The Trivial Pursuit Trivia Edition

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Trivial Pursuit Trivia Edition"

Title: Stuff You Should Know
Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
Episode: The Trivial Pursuit Trivia Edition
Release Date: December 19, 2024

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Introduction

In the "Trivial Pursuit Trivia Edition" episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant delve deep into the history, creation, and cultural impact of one of the most iconic board games ever—Trivial Pursuit. Skipping the usual advertisements and non-content segments, this episode offers listeners an engaging exploration of how a simple game of trivia transformed into a global phenomenon.

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Origins of Trivial Pursuit

Josh and Chuck begin by reminiscing about their personal connections to Trivial Pursuit, highlighting its significance in their childhoods.

Josh Clark (02:20):
"This is Stuff You Should Know. Second, we're talking about Trivial Pursuit, arguably one of the greatest board games ever created."

Chuck echoes this sentiment, sharing nostalgic memories of playing the game with his mother, emphasizing the personal and familial bonds the game fostered.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant (02:37):
"My mom really, really loved it. We were often a team together, my mom and I. So it's kind of one of my good childhood memories with her."

---

Development and Launch

The discussion transitions to the inception of Trivial Pursuit by Canadian journalists Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. The duo, frustrated by the stagnation in the board game industry and motivated by a simple desire to create their own game, embarked on an ambitious project.

Josh Clark (08:03):
"These guys, that was the kind of thing that they would talk about doing is making a game because they realized that you could make money off of it."

Haney and Abbott, alongside their collaborators, swiftly conceptualized the game, designing a circular board inspired by a ship's wheel with categories like geography, entertainment, sports and leisure, science and nature, arts and literature, and history.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant (10:54):
"They got the game together. They got some construction paper. They started sketching things out."

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Success and Cultural Impact

Upon its release during the Christmas season of 1981, Trivial Pursuit quickly became a bestseller in Canada, selling out initial print runs of 1,100 games and skyrocketing to 100,000 copies by the following Christmas. The game's success was attributed to its generalist approach, allowing players from various backgrounds to engage without needing specialized knowledge.

Josh Clark (25:05):
"In 1983, finally, a US company licensed the game and sold 1.3 million games that year."

The game not only revived interest in trivia but also influenced social gatherings, with the New York Times noting a shift from cocktail parties to Trivial Pursuit parties during its peak in 1984.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant (29:00):
"By January of 1984, the New York Times reported that people in New York were trading cocktail parties for Trivial Pursuit parties."

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Editions and Evolution

Over the years, Trivial Pursuit expanded beyond its original format, introducing themed editions such as the Genus Not Genius edition, Disney, Fame, and even specialized versions like the EMS edition focused on emergency medical services. These editions catered to niche interests, allowing fans of specific genres to engage more deeply.

Josh Clark (46:07):
"They went from genus to silver screen edition and baby boomers edition. And I think a sports edition."

The hosts discuss the balance between maintaining a generalist appeal versus catering to specialized interests, acknowledging that while some editions may narrow the pool of potential players, they also enhance the game's longevity and relevance.

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Notable Anecdotes and Legal Challenges

The episode touches upon intriguing anecdotes from the game's history, including high-profile endorsements and appearances in popular media like the movie The Big Chill and its feature in Time magazine. Additionally, Josh and Chuck recount legal battles faced by Trivial Pursuit, notably lawsuits claiming intellectual property infringement.

Josh Clark (37:15):
"They had two notable court cases, one from an Australian man who claimed to have contributed ideas, and another from Fred Worth, a trivia author."

In both cases, Trivial Pursuit successfully defended its position by emphasizing the general nature of trivia facts, which, according to the courts, cannot be copyrighted.

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Current Status and Legacy

Today, Trivial Pursuit boasts over 80 million games sold, with numerous editions catering to diverse interests. The game remains a staple in households worldwide, symbolizing both intellectual challenge and social interaction.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant (35:14):
"Trivial Pursuit is selling gangbusters, and Abbott and Haney are rich dudes and also weirdly kind of celebrities."

Despite facing challenges adapting to modern preferences, such as shorter attention spans and digital competition, the game's legacy endures, continuously evolving to stay relevant in the gaming landscape.

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck wrap up the episode by reflecting on Trivial Pursuit's enduring appeal and its role in shaping social interactions and family dynamics. They celebrate the game's ingenious blend of competition and camaraderie, which has cemented its place in pop culture history.

Josh Clark (51:34):
"They were selling everything in Canada, and it was no small thing to plunk down that kind of money on this big, heavy, voluminous game."

The episode serves as a comprehensive exploration of Trivial Pursuit, offering listeners both nostalgic memories and insightful analysis of a game that transcended its humble beginnings to become a cultural icon.

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Clark (02:20):
  "This is Stuff You Should Know. Second, we're talking about Trivial Pursuit, arguably one of the greatest board games ever created."

• Charles W. Chuck Bryant (02:37):
  "My mom really, really loved it. We were often a team together, my mom and I. So it's kind of one of my good childhood memories with her."

• Josh Clark (08:03):
  "These guys, that was the kind of thing that they would talk about doing is making a game because they realized that you could make money off of it."

• Charles W. Chuck Bryant (10:54):
  "They got the game together. They got some construction paper. They started sketching things out."

• Charles W. Chuck Bryant (29:00):
  "By January of 1984, the New York Times reported that people in New York were trading cocktail parties for Trivial Pursuit parties."

• Josh Clark (46:07):
  "They went from genus to silver screen edition and baby boomers edition. And I think a sports edition."

• Charles W. Chuck Bryant (35:14):
  "Trivial Pursuit is selling gangbusters, and Abbott and Haney are rich dudes and also weirdly kind of celebrities."

---

This episode not only chronicles the remarkable journey of Trivial Pursuit from concept to cultural staple but also underscores the timeless allure of trivia as a connector of minds and generations.

Transcript

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Narrator]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And Jerry's here too. We're just rolling the dice and moving the pies.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I called them pies too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, because I mean, it was like a pie piece. Yeah, I can't think of anything else you would call them. I think some people call them wedges, but they're clearly sickos.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Oh, I think they're officially wedges.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I've seen the guys who invented the game, so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Did you watch that video?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh boy.

[Josh Clark]

We should probably tell everybody what we're talking about. First, this is stuff you should know. Second, we're talking about Trivial Pursuit, arguably one of the greatest board games ever created.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Is.

[Josh Clark]

And we're not just saying that. Cause Stuff youf Should Know has its own Trivial Pursuit edition. It's because it legitimately is such a great game.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I played this game a lot when I was a kid. It was a family favorite. My mom really, really loved it. We were often a team together, my mom and I. So it's kind of one of my good childhood memories with her.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet. Yeah. Looking at the board and all, like pictures of the board and some of the question cards and all that, like, I was just overwhelmed with nostalgia. Cause it was a huge thing in my family too, playing Trivial Pursuit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Boomer City, baby.

[Josh Clark]

I love that game. Yeah, for sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

As it turns out.

[Josh Clark]

For sure. And what's funny is it indoctrinated us into everything that boomers like. It was a really, like, huge cultural transfer from one generation to the other in that way.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, I was a 12 year old who learned about Gunsmoke and Richard Nixon through playing Trivial Pursuit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. And Spiro Agnew from Mad magazine.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So we should probably start at the start. And that actually goes long before Trivial Pursuit was created. But not as far back as you would think. Like in the United States, we did a live episode on game shows that was really cool. And we talked about this some. But back as far back to the 30s on the radio and then later on TV, quiz shows were like all the rage. And America's had, like, fascinations with trivia and then got bored with it and then came and found it again and then got bored with it. And back in the 30s, that was one of the peaks where everybody was super into it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Quiz shows were for sure big. I think, you know, Livia helped us with this. And I always kind of wondered about the word trivial because I thought that was a pretty genius. And we'll get to the name change, because initially this was called Trivia Pursuit, and a lot of people called it Trivia Pursuit. But the change to trivial, I don't know, there was just something that made it a little cheeky maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because you're not just talking about trivia, you're also poking fun at your own game. You're putting all this effort into something that doesn't really matter in the end.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I guess so. But I thought it mattered when I was a kid. Now that I'm adult, I'm like, trivia Pursuit's kind of A fun name. When I was a kid, I was like, this is not trivia. These are facts and figures.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Oh, I took it seriously, too, for sure. I love Trivial Pursuit too. But it was definitely in the vein of the people who invented this thing that kind of poke fun at themselves and even at you, the player, for playing it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So pub quizzes were big in England before they were a big deal in the United States, where we call it just bar trivia, I guess. But they kind of hit it big earlier on. So the world of trivia was gaining steam through the 1960s. I think there was a Columbia student named Edwin Goodgold who. I think he wrote a book. Right.

[Josh Clark]

He and another guy named Dan Karlinsky wrote a book simply called Trivia. But he's credited as one of the early people to spread the whole concept of being quizzed about inconsequential, usually pop culture questions to just show, like, how much you knew about your childhood. And that Edwin Goodgold thing. Two things about him. He went on to become the manager of Sha Na Ana.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Oh, wow. And he wrote in Columbia University's, I guess, their newspaper. He was one of their writers. He wrote that these trivia games that are like the hot new thing on campus are played by young adults who, on the one hand, realize they have misspent their youth, yet on the other hand, do not want to let go of it. And that was the whole idea. It was about all the stuff that you learned in your childhood from reading Superman comic books and listening to, like, gangster or seeing, like, gangster TV shows just from being a kid. That's what the whole thing was based on. And that kind of became a tradition, too, that it was largely stuff in the past. A lot of it was pop culture.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. And that was the mid-60s. The mid-70s is when the pub quizzes really took off in England. That didn't start in the US Till really after A Trivial Pursuit. There was a time even where the TV show Jeopardy. Was not on the air because, like you said, there was just a waxing and waning on interest in trivia. But Jeopardy. Came back in 84, and all of a sudden, you know, trivia started to be important in the United States again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I didn't see it anywhere. But I would put some serious money on the idea that Trivial Pursuits success revived Jeopardy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I bet it did, because it.

[Josh Clark]

Was a huge, huge deal, as we'll see.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

But the. The whole thing starts all the way back in 1979 and December of 1979, appropriately because trivial Pursuit and Christmas for its first few years of being out were synonymous with one another, essentially. Maybe synonymous isn't the right word, but they were. It was a big deal around Christmas time when it first came out. How about that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this is our pick. We kind of had a hard time deciding this year, but. Or actually not really. It was a toss up, but we always do like a Christmas, you know, legendary Christmas gifts in pop culture history kind of episode. And this year we went with Trivial Pursuit because it was a big, you know, they. As you'll see, you know, rolling out a board game in October and November is a pretty smart move, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And these two guys, there are two Canadians. I read an article about them that was contemporary to them in the Toronto Star. It said that they come off like the two original hosers. Yeah, like even bigger hosers than Bob and Doug McKenzie is what they were saying.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there were a couple of hockey dudes, just hockey. Beer drinking, Canadian, good old fashioned Canadian hockey. Playing, or at least hockey watching. I bet they played too. They all played.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think they definitely did. They certainly covered it. One of them, Scott Abbott, was a sports reporter for the Canadian press, who I think his focus was on hockey. The other guy was Chris Haney. He was a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette. So these are a couple of late 70s, early 80s journalist dudes who wear mustaches and drink beer during their interviews on the news.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And smoke.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and smoke during them too. These were the guys who invented Trivial Pursuit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Haney was a high school dropout. Abbott did have a master's degree in journalism from University of Tennessee. And he was living with Haney and his wife Sarah in their apartment in Montreal at the time. And as the legend goes, they're hanging out one day, it was kind of rainy. They were like, hey, let's play some Scrabble. They realized they didn't have some Scrabble. And then I saw a couple of different versions, kind of inconsequential, like whether or not he just dropped everything and went out and bought a Scrabble, or whether just on his next shopping trip he did. But Haney would buy a Scrabble game, bring it back to play, and was like, you know what? I bought like six of these things over the years. Cause I just keep losing them or leaving behind or loaning them out or something. And like, what a racket. Like, we should get into the gaming business.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's how it was born. They just realized how many times he bought A Scrabble game. And they were like, we could do that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What a story.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. These guys, that was the kind of thing that they would talk about doing is making a game because they realized that you could. That other people have made money off of it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Up to this point, their big claim to fame in their circle was having carried out a pyramid scheme with a chain letter that was actually successful in that they made money off of it, and they never got caught for it either. So up to this point. So these were. That was these kind of guys, Right? And this particular idea, though, kind of started to take shape really, really quickly. I think it was Chris A.B. or Scott Abbott who was like, well, how about something with trivia? And remember, at the time, like, trivia was not a hot item. And also, as we'll see, board games were not a hot item. So these were, like, two bad ideas that these guys decided to put together and accidentally became a success, or not accidentally. It ended up becoming a success. But it was like they figured it out really quickly, didn't they?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Some might say suspiciously quickly. We'll get to that later. But as their story goes, in about 45 minutes time, and they're really specific about that. I never saw anywhere an hour. They always said 45 minutes. They got, you know, the game together. They got some construction paper. They started sketching things out. They based the design of the circular board on a ship's wheel with six spokes that corresponded to categories of geography, entertainment, sports and leisure, science and nature, arts and literature and history. And you would roll the die, you would move in any direction you wanted, as long as it's only one direction. You get this little circular pie crust with six available pie slots.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Not wedges.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Not wedges. And the idea is, you go around and you answer questions in the corresponding categories, and when you answer them on the center of each spok or I guess the landing point of each spoke, you would get to put in a pie piece. Once you have all those pie pieces in, you roll your way to the center, must have an exact roll. And then the other teams decide which category of question they want to randomly ask you. And if you make it, you win the game. If you miss it, you got to roll back out and then answer questions and eventually roll back in.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, well put. Um, I am not one for boasting typically, but I will say that I once confirmed, won a game doing all the things you just said in 20 minutes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Wow. By yourself?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no, not by myself. I was playing a dude at work at the liquor store. I was working.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. I mean, were you on a team by yourself?

[Josh Clark]

No, no. Oh, no, just me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. That's what I was asking. Not literally playing Boy, Josh, I need. Oh, never mind.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, I guess if you were really honest, you could play by yourself.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, you could sit around and read cards. I did that for a little while.

[Josh Clark]

That's not honest. I'm saying you could roll, you could move, you could ask yourself questions, answer them, and if you got it wrong.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Talk in different voices. No, good try, Chuck.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Great catch.

[Josh Clark]

You kind of ruined my 20 minute anecdote, frankly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, I want to dwell back that because 20 minutes. I mean, I played a lot of Trivial Pursuit, and I don't feel like we ever got through a game in less than that standard 45 minutes it took to invent it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, it could take a while. Especially if, like, had a lot of people who, yeah, Didn't. Didn't know trivia. But yeah, it would usually take, yeah, 45 minutes, an hour, depending on how fast everybody was moving. Usually it took longer because the whole point was almost every question and answer would, like, generate a quick conversation or usually short conversations. Sometimes longer. Yeah, exactly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And most of the times it was boomer parents, like, waxing philosophic about how great their stuff was.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly to that, too. But that was the point, and that's one of the reasons it became so popular is, like, it was really easy to have a party centered on Trivial Pursuit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So I don't think we mentioned you could. You could have teams. I did sort of allude to that. But you could have. I mean, you could probably have as many people as you want on a team. But I think they suggested max of four, meaning a max of 24 players. And anything more than that would get a little unwieldy. But I feel like we were. And my family wasn't big. It was usually. We were in pairs.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was typically how it was done. So you could argue and be mad at one another when the other one insisted on the wrong answer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And as a kid, I do also remember all of my family trying to nab me. Cause I was the only one who really knew much about sports.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was always my weak one, too. And that was always the one that would get picked for me if I ever made it to the middle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What was your category like? If you could pick your own final category, what would it be?

[Josh Clark]

It was usually History or entertainment.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I would say Sports and Leisure or Entertainment for me. Yeah, definitely not geography. Still.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. My worst was definitely Sports and Leisure and I would. Yeah, geography was probably second.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's because they didn't have maths.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Only in the British version.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So I mentioned the name change. That was Sarah, who was Haney's wife. Chris Haney's wife. Sarah is the one that said no, change it to trivial instead of trivia. I think it was a pretty great switch and I think that's a pretty good intro.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. Well, if that's the end of the intro, then Chuck, I think we have to put an ad break in here.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's move along to act two right after this.

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[Josh Clark]

So Haney and Abbott like they were like we're going to do this. And they came upon a great idea that they would visit a toy industry convention like the big one in Canada. I think it was the Canadian Toy Manufacturers Trade Show. Can't remember what it was called. I looked it up, I couldn't find anything on it. But they went. Remember, they were journalists, so they went as reporters as if they were on an assignment to do a story on the toy industry, specifically the board game industry. So they used that cover to pick the brains of a bunch of people who were in the board game industry. And one of the. Well, they found out a couple of things very quickly. They found out that the board game industry was in a slump. They also found out that is a very, very closed industry where if you're a newcomer with an idea, just hit the bricks like they're not going to listen to you. That's not how the board game industry works. And they figured this out. So they decided that from going to this conference they were going to have to do this themselves. If they wanted to get this, this game out there, they were going to have to. They couldn't just sell the idea, they had to make the game first. And that's what they set about doing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they were like, we did a pyramid scheme. We're good at selling things that don't exist. So they enlisted a little bit of help. They got Chris's brother John Haney on the team and then a guy named Ed Warner, who was a friend, who's a corporate attorney, and they formed the Horn, Abbott Company. Haney's nickname was the Horn and Abbott in this case with one T was just a variation on Abbott's two T'd name. And they started selling equity to raise a little money through friends and family. So they sold 40 shares at $1,000 each to 32 friends and family members. And, boy, you want to talk about an investment that paid off for sure. Wow. Can you imagine? It'd be like one of the early, like, Apple stock or Google stock people.

[Josh Clark]

You know, very similar to that. Not quite as lucrative, but still pretty well. The people who bought several shares each were set for life, basically, after the game hit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But at the time, Chris Haney told his mom she shouldn't invest.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And this is his idea, his business venture. That's how much he believed in it, I guess. But there's a guy named Michael Wurstland, and so this iconic, really elegant design for the package, the board itself, the cards, all that stuff, it was Michael Wurstland's work. He was 18 at the time.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's just amazing.

[Josh Clark]

And he didn't get a dime up front for it. He did this work for 5 shares of stock in the company of equity. And, yeah, it was very smart, as we'll see.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they managed to raise 40 grand. They got a $75,000 line of credit from a bank, and that was enough dough to start getting this game together in earnest. The one thing they didn't have, they had design. They had it kind of all ready to go. They needed 6,000 questions. And so I assume with some of that. What is that, like, close to 120 grand. They went to Spain in 1981, and they said, we're gonna go drink beer on the beach and write questions. We're gonna pack a bunch of dictionaries and encyclopedias and reference books and newspapers, and we're gonna go out there, we're gonna write it for the American audience. Some of this stuff's gonna be pretty obscure stuff. Some is gonna be, you know, some are gonna be a little easier. They wanted to kind of give it a little bit of variety. And finally, in November, 81 registered Trivial Pursuit as a trademark and then launched the Genus Not Genius edition that same month is when that came out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we should explain. Cause I've never understood it until I started researching this. It's called genus because genus, you know, like in taxonomy, genus is above species. So there's a bunch of different variations of this thing. Another. Another way to interpret or another definition of it. It's general. It's not specific. And so the questions in here were not. They were very general.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You didn't have to be like a specialist in anything to play Trivial Pursuit. And if you were, you're kind of handicapped because there was a bunch of other questions that had nothing to do with your specialist or special. Yeah, specialist. Specialism. What is the word I'm looking? Specialty. There you go.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I picture someone behind you with the giant Y like dancing up and down.

[Josh Clark]

I think there's somebody behind me with a hammer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, no, no, no. So Toy Fair people were not too interested at first. At least they got passed on from the bigs. Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley at the time saying this is a really expensive game to produce. And I mean, that's something we learned a lot about in doing the Stuff youf Should Know version is like, cost of production is obviously a big deal. I just never. We were like, you know, what if those pieces were like copper or something? And they were like, no, they're going to be punch out cardboard. But you guys are sweet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We were like, well, what about plastic? They're like, keep guessing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You know, Monopoly has all those solid lead figurines. They're like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Josh Clark]

That gives you brain damage if you play too much.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Not to knock our. The team we worked with because they were great and the game turned out great. It's just. It's just how you make a game to make money.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We've said it before and we'll say it again like they were the greatest bunch of people that I've ever worked with as a group. Like as a group, they were as good as it comes. It was amazing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was pro, top to bottom enthusiasm. Just a sheer pleasure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right. So enough of that kissing up. They got about 1100 games made, sold them to local retailers, regional Canadian retailers, basically. Oh, yeah. Right before Christmas. And then this distributor of games, Cheaptain products, very smartly were like, hey, we'll put this thing together. My daughter, supposedly the vice president's daughter, really, really loved the game when she went away for a weekend and played it a lot. And it ended up being a great decision for them as well.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Hugely consequential. And this was Christmas 1981. So this is the first Christmas that Trivial Pursuit comes out and makes a big splash because they sold out of those 1100 games so quickly that by the time the end of the. By the time the next Christmas rolled around, they'd already sold 100,000 copies in Canada. And that's a lot. And it turns out it's even more than you think it is because at the time, a board game to be a bestseller sold about 10,000 copies. So this little. This little independent. Yeah, a very independent game created by a couple of outsiders, sold 10 times more than you would expect it to sell as a bestseller in the first year.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was incredible. They were making everything in Canada. Canada at the time, except for the dice. 3,500 games a day, but they still couldn't keep up with the pace. In 1983, finally, a US company called Celcho and Richter, I guess, or Ryder. Ryder, yeah, Ryder. They licensed that game. They had real marketing money. Finally, they sold 1.3 million games in 1983 with that company. And one thing we haven't mentioned is this game was about double the cost of what a board game was at the time. 25 to 40 bucks, depending on where you went. That's up to $90 today.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I saw 1:25 today.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I put $40 in for 1983 in West Egg and it said $125.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It told me 90.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, God. All of our.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no.

[Josh Clark]

Inflation calculations are now in question.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh God, it must be having a. Our beloved West Egg. Well, either way, let's settle at 110.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, great, perfect.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But either way, that was about double the cost of a board game. So it was no small thing to plunk down that kind of money on this big, heavy, voluminous. Voluminous game.

[Josh Clark]

Voluptuous too. So you said heavy. Each game package weighed six pounds because they really pulled out the stops in the materials. And like, yeah, it was cardboard and yeah, it was plastic, but it was really, really well made, well manufactured, well designed. Cardboard and plastic put together. And again, just the look of it had such an elegant look. It just didn't. It did not look like other board games at the time. It was like sorry or Trouble or something like that, you know, where it was like wacky and there was like a cartoon explosion or something like that. Bunch of kids rolling dice on there. And that was a big deal too. There was no kid, no person anywhere on the box. The only person who showed up was the poet, the English poet Alexander Pope, who. Whose quote, what mighty contests arrived from trivial things was on the box. So this whole thing is so highbrow that it just doesn't even make sense. And yet that made people want it all the more. It was a brand new thing. It was a revival of board games is what Trivial Pursuit was when it came out.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and it was. I mean, it said for adults on the box, which turned out to be a stroke of genius, because I even remember I read an article in Slate that kind of drove this home. But I even remember kind of agreeing with what Slate was saying, which was, like, as a kid in the 80s, especially for kids of the 80s, who had, like, narcissistic parents who didn't show them much attention, if you could play Trivial Pursuit and hang, it was a chance to sit at the adult table for a minute and to interact with your parents for an hour a day.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And maybe make some extra allowance in the bargain.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Hey, you throw a little money on it, you never know.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. So this was Christmas 1983, that it blew up in the United States. And, like, when it blew up in the US it, like, it. It really just changed everything. Like you said, that first year, they sold 1.3 million games. They sold 20 million the next year in 1984. And by January of 1984, right after it started to come out in the United States, the New York Times reported that people in New York were trading cocktail parties for Trivial Pursuit parties. And I was thinking about it. Yeah, right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think there's anything more insufferable than the New York Times reporting on what cool New Yorkers are doing right there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

This was a great example of that. The 80s version, too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. They had great marketing early on with this new company, there was a marketing consultant they hired named Linda Pisano who would send these games out to celebrities who were featured in Questions in the Game. And she got letters back from some of them, and she would publish those. She got letters from Pat Boone, Gregory Peck, and James Mason.

[Josh Clark]

So the trio.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the boomers, are just going nuts. And then to really drive it home, there was a Time magazine report that the cast of the Big Chill, the most boomer movie of all boomers movies of all time, were unwinding between scenes, enjoying Trivial Pursuit and looking back at the nostalgia of their younger days. And that was peak boomer nostalgia. Trivial Pursuit reporting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I've never seen that movie, but I do know that one of the characters lets her husband, I guess, impregnate, serve as, like, a surrogate sperm donor to her friend.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The only reason I know that is because there is a great Saturday Night Live skit about it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I guess, did they show the wife who was, like, hanging out downstairs in the movie while they went upstairs or something like that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So in the Saturday Night Live one, like, she's just sitting there, like, reflecting, like, drinking tea and, like, thinking about how great and just beautiful this is, the sound coming from upstairs. They're, like, really getting into it, and she's getting, like, more and more concerned and worried.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think I remember that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think it was Jan Hooks who was like, the woman downstairs. It was a great sketch.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's funny. Well, that movie was very big in my house. And that soundtrack, I mean, I joke about it now, but that's literally the thing that introduced me to Motown.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

As a kid. Yeah. Listening to. I was 12 years old or whatever it was, listening to Aretha Franklin and the Four Tops and, you know, everyone else. Jeremiah was a bullfrog, which wasn't Motown. But if you want to hear a more in depth conversation about that, you can listen to the movie Crush episode featuring the wonderful and charming Janie Haddad Tompkins.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, nice. That was her pick, huh?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was her pick.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Good movie, though. But now it suffers from anti boomeritis.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. So I should wait 10 years to see it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

How do you feel about Boomers right now?

[Josh Clark]

I'll wait 10 years to see it. Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right. So 1984. Well, I guess we should mention that book. In 1983, a guy named Robert J. Heller wrote a book called how to Win at Trivial Pursuit. Like, that's how big it got. I think, like, 96 trivia games trying to cash in on Trivial Pursuits, success. And people writing books like how to Win at Trivial Pursuit in which Robert J. Heller said, why don't you just memorize all 6,000 cards?

[Josh Clark]

That became kind of an urban legend. Like, your cousin's friend memorized all 6,000 questions. Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's funny.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And there were some other cute or interesting anecdotes, I guess, that kind of came out around the time. One was Ronald Reagan was reported on having played the game while he was waiting for the election results in 1984. And during the game, he got two questions about himself. And you can relax. He got them correct. Both of them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's the only thing Reagan I can do is the one word.

[Josh Clark]

One of the facts I saw bandied about in some of the reporting. That was a great Reagan, by the way. Thanks. Was that either Ronald Reagan signed Clark Gable's discharge papers from the army or Clark Gable signed Ronald Reagan.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

It depends on who you ask. Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What was one of them authorized to do so? Or are they just like, come over here, buddy, sign this thing?

[Josh Clark]

No, no. Like, they just happened to be, like, that was just happened to be the luck of the draw as far as.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The arrangement went like they bore witness or something.

[Josh Clark]

No, I think like, let's say it was Clark Gable who signed them. He would have maybe been like a higher up to Ronald Reagan because Ronald Reagan was getting out. It happened to be Clark Gable rather than Colonel Joe Schmoe who signed them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm glad I complicated that. Very clean and cool story. Another fun little trivial factoid. And yes, I'm saying factoid was that QE2 Queen Elizabeth II hosted the first nerd cruise, it sounds like, because she hosted an eight day Trivial Pursuit tournament cruise in I guess 85.

[Josh Clark]

And so each Christmas 1983, it was like you could not find that thing. Yeah, in 1984, same same deal. Like it was really hard to find. But this time Selchow and Ryder had like learned their lesson and were like keeping up with supply a lot better than they were at the very beginning of this whole thing. And so at the, at the peak of this, I think it really peaked in 84, but that certainly continued on into 1985. Oh yeah, and the spring of 1985, 15% of households in America had a Trivial Pursuit game in their house. I saw at some point it was 20%, one in five.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think they're at about 80 million to date games.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I believe that totally.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's just a staggering amount of game. I mean, my mom, you talked about how well it was made. My mom still has the OG from whatever 40 years ago.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm sure it's just a little bit frayed in like the parts where it folded and the rest of it's just fine.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Nope, you can still read Richard Nixon on a third of those cards.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. There's a little like cocaine in the little folds and like tequila stains on some of the spots.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, not in my family, pal. So Trivial Pursuit is selling gangbusters. Abbott and Haney are rich dudes and also weirdly kind of celebrities. They were not shy. They loved to be on TV and to do interviews. They were in TV commercials, they were pitchmen for other brands like Amex and Diet Coke. And they would put that Trivial Pursuit branding on anything they thought they could make money of. And like you mentioned, those original investors did really, really well. There was an entertainment writer at the Toronto Globe and Mail named Susan Ferrier McKay who took out a bank loan to buy 10 shares early on. And in 1984 she bought a house and then she retired not too long after that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and Worstland, the guy, the 18 year old who did all the art, he founded a Company called Worstland Group, all one word that became pretty successful marketers in Toronto. And he used his money from his shares to start that. So it definitely paid off. And then, yeah, like you said, the Haneys and Chris Abbott or Scott Abbott were just mega rich from this. I mean, this game made hundreds of millions of dollars in the 80s, like 80s money. God knows what West Egg would convert that to, but there was a lot of money made off this. And you got to think back, like these were just a couple of dudes who had an idea and went with it. Although there were people who were like, yeah, that's questionable whether you had that idea, like you kind of referred to earlier, right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there were two cases at least, like two notable court cases. One was a lawsuit in 1994 from a guy, an Australian named David Wall, who said, hey, in 1979, this Chris Haney guy picked me and my buddy up when we were hitchhiking and we were in Nova Scotia and while we were driving around I told him about this idea for the game, like really specifically, like my mom has pictures of the wheel that I drew and the pie pieces and everything. And the court were like, well, where are those documents? And he was like, I don't have those anymore. And they said, we'll bring forward some witnesses. And he was like, no one's really coming forward.

[Josh Clark]

They moved.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they moved away. Haney said, or he said that Haney later offered him shares. Like, hey man, we're getting this game that you got. Told me the idea for going, and I'm going to offer to buy you shares. This is a real thing. He refused. Had he bought those shares, he would have ended up a rich person as well. But in court, Haney was like, I never met this guy, never picked him up. They awarded him initially. Well, not awarded him, he got zero dollars. But the judge ruled in Haney's favor and awarded them $1.2 million in court costs. This is after a 13 year legal battle, but they reduced that to 1 million because they said, but you know what, your big corporate attorneys came in and sued two of his witnesses. So we're going to knock off 200 grand and just make it a million.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, imagine being that guy. You're like, you owe me tens of millions of dollars and then 10 years later you owe them a million dollars. Like, yeah, this is just some guy. He wasn't some like high flying jetsetter who had a bunch of money. I don't know what happened to him.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But I mean, he had A hard. He didn't have the million bucks. I saw that. So they said they were looking to garnish his wages. And I was like, oh, man, this just goes from bad to worse.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but I mean, this is the one guy who said that. And like you said, he didn't come up with witnesses or any kind of supporting evidence. And. Yeah, it's just not clear what the deal was, whether he was just looking for a payday or if he did get ripped off. But as far as the court's concerned, he definitely did not get ripped off.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. What I was trying to find out was they said they sued two. First the judge said there was no witnesses. Then I find out that they had sued two of the witnesses, which they considered witness intimidation or something.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So I'm wondering if one of those witnesses they sued was the friend that hitchhiked with them. I couldn't find anything out. It's so hard to find out stuff about old court cases.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if it was like a David and Goliath thing, where Goliath won, that would be very sad indeed.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What about the other one? Yeah, we'll move on because this one's getting really sad. The other one is the story of a guy named Fred L. Worth. And if you are into trivia, Fred Worth is essentially your messiah. He is the original trivia dude who's been writing books on trivia, books like containing trivia for decades and decades now. I don't know if he's still alive, but if he is, he's probably still going strong. And he apparently had published a three volume encyclopedia of trivia at some point. This is before Trivial Pursuit was launched and he did something. You know how we've talked about mapmakers, like, including like a fake town to basically protect their property, see if somebody ripped them off? Yeah, he did something with trivia. Question. He included a trick question in his stuff.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He did. And? Well, it didn't bear fruit, but it played out in his favor. It was a question on Columbo, the TV show with what's his name?

[Josh Clark]

Peter Falk.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Peter Falk. I almost said Robert Blake. I used to get those confused.

[Josh Clark]

No, that was Beretta.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He's the one who murdered his wife in real life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Anyway, Peter Falk did not murder his wife, as far as I know. But he was Frank Colombo. And in the question, the answer was Philip Colombo. Like, what was Colombo's real name? And, you know, I don't know if anywhere else Philip Colombo had ever been printed. So it looked like Pretty good proof to me. He sued for 300 million bucks, claimed that close to 1700 of the questions were his. And a judge threw it out and said, first of all, this game is a lot different than that book. At which time Worth should have said, that's not what I'm saying. And then he said, but you can't copyright facts, no case. Which I officially feel bad for Worth because it seems clear to me that they took a lot of his questions.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, they said that they used his book for creating these things. They didn't deny that at all. But, yeah, I guess it was just their case was based on the idea that a fact's a fact. Like this guy didn't. It's not a creation of his own, which he found it. Right. No, I get it. And I imagine Fred Worth probably thought that was like an iron proof defense. I talked these people into putting this question in there, and it didn't work out. I'm sure he was astonished when that came along, that ruling. But also, just before we move on, Chuck, I just want to tell all of our hardcore Columbo fan listeners to just stop your emails right now. We know for a fact that Frank is not, as far as canon goes, Columbo's first name. Yeah, canonically, Columbo doesn't have a first name, or else his first name is Lieutenant. So Frank Colombo just happened to show up in a couple of screenshots that the producers of the show originally never intended anybody to be able to zoom in on.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Boy, do you think there are any Columbo pet ants?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, definitely that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Listen to this.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we got all kinds. Takes all kinds, chuck.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So the 90s are now upon us, and these guys are. They said they feel like rock stars, basically. They've got all kinds of money. Supposedly John Haney, the brother that was brought in, early on, they were talking about finances, and he said, well, be great as long as we don't do anything stupid like invest in racehorses. So that's just what they did. Haney and Abbott invested in racehorses, but for Abbott, it paid off. He spent 50 grand on a yearling named Charlie Bailey that ended up winning about $900,000 in total purses over the years.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And lots of studding out for big money. Oh, yeah. And they both invested in, kind of built from the ground up these two golf courses in Canada. And Abbott bought. He was a big hockey guy, so he bought the Brampton Battalion at the time before moving them north and changing their name and they are from the Ontario Hockey League, and I think he might still own them.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, I think so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I mean, this article I found was from the late 2000 teens, so.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, probably then, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't see why he would have sold it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, so they're now the Brampton Battalion. But they were the North Bay Battalion, right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. They were Brampton and now they're North.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, I always get North Bay and Brampton confused.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I do, too.

[Josh Clark]

So Olivia dug up a pretty interesting article. Written by who, Chuck?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

A guy named Ron Rodriguez.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's Juan Rodriguez.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, is it Juan?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

So Mr. Rodriguez is what we're going to call him from now on, because his name is really hard to say. It turns out he was. But you wrote, I think, a daily quota of 40 trivial pursuit questions a day, obviously, and only about half would get picked. And we kind of went through that too, because we helped out putting questions together for our version. And they asked for hundreds and hundreds of them. And you're like, okay, well, we're done. They're like, okay, well, we're going to use about a third of those, so we're going to have to do this again a couple more times. And it was like there weren't that many facts in all of the episodes of Stuff you should know, you guys. But we pulled it out. But I can feel Mr. Rodriguez's pain.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. It was a lot of writing. He said that he used The Dictionary of 20th Century World Politics, pop culture magazines, as his story goes, when he needed Rambo questions. He watched all the Rambo movies two times to come up with the best questions. And once you write them, they did. I think he had a partner. They had some researchers on the team, and they would fact check and do corrections and tweaks and stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I should say we weren't actually writing the questions. We were coming up with the source material for the questions from the podcast.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You just sitting there going, oh, no.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's some writer at Hasbro who's like.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

As far as the nitty gritty goes, questions have a maximum of 45 characters. They prefer two lines, even though there can be three. They just visually thought the two line questions looked better, so they tried to edit them down when possible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then I think now over the years, there's been about 300 editions published.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And very early on, they stayed fairly generalist. Although, I mean, let me take that back. They went from genus to silver screen edition and baby boomers edition. And I Think a sports edition. But compared to some of the editions that they've come out with now, those are still pretty generalist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So another one was Disney. Disney was the first tie in that they had in 1985. And that was still pretty general. It wasn't like Donald Duck facts specifically. Right. Weirdly, here's a piece of trivia for you. The second brand tie in that Trivial Pursuit released a game around was Fame. The TV show and movie.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

Like I'm Gonna Live Forever had its own Trivial Pursuit edition back in 1993.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Was the first question, how long did the Fame people think they were gonna live?

[Josh Clark]

That's a great question.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I couldn't have been very. As these editions weren't as big though. Right. There's no way.

[Josh Clark]

No. And that Slate article that you referred to, the author makes a case. They were basically saying, I think the whole premise was Trivial Pursuit lost its way and this is written about 10 years ago or something. And the premise or the thesis this author had was that it went from being general, where basically anybody could come along and try their hand at it, to increasingly more specific to where now you had to know everything there is to know about Harry Potter or everything there is to know about the Lord of the Rings or Friends or the Nightmare Before Christmas or that kind of thing. And that it just made it more and more narrow. It narrowed the pool. So you have to have more and more additions to appeal to as many people as possible. Whereas if you just made more generalist versions of the game, then you were always going to appeal to the most people possible.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, some of those versions are definitely not my thing, but I'm not gonna say it lost its way. I disagreed with that guy. And like, if you want a Harry Potter edition, that's your jam, then, like, I love it.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

In fact, I wouldn't mind a Friends edition, now that I'm thinking of it. I did today, the Friends edition, I think would be kind of fun for me. Or Seinfeld Edition, because I know those pretty well. But I did today buy the Greatest Hits edition, which is mainly 80s and 90s and a lot of pop culture, and supposedly that's like a Gen X feast. So I bought that today and hopefully I'll be getting it very soon.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome. I will be very disappointed if the Seinfeld edition doesn't have a question about who invaded Spain in the nine hundreds and the answer is the Moops.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

It's got to. It has to.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. God, we could probably write a Seinfeld edition. You and I could probably.

[Josh Clark]

They've come up with some other pretty cool ones, too. One's called X. It's much more adult, edgy questions. I think it's for 18 and up. And it's a stamp game where if you get it wrong, they stamp an X onto your forehead in ink. And once you get five stamps on your forehead, you. You're out.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

It is interesting. And then the weirdest addition I found, Chuck, was the EMS edition. Emergency Medical Services came out in 2012, and it had categories like trauma, illness, anatomy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's just minor cuts. Major cuts.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Yeah, I'd like to see some of those questions. I couldn't find them. And you can also play free online. There's a new version that came out this year called Trivial Pursuit. Infinite uses generative AI to come up with questions. And if you are a TV watcher, you can watch the new Trivial Pursuit game on the CW that's hosted by the lovable Levar Burton.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, we love Levar.

[Josh Clark]

Everyone loves levar.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Who doesn't?

[Josh Clark]

No one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else. I'm looking forward to playing. You know, I do have to say I think I tried to play the original genus sometime in the last like five or six years. It's been a minute. But I remember it didn't feel like it held up that well. And that's probably due to the fact that it was written in the 80s and it was geared toward boomers.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But it was still okay.

[Josh Clark]

Can you give an example of how it didn't hold up or a general example?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, just questions about Gunsmoke and Richard Nixon. And over and over and over.

[Josh Clark]

I thought you were gonna say it was deeply sexist or something like that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no, no, not like that. It just felt a little dated, question wise. Like, hey, hey. I mean, supposedly the masters edition is the one I think the gamer ranked in 2021 in a listicle. And the gamer said that the 2021 Master Edition was the best edition yet, but that classic edition has sold the lion's share of those 80 million versions.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, pretty impressive stuff. Yeah, I love these Christmas episodes. The pre Christmas special, usually Christmas toy episode.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Me too.

[Josh Clark]

So happy holidays to all of you out there. And the next time you see us, we're going to be on that ad. Free holiday special. It's coming soon. Do you have a listener mail today?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I do.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, great. Well, since Chuck answered in the affirmative when I asked him if he had a listener mail, it's time for listener.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Mail hey guys, Loved your September episode on the History of Music Streaming. I grew up in the 90s. I can vividly remember being at my friend Ross's house downloading Weezer songs off of Napster and burning pirated versions onto CDRs. As the title suggests, I'm an active musician now and I wanted to take a quick moment and give a shout out to the music streaming platforms that didn't end up in the episode like Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Oh yeah, I feel bad we didn't mention these and we just kind of went with the big corporate monoliths as an independent artist, especially like how Bandcamp allows us to promote shows, discover, connect with other musicians directly, and the ability to customize the look and copy our releases look and copy on our releases page. It's made getting gigs and connecting with other indie bands so much easier. I also found it interesting how the preferred medium of the day has informed artist choices, has informed their choices when releasing music in the 90s albums were so much longer, he says. I'm looking at you Smashing Pumpkins because a lone CD could hold more than a vinyl, LP or cassette. Today there is so much music available at our fingertips, musicians are releasing shorter albums, digital mixtapes and a steady stream of albumless singles, all in an attempt to stay relevant and capture fleeting attention spans of listeners. I'm curious to see what happens over the next decade. Thanks for your time and years of parasocial education and entertainment. This is from Chris in Seattle and we actually met and hung out with Chris.

[Josh Clark]

When?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Many, many years ago in Seattle. He was a friend of our booking agent, at least at the time. Josh Lindgren, still our booking agent. They were friends at the time. As far as I know, they're not friends anymore. Well, I don't know. I just didn't ask. But he I was gonna text Lindgren and ask if he knew him, but they he came to the Neptune show and I even rode in a car with him with Emily to some after party we went to.

[Josh Clark]

Wowee.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So good to be back in touch with Chris. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, thanks a lot Chris. Thanks for getting back in touch. I think that that's no longer parasocial. That's just social.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you're right.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if you want to be like Chris and remind us that we've hung out with you before and also share some pretty great information and correct us for not shouting out independent version of something we talked about. We love that kind of stuff. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart radio visit the iHeartRadio app.

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