Decoder Ring

Forrest Wickman, Slate's culture editor and a passionate bird lover, dives into the avian blunders of the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels. He explores the glaring inaccuracies of the pygmy nuthatch, a bird that doesn’t belong in its on-screen environment at all. With insights from filmmakers and bird experts, he unravels the chaos and challenges behind cinematic bird portrayals. Forrest also examines broader cultural implications, conservation efforts, and the peculiar journey of getting the bird right in movies.

Whatever happened to selling out? The defining concern of Generation X has become a relic from another era. How that happened is best illustrated by one of the idea’s last gasps, when in 2001, Oprah Winfrey invited author Jonathan Franzen to come on her show to discuss his new novel The Corrections. A month later, she withdrew the invitation, kicking off a media firestorm.The Oprah-Franzen Book Club Dust-Up of 2001 was a moment when two ways of thinking about selling out smashed into each other, and one of them—the one that was on its way out already—crashed and burned in public, seldom to be seen again.Some of the voices you’ll hear in this episode include screenwriter Helen Childress; writer and musician Franz Nicolay; New York Times critic Wesley Morris, Oprah producer Alice McGee; Boris Kachka, author of Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America’s Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; Bethany Klein, author of Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music; and Laura Miller, Slate’s book critic.This episode was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Benjamin Frisch. It was edited by Benjamin Frisch and Gabriel Roth. Cleo Levin was our research assistant.Decoder Ring is produced by Evan Chung, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman, with help from Sofie Kodner. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you haven’t yet, please subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.If you’re a fan of the show, please sign up for Slate Plus. Members get to listen to Decoder Ring and all other Slate podcasts without any ads and have total access to Slate’s website. Your support is also crucial to our work. Go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Disclosure: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oscar-winner Warren Beatty first secured the rights to the comic book character Dick Tracy in the lead up to his 1990 movie adaptation. Decades later, Beatty kept playing Tracy in bizarre late-night specials airing on cable TV, that confounded nearly everyone. Why is one of the most famous movie stars of the 20th century, spending the twilight of his career playing a comic strip detective of dwindling renown? In this episode, we investigate: What’s going on between Warren Beatty and Dick Tracy?This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was edited by Lacy Roberts and Evan Chung. It was produced by Sofie Kodner. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.In this episode, you’ll hear from author and artist Ryan Estrada, journalist Kim Masters, comic book store owner Matt Live, and media lawyer Celia Muller.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.comWant more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adults have a long history of trying to find morals and lessons in children’s literature. But what happens when a seemingly innocent book about a boy and a hungry mouse becomes fodder for the culture wars? Over the last decade, Laura Joffe Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie has been adopted by some on the right as a cautionary tale about government welfare. In this episode, we explore the origins of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, the history of adults extracting unintended meaning from children’s books, and try to figure out how this particular kid’s book became a Republican battle cry.This episode was written by Cheyna Roth. It was edited by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung. It was produced by Sofie Kodner. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.In this episode, you’ll hear from author Laura Numeroff, book critic Bruce Handy, economist Rebecca Christie and former journalist Max Ehrenfreund.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.comIf you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the late 1970s, a new and unusual concept for a restaurant chain emerged in California—video games plus bad pizza plus animatronic characters. The result was Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre, an immensely popular chain with a pizza rat for a mascot. But the strangeness only starts there. Decoder Ring dives into the formation of Chuck E. Cheese’s and its rival, ShowBiz Pizza Place; the conflict between the two; and the odd personalities of the mechanical animatronics that inhabited both stores and are still beloved by a select group of adults to this very day.This podcast was written by Willa Paskin and was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch, who also did illustrations for this episode. Cleo Levin was our research assistant. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, with help from Sofie Kodner. Derek John is executive producer. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director.If you haven’t yet, please subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover the mysterious case of mass illness on a bus in Vancouver, ignited by a single unsettling comment. Unravel the fascinating dynamics of mass psychogenic illnesses, revealing how psychological stress can manifest physically in groups. Explore the historical evolution of hysteria, from ancient misunderstandings to its modern implications. Dive into the stigma surrounding these conditions and how societal perceptions shape our understanding of mental health. This discussion sheds light on the intricate tie between mind and body, particularly in today's fast-paced world.

If you’re lucky, it’s possible you’ve never thought much about sitting. It’s just something your body does, like breathing or sleeping. But in the last decade or so, sitting has stepped into the spotlight, as a kind of villain. In today’s episode, Slate’s Dan Kois tells us about his radical experiment to go without sitting for an entire month. Then to understand why sitting is under attack we look back at an earlier posture panic around slouching, and explore the role of hostile architecture.This episode was written by Max Freedman and Willa Paskin and produced by Max. We produce Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.You heard “Sitting” by TJ Mack, aka Brian Jordan Alvarez, as remixed by Josh Mac. You also heard from Beth Linker and Jonathan Pacheco Bell. We’d like to thank Stephen Nessen and Rob Robinson. For some of the background on hostile architecture, we are indebted to the late Mike Davis’s book, City of Quartz, and in particular Chapter 4: “Fortress L.A.” Check out Dan Kois’ New York Magazine article about his exploits, “Sitting Is Bad for You. So I Stopped. For a Whole Month.” If you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends.If you’re a fan of the show, we’d love for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. You also get unlimited access to Slate’s website. Member support is crucial to our work. So please go to Slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawn ornaments are everywhere—but for something so ubiquitous, they’re also mysterious. What’s the person with the flamingo or the gargoyle in their yard trying to say—and why do they want to say it so publicly? From the garden-variety to the not so common, the adorable to the odious—lawn ornaments speak volumes, without saying a word. In this episode, we travel from Germany to England and back home to look at the history and meaning behind three specific lawn ornaments: the garden gnome, the lawn jockey, and the 18th century ornamental hermit.You’ll hear from historian Twigs Way, Sven Berrar of the Zwergstatt Gräfenroda, David Pilgrim of the Jim Crow Museum, Kenneth Goings who is an emeritus professor at the Ohio State University, and art historian Ned Harwood.This episode was written by Evan Chung and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Evan Chung. We produce Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. We had additional production from Cheyna Roth and Martina Weber. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.Thank you to Friedemann Brenneis, Heather Joseph-Witham, and Elise Gramza.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com.If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate’s journalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover the rise of axolotls as trendy stuffed animals, their connection to narwhals and sloths, and their significance in Mexican culture. Explore the challenges of conservation efforts to protect these unique creatures, along with the evolution of unconventional stuffed animals and naming trends.

30 years ago, the Stanley Cup playoffs ignited a rumor that has been messing with Jane Macdougall’s life ever since. In 1994, the Vancouver Canucks had made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the New York Rangers. When they barely lost, fans expected the team to come back blazing the next year. Instead, 1995 was a total letdown. Team chemistry disappeared and fans started looking for an explanation. Quickly, a rumor took hold: a defensive player had been having an affair with the goalie’s wife, which destroyed team morale and left the franchise flailing. In this episode of Decoder Ring, Acey Rowe from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation traces the Canucks rumor from locker rooms to chat rooms. And she talks to NHL players Kirk McLean and Jeff Brown to figure out how a story like this can snowball and survive for 30 years.This episode was reported and produced by Acey Rowe. Story editing by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.A longer version of this story was published on CBC’s Storylines, part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit. Julia Pagel is the Senior Producer of Audio Docs and Anna Lazowski is the Senior Producer of Special Programming at the CBC. If you have a cultural mystery you’d like us to decode send us an email at decoderring@slate.com. Please subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And even better, tell your friends.If you’re a fan of the show, you should sign up for Slate Plus. Members get to listen to Decoder Ring and all other Slate podcasts without any ads and have total access to Slate’s website. Your support is also crucial to our work. Go to Slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.