benvenia. Right. And the country of Benvenia sends its top brass, its best and brightest.

[C]

It's Envoy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, the two envoys, Noel Von Braun and Max. What was that name? What was your birth name again?

[C]

It's lost to history.

[A]

Okay, well, sends these two guys to vote on Eurovision, but there's nothing stopping them from saying, we're going to vote Benvenia and we're going to screw up the whole election. Either way, Switzerland wins the first one.

[C]

Ah, the Swiss.

[A]

Yeah, the host country as well.

[C]

Country. Aren't they traditionally kind of known as being diplomatically neutral?

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Isn't that sort of their.

[B]

They are the neutral country.

[C]

That's right. They're the major stick. Uh oh, we're seeing issues come up already.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Challenging that neutrality. It seems that there's. What's the opposite of neutrality Bias. Yeah, a little bit of that.

[A]

Yeah. Well put. The first winner of Eurovision is now known as the Grand Dame of Eurovision, Lys Asia. She performed two songs for Switzerland. One was called the Old Carousel. It is a German language song. And Noel, could you do me a favor and help us out with the pronunciation?

[C]

Ah, Ben, you honor me with the opportunity to pronounce something in my native tongue. As you know, I was once a small German boy. The old Carrousel or das alte Carusel. Okay, Carusel, let's see if we can find a clip.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, while you're looking for the clip, can you give us that German one more time? But if you can, more emphatic.

[C]

Oh, man. Thank you so much for the second opportunity to over pronounce something in my native tongue. As you know, I was once a young German boy.

[A]

There we go.

[C]

That's Arctic house clap.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Let's roll the clip. We got it. We got it, guys. By Liz Asia. You can already see how this is, like, much more like a classical piece.

[A]

Definitely sounds. Yeah, definitely sounds like there's 24 people in the orchestra. Beautiful. So this is again, as you said. No, this is Dos Alte Carousel. The Old Carousel. This is one of the two songs that the grandam of Eurovision submits, but it is not the one that wins the day. Her winning entry is. Is a song in the French language because German and French are common languages in Switzerland. This is a ballad called refrain, so let's play a little bit of that one.

[C]

Isn't that a little redundant Refrain? It just refers to the chorus, I think. That's so funny. Let's see if we can find it.

[A]

Here we go. Same guys in the orchestra,

[C]

Y'. All. I can see why this one won the day, though, because it's a lot more upbeat. That last one was kind of a bummer. A little bit of a, you know, like a wistful, you know, reflection on the past. This one kind of bops.

[A]

Yeah, it's a little sweeter.

[C]

It's got a hot jazz.

[A]

Whatever the ear version of mouth feel is, it's a little nicer. And then from there, Eurovision is off to the races, or in this case, the microphone. More and more countries are becoming involved with the show from 1956 and the format kept changing. Right now over 40 countries compete and so the show is. Involves a lot of knockout rounds or semifinals, we could call them before the finals night occurs. The final night as we can tell you, because we have been watching a lot of Eurovision. The final night is pretty long. It's 26 acts at no more than three minutes each. Getting a shot on stage can be complicated. But luckily, the rules to qualify for your performance are pretty simple. They've got five rules and they break the fifth one all the time.

[C]

They sure do, Ben. They sure do. Here we go. Rule number one is it must be a new song. Both the tune, the musical composition and the lyrical content, the libretto.

[A]

Right, right. So sorry, Estonia and Norway. There's no death metal version of Mary Had a Little Lamb that you can pull off.

[C]

Yeah, no, that'd be fun, though. And can I just add, too, that we're not gonna play clips throughout this entire series. I think it was important that we were able to kind of show you how it progresses a little bit with some of these vintage clips. But, of course, as we get closer and closer into the modern day, we're gonna be hit with copyright strikes. So we're gonna do our best to demonstrate some of the evolution without, you know, playing too, too many clips, maybe

[A]

with some bad impressions. Everybody tune in. Yeah. The second rule, sacrosanct, is that your performance must be no longer than three minutes.

[C]

And I will die on this hill. No good pop song worth its salt should be. And movies should be no more than 1.5 hours.

[A]

Whoa, really?

[C]

I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But, like, you know, I do love, you know, brevity, man. Brevity, brevity. The soul of which.

[B]

I was talking to my dad about 2001 a space odyssey, and I'm like, dad, you know, it's like 15 movies. It's like 48 hours long. He's like, it's not. I'm like, well, it's four hours long. He goes, well, that it is. Yes.

[A]

I remember when Gettysburg, not the battle, the film based on the battle, was out in theaters and they had an intermission and I thought we could leave, but my creepy family made me stay.

[C]

Oh, man, I do remember the good old days where movies like that, of that length had to be served up to you on two rubber banded VHS tapes that would, like, flop together.

[A]

That's right. Oh, did I ever tell you guys my first time seeing the Godfather series was through VHS tape. And it was exactly what you're describing, Noel. This was Blockbuster for anybody who was also old Blockbuster Video. Yeah. And they had the two VHS tapes kind of rubber banded together, but they put the tapes in the wrong order. So I'm watching this, I'm thinking, whoa, this is so nonlinear. This is groundbreaking. Crazy artistry in the forefront. What's going to happen has already happened. And then later, one of my friends said, hey, man, you know, they have a little sticker on the tapes. One says number one and the other says number two.

[C]

It's sad that we're not gonna make that kind of mistake so much anymore. Well, actually, that's not true. I have accidentally started watching the last episode of a series on streaming before and not understand that that's what was happening. And then also had a similar thought. Whoa, this is wild. They're just dropping me in in Midi Arrest. I'm supposed to like, no, I don't know. I'm here for it. But I have spoiled a handful of series for myself that way. Where are we at with ruin?

[A]

Oh, yeah. The main thing is, just like podcasting, you cannot do lip syncing. So vast apologies to Kid Rock. All the songs.

[C]

Oh, Shots Fired, bro.

[A]

Must be sung live. Oh, no, you're right. Performed live. I wouldn't call what he does singing.

[C]

No. My God, Ben, who hurt you? Was it Kid Rock? Where is Kid?

[A]

Where is Kid? He's definitely not at Eurovision because no lip syncing is allowed. And Noel, our Triplin, our fourth rule is. Our fourth rule is. I think probably. I think it's an apology to the backstage production.

[C]

I get it. And this is also the kind of thing that could evolve as a show and a production like this evolves because, as we know, of course, big singing groups, boy bands, girl groups, things like that, became very in vogue. But initially they had the rule of no more than six people on stage, which seemed to be, to your point, Ben, a way of mitigating chaos and nightmarish changeovers between sets.

[A]

And this brings us to the number five rule, the most important one, which is also the slipperiest and also the rule that is most broken most years. No politics. All right? So if we're Czechia or if we're Hungary or the United Kingdom or Israel, which we'll get to in Part two, then your stuff is supposed to be apolitical. It's just supposed to be a cool bop that is not more than three minutes long.

[C]

I mean, let's be real, man. This is an unrealistic and unreasonable expectation for a competition that was started

[A]

with

[C]

the acknowledgement that these countries, many of which did not like each other, were meant to compete together. You know what I mean? And so I get the sentiment. It's heart is in the right place, but it's also a little bit pie in the sky. So, while Eurovision was always intended to be apolitical, there have been many scandals and trends towards political voting, where countries vote for their neighbors and shun nations that they'd had issues with in the past. This has been combated to a certain degree by introducing more national juries who have their professional judgment added in with the public vote. But. But let's be real, man. Whenever there's voting involved, I mean, it's called voting. It's politics, baby.

[A]

Right, Exactly. Yeah. It's called voting. I love that. Actually, Max, can you do me a favor and play that back as a clip of Noel saying that? Noel, I'm going to make you hear yourself.

[C]

It's called voting.

[A]

It's called voting. Brilliant. This is exciting.

[C]

Yeah. I coined the term, by the way, foreign.

[A]

And so with that, folks, we have to tell you a little bit about how Eurovision works now. And with great affection, with profound love, we want you to know this is kind of ridiculous. So every country that participates in Eurovision has their own sort of bush league or farm league selection process. That's how they choose one original song, one act. It can take a couple of different forms. Like there may be a regionally or nationally known artist who gets approached by that country's government, and that government says, hey, you're the hottest ticket in Romania. You should sing your song that you did earlier that'll represent us in Eurovision. Or it might be the next step for an artist who wins their country's own song competition, because a lot of them have them at this point. So, for example, if you are Italian and you win the San Remo Music Festival, you get what we call the first right of refusal to participate in Eurovision. Yeah.

[C]

And I mean, obviously it's a great honor to be asked, and most people would, of course, jump at the chance to represent their country in Eurovision, but it also doesn't necessarily mean, like, it's not the same as American Idol in this respect. American Idol is about kind of being an unknown and then being elevated to pop star status. Whereas Eurovision, with varying degrees of fame, of preexisting fame, they are kind of pre existing acts or groups that are then seen as a representative of that particular nation. And they may well be incredibly popular, but typically that popularity would not extend far beyond the borders of that particular country. Right.

[A]

You gotta have your stripes, at least for your country.

[C]

We're gonna get into some of our personal favorites as well.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

Some that we've actually seen Live similar

[A]

to the Olympics, which is kind of what this is. You might not be the best pole vaulter in the world yet, but you kind of have to be the best pole vaulter in Poland to get into

[C]

where all good pole vaulters come from. It's right there in the name.

[A]

Yep, yep, yep. They do call it Poland. So the composition of the act has also evolved. It's much broader than it was originally. So as we said the first contest, they only have solo artists. The next year, 1957, they allow duos. They get a little, you know, Simon and Garfunkel with it and they continually open, open the door to more and more types of acts. So today you might see a solo singer, you might see a band, you might see a phenomenal dancing turkey puppet, which, weirdly enough, was from Ireland. I wish we could play a clip, but it's not going to translate to audio.

[C]

No, no. That's weird though. I don't really think of Ireland as being the land of dancing turkeys.

[A]

You got to check out the show, man. So the only real rules that hold are a song must be br. It must be under three minutes. It has to be sung live on stage. After that, it's all about spectacle, creativity,

[C]

showmanship, may we say, or may I say? And you may feel free to agree or disagree with me, Ben and Max, But I think the live singing component is so cool and so unique even to this day, where we have had a lot made out of another incredibly popular music show out of Europe called Top of the Pops.

[A]

Oh, I love it.

[C]

Where famously, it's great, but famously, all the bands lip synced because of the logistics of the production. And if you're interested in checking out some folks kind of pushing back against that, there is an incredible performance of Nirvana on Top of the Pops where I think Kurt is just pretending to play guitar.

[A]

He burned it down. Oh, my God.

[C]

He's got like, he keeps like a straight hand while strumming the guitar and just kind of like basically is just saying blah, blah, blah, and marble mouth mumbling kind of to the, to the playback of Smells Like Teen Spirit. So the live singing aspect is super important and relatively rare for live music television shows in Europe.

[A]

Now you can have a backing band at this point. The 24 piece orchestra is gone.

[C]

That wasn't good.

[A]

You could have a backing track, a backing track of pop star, but you will have to actually be singing. And I also want to give a shout out to the Jules Holland show. Do you guys remember him?

[C]

Incredible, incredible. Some fabulous performances. I believe it's called Late Night or Later With Jules Holland.

[A]

Yeah, something late. It's not on it.

[C]

Yeah, it's called later with Jules Holland and you can see incredible performances of bands from the 90s, I think, up

[A]

through the 2000s, Empire of the Sun Black.

[C]

It's just really, really fabulous. And they are incredibly well produced and entirely live. Jules Holland himself was actually a weird sort of niche pop art in the uk. He was a piano player. And there is a pretty interesting film, a music film called A Music War, which highlights a couple of interesting scenes in the 80s, one from Los Angeles and one from London, where you got bands like the Dead Milkman, Oingo Boingo, featuring Danny Elfman, who of course went on to become a super famous film composer. And Jules Holland is featured in that as well. So, yeah, there's an incredible tradition of music performance shows and the music and art documentaries that are produced. A lot of these things you can find on YouTube, but just had to make the Top of the Pops comparison how some of these music shows, because of production logistics, did not allow for actual live performance. So it's a pretty big deal that from its earliest days, where production technology wasn't nearly where it got to Eurovision, was all about that line elements.

[A]

And Eurovision, when it reaches its apex every year, it takes place over three big nights. The thing is, a lot of work goes into selecting those songs in advance. So well before those three nights, countries will randomly draw lots to determine which semifinal they are in and then which half of that semifinal they are in. From there, it all goes to our producers, our showrunners. They arrange the acts in the way that they feel has the best pacing, you know what I mean? So they don't want two really slow solo singer ballads one after the other, right? They want to pace it out. They want to put in their dancing turkey puppet to liven things up. So you might be Ireland and you might get. You might randomly get assigned semifinal two and first half of that semifinal, that means you're performing earlier in the show that night, but you don't know exactly where you're placed until the showrunners tell you, until they mandate it. And so in each of these semifinals, they're also mixing up the countries, right? Only the top acts advance to the big night, the grand finale. There are some exceptions to this. We'll get to them in a moment. But that makes sense, right? Just from a production standpoint, like if the four of us, Max Knoll, yours truly, and you, fellow ridiculous historian, if we're the four people who are running the show, we want it to have a good vibe, right? Like we want to curate it. We want to DJ a little.

[C]

For sure. Yeah. We don't want to do any. Have any train wreck moments. Right? That's what they call it when a DJ screws up their train wreck.

[A]

Is that really what they call it? Uh huh.

[C]

Yeah. It's Trainwreck.

[A]

Have you seen?

[C]

Maybe that's a colloquialism that I was only in my circles, but it makes sense. You can picture it, right? When you do a bad beat match or you do crossfade, everything comes screeching to all. God forbid you have dead air, you know?

[A]

Oh, right, yeah. And that's what these showrunners are terrified of as well. So, okay, we got two nights, we got all these semifinals occurring after everybody votes. And we'll get to the voting in part two. The big day arrives and this is the main event. This is where the best of the best caveat, asterisk, compete for ultimate bragging rights. You get a really cool trophy, you get a place in music history. And as we can tell you, folks, the performances are galvanizing, the energy is electric. It's a very kinetic sort of situation. Be amazing to go there live. They have pyrotechnics, you know what I mean? Like, they have puppetry, they have people in the air. It's pretty cool.

[C]

Of course. No, it's a spectacle, man. It's a regular Cirque du Soleil. There we are, a regular Empire of the Sun. And then insert any other theatrical type performance. But it's cool. It has become known as much for its music and tunefulness and singing prowess on display as it has for its spectacle.

[A]

Absolutely, 100%. And with this, we're going to pause on a bit of a cliffhanger. So we've given you the ridiculous, well intentioned history and origin story of Eurovision, but we have questions to explore in chapter two of this series. How does the voting actually work? What did we mean when we said soft diplomacy? What's up with all these controversies that the guys are referring to? And what are the weirdest songs from Eurovision? We can't wait for you to join us in our second episode on the ridiculous history of Eurovision. Big, big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Max, do you have a favorite Eurovision song?

[B]

Yeah, I can't remember the name of it. I got. They're from the same Eurovision, but it's the one with the Norwegian guys singing about bananas.

[C]

That's probably my favorite One classic love. A Norwegian singing about a banana that is not native to their region.

[B]

Yeah, very strange.

[A]

A pivotal piece of Norwegian culture, as you can imagine. Big thanks to Alex Williams, our own in house composer.

[C]

Now that you have to be able to grow a banana to sing about a banana. I'm not.

[A]

Yeah, we're not getting. Keeping bananas. No, no, you've got.

[C]

You and I, we can't grow bananas here either. I mean, it's fine.

[A]

You and I both have a lot of weird favorite Eurovision hits we're going to get to in chapter two. But you got one off the top that, that just really sings to you.

[C]

I reserve the right to hold this response until part two when we talk about my guy. But man, this is super fun. I think it makes a whole lot of sense to pair the voting part with the controversy part because they are quite related, as we've already alluded to, with some of the biased voting. And boy, oh boy, are we going to get into how this has been incredibly politicized and weaponized in part two.

[A]

Yeah, and speaking of weaponized and politicized, not a thank you, but a chilly civil formal acknowledgment of Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Quister.

[C]

I think and I see. How do you.

[A]

I think he was in Eurovision one time. I could see with his bald head. Yeah, I could see the performance. Big thing.

[C]

The light reflecting was blinding to the audience.

[A]

He did a cover of Blinded by the Light and the judges kicked him out because it has to be an original composition. Strict one to grow on. Big thanks to Christopher Haas, Yoda, Steves Jeffcoat. Who else?

[C]

They're here in spirit. And also huge thanks, as he said, to, you know, whatever. A shilly a chili. How do youo Do? To Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzer, AJ Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler. Cause we gotta thank them in the same breath. Cause that's just how it goes. Alex Williams, our own Eurovision star, who composed this bangin bop that you hear in your very ears that could well have held its own in a Eurovision esque competition.

[A]

Absolutely. Now we just need the lyrics. And big thanks to the rude dudes of ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you will love them. So tune in. Get the to thy podcast platform of choice. I have been a research associate for this series. No thanks to you, man. I can't wait for part two of this. It's going to get so weird.

[C]

Oh, same. See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.