Making Fun of Public Radio
Brooke Gladstone: This is On the Media's midweek podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. As the host of a public radio show, I know how easy public radio is to parody.
Margaret Jo McCullin: Hello. I'm Margaret Jo McCullin.
Terry Rialto: And I'm Terry Rialto.
Margaret Jo McCullin and Terry Rialto: You're listening to The Delicious Dish on National Public Radio.
Brooke Gladstone: Saturday Night Live debuted the Delicious Dish skit in 1996 and ran it for years. So soft spoken, earnest, and earthy.
Terry Rialto: Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I have such happy memories from childhood dressing up and going door to door collecting for UNICEF.
Margaret Jo McCullin: I know. Same.
[laughter]
Brooke Gladstone: Soldiering on in hand-knit sweaters with delicate stomachs and modest dreams.
Terry Rialto: Now, what's on your list this holiday season, Margaret Jo?
Margaret Jo McCullin: Terry, I really got greedy this year. I'm asking Kris Kringle for a wooden bull, some oversized index cards, and a funnel.
[laughter]
Terry Rialto: Ooh, a funnel. That'll be great for funneling.
Margaret Jo McCullin: I know. I feel like a glutton.
[laughter]
Brooke Gladstone: Then earlier this year on the streaming service Peacock, an updated rendition, one that reflects our current culture wars, or more narrowly, the intramural feuds among progressives. The show was called In the Know about a daily NPR Show produced in New York City. The rather cringy characters are portrayed by stop-motion puppets and each episode features an interview with a real person who appears on Zoom. The show is written by Zach Woods, Brandon Gardner, and Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-Head, who also voices the character of Sandy, the culture critic, Zach Woods, who played Gabe from The Office, and Jared from Silicon Valley plays the central role of Lauren Caspian, build as the third most famous NBR host.
Brooke Gladstone: When I spoke with Zach Woods and Brandon Gardner the week that the show first aired in January, I asked about something Zach had written, "We love public radio. It's engaging and comforting, but it also reflects aspects of ourselves that we're embarrassed by, which is why we created a show about an NPR host who is sadly only a slightly exaggerated version of ourselves." Zach Woods and Brandon Gardner, welcome to On the Media.
Brandon Gardner: Thank you.
Zach Woods: Thank you, Brooke. Being quoted back to yourself is one of the cruelest punishments that I think a person can impose on another.
Brooke Gladstone: Slightly, Lauren Caspian, NPR's host of In the Know is insufferable.
[laughter]
Lauren Caspian: Barb?
Barb: Lauren, what is it? You're mid-interview.
Lauren Caspian: I think the sea warmer future on my office chair might be causing my passive sperm. I need you to exchange it
Barb: Fine, right after the interview.
Lauren Caspian: No, right now, Barb. I'm not trying to give my semen an endless spa day.
Zach Woods: Here's the thing, this is Zach talking, insufferable. Listen, we can keep up a facade for probably the length of this interview, but the truth is, if you were to hang around, you would witness us behave in ways that are troublingly similar to Lauren Caspian. Hopefully, we're less socially catastrophic. He's pretty inconsiderate of the people he works with, but in terms of the cosmetic morality stuff, I think we probably sin the same sins. I don't know, what do you think, Brandon?
Brandon Gardner: Yes, I think Lauren has a lot of, at least I'll say, my vanity at times and ego at times and desperation to be loved and included, which I also have.
Brooke Gladstone: There are several things that you parody about a public radio interview. Lauren is always self-referential right down to his passive sperm. He interrupts his guests constantly. The way he says, "Hmm," Molly, our producer, thinks that sounds like Michael Barbaro from The Daily. [laughs]
Zach Woods: You got it.
Brooke Gladstone: She was right.
Brandon Gardner: Good ear, Molly.
Brooke Gladstone: The quick subject change.
Lauren Caspian: I like to treat my interviews like a trampoline and boing from one subject to another.
Barb: I'm ready.
Lauren Caspian: Boing, boing.
Brooke Gladstone: Tell me, what are some of the other hallmarks of a classic public radio interview?
Zach Woods: Again, at the risk of being an ingratiating LA nightmare and too obsequious, Brooke, I will say hearing your voice say Lauren suffers from passive sperm [laughter] is a career highlight for me. I just want to say that and then we can move on. I think one of the hallmarks is that diversity of guests, so many different kinds of people who get interviewed on NPR, and I like the reporting the vast majority of the time.
Zach Woods: In terms of the more skin crawly stuff, I would say we talked about making this Instagram filter to promote the show that was an NPR Instagram filter where you would speak into your camera, and then the filter would give you an enormous forehead and insert random pregnant pauses into your speech. Because I think a slightly self-conscious cerebralness combined with a very practiced collection of verbal affectations is closely associated with NPR in my head.
Brandon Gardner: One thing I think we were excited about and you were excited about playing Lauren was the opportunity to do the active listening. The sort of "Hmm." Those empathetic sounds that we do associate sometimes with public radio interviews.
Brooke Gladstone: Hmm.
Brandon Gardner: [laughs]
Zach Woods: Exactly. Honestly, they're both funny and soothing to me. The other thing is there's probably some overlap that's accidental because at the same time as we're trying to be funny, we're genuinely trying to do a good hour-long interview with the guests where we really did do our best to research it and we have all these topics we want to cover.
Like the boing, boing is us just being like, "How do we switch to this line of thought?" and we couldn't think of something more eloquent.
Brooke Gladstone: Let me ask you about those interviews with the real-life celebrities, Kaia Gerber, Jonathan Van Ness, Ken Burns, Tegan and Sara, Mike Tyson, Roxane Gay, and Hugh Laurie. The real guests talked to these characters on Zoom sort of like how we were speaking. Is that scripted? Who are the guests actually talking to?
Brandon Gardner: The only heads up we give them up top is I'll pop on real quick over the Zoom and thank them for participating with this show that doesn't exist yet, and say, "Just act like you're doing a real NPR interview. The only thing we ask you not to point out is that you're talking to a puppet."
Zach Woods: There's one interview that is scripted. At one point, we asked Tegan and Sara to pretend that they were being made nauseous by Lauren's voice and leave. Other than that, it's all improvs.
Brooke Gladstone: The one with Tegan and Sara, it is absolutely hilarious where Lauren opines on what makes Terry Gross special.
Lauren Caspian: In regard to Terry Gross, unfortunately, that is all an act. She's cold as an icicle and dumb as rocks. We call her Very Gross. If you've ever seen her eat, you know what I'm talking about, ranch dressing seems to linger on her lips like a memory on a summer night. I consider her the ma'am of public radio and I don't throw that term around lightly.
Zach Woods: When I met Mike Judge, who was one of the co-creators on the show, I said, "I'm not by nature a jealous person, but you did Fresh Air, and so I wish badness on you because I'm so jealous of that." I felt that Lauren would naturally blow with Terry Gross. Also, he has a bitter rivalry with Malcolm Gladwell, who's probably unaware of the rivalry.
Brooke Gladstone: Among the other hallmarks of public radio, the pledge drive, the tote bag, the kombucha.
Lauren Caspian: Chase, my Pusher kombucha isn't just a treat, it's a prescription strength blend of yeast and bacteria cultures.
Brooke Gladstone: The only cultures you seem to respect.
Lauren Caspian: This is terrible.
Chase: Are you okay, Lauren?
Lauren Caspian: My bowels are a delicately constructed Swiss clock and the smallest irregularity can trigger the end of time.
Brooke Gladstone: Lauren's various physical maladies, are they symbolic?
Zach Woods: I feel like it wouldn't surprise me if in the world of NPR there's a inversion where the degree of your lactose intolerance would almost be like a status symbol. How little you could tolerate dairy would be something that you would have swagger about, but maybe that's not true.
Brandon Gardner: When we were talking to the animators who are actually moving the Lauren puppet is that Lauren has a very difficult relationship with his own body. Both in terms of his digestive track, but also if you were to see Lauren dance or try to physically express excitement, he's such a cerebral person that he can only do small arm gestures. That's something I associate with a certain type of person who's maybe a little too intellectual and a little too self-aware.
Zach Woods: The other thing that goes along with that hyper cerebralness is there's this very gentle, soft spoken disposition that I've noticed, but just behind that very nonviolent therapized facade, often lurks what to me seems like machismo and competitiveness, this unowned ambition or something. I always think that's funny when people are so allergic to their own complicated interior lives that they can only present these very soft parts, but it doesn't make the hard parts go away. It just makes them go underground.
Brooke Gladstone: Now about progressive hypocrisy, I know you say that you see it in yourselves, but you chose public radio to take it down. There must have been things that you knew you wanted to skewer.
Zach Woods: For a long time, Brandon and I would have these quiet conversations where we would talk about things we thought were obnoxious, and inevitably, these conversations would end in the same way, the performative virtue signaly stuff. I would get annoyed, and then I would hear my own voice getting so shrill and sanctimonious, and then I'd be like, "I am full of [beep] because I don't walk the walk in any real way." I hear what you're saying, Brooke, you're probably like, "Okay, you're [unintelligible 00:10:44] ourselves. You guys are nice. You're not threatening anyone and everyone's friends."
Brandon Gardner: You liars.
Zach Woods: "Give us the real deal," but the real deal really is that we hate ourselves.
[laughter]
Brandon Gardner: I think what Zach said, too, of quiet conversations, Zach and I would have quiet conversations because we had just been at a party or with people at the improv theater we perform at and someone had said something and I didn't have the courage to say something in the moment, but afterwards, I'd be like, "That was weird that they said that, right? That seemed a little outrageous." I was nervous to say it in a group, so I would've to quietly say it to Zach. One thing that was exciting about this show is like, oh, all these things we've whispered about we can actually put it into a show and try to make funny.
Brooke Gladstone: We've talked about Lauren who's insufferably holier than thou overcompensating for what would otherwise probably be disabling insecurity. There's Fabian, is a perfect match for Lauren. She can't stand him and she is equally in high dudgeon most of the time. Then there's Barb, the senior producer played by the great J Smith-Cameron who just absorbs constant attacks for being the man. There's Carl the engineer who really likes Barb and who is wonderfully self-possessed. Then there's Sandy the cultural critic which seems to be a carryover character from the early days of WBAI Pacifica Radio. [chuckles] I'm just wondering how you came up with this particular collection of people.
Brandon Gardner: One thing that always is interesting to me is there's articles about big battles within the New York Times between older progressives and younger progressives. I want to be in those conference rooms when they're fighting about something. That was one thing I had in the back of my mind with the idea of Barb and Lauren and Fabian as three generations of liberal and how they're more or less all on the same team with more or less all of the same ideals, but they will brutally go after each other-
Brooke Gladstone: Yes.
Brandon Gardner: -for anything that they think is less than perfectly in line with what they think the current point of view should be.
Barb: Oh, I also wanted to let everyone know that that homeless gentleman is still in the back room.
Lauren Caspian: Oh, Barb.
Barb: Huh?
Lauren Caspian: That is hate speech. He is an unhoused person.
Barb: Actually, the preferred term is person who is currently without housing.
Lauren Caspian: No, I don't think so. Are you sure?
Barb: Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm really very empathetic to the man's situation. I volunteer at a homeless shelter.
Lauren Caspian: No, you volunteer at an unhoused shelter.
Barb: A shelter for persons currently without housing.
Lauren Caspian: Oh, it just feels very clunky.
Barb: Oh, I'm sorry, is it too inconvenient to treat vulnerable populations with respect?
Lauren Caspian: How dare you? I was using the term "Inuit" back in the '90s. I've been spelling women with a Y since before I could spell my name.
Barb: Either way. Until he leaves, everyone on the floor will have to use the Starbucks down the street.
Lauren Caspian: Maybe that will teach us about the lack of water closets in this country. May I remind you all that this is public radio. Let us urinate and do all other washroom shameful and solidarity with our unhoused brothers and sisters.
Barb: Brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings currently without housing.
Lauren Caspian: Goddammit.
Zach Woods: They become so preoccupied with updating their glossary of terms that they're ignoring the fact that Barb is really the only one walking the walk in any meaningful way. Brandon and I really agree that language matters, but when language becomes a filibuster to avoid the more challenging and uncomfortable work, it's obnoxious. [laughs]
Brandon Gardner: I will fully admit, I'm one of the people who put a black square in my Instagram in support of Black Lives Matter because I was like, "I don't know what else to do." I really don't think that helped anyone, but I don't want to seem like I don't support this, but have I been actively going to city council meetings trying to get legislation passed? No, I haven't. Things like that it's like I'm as guilty as anybody where sometimes I just take the most convenient route to showing my support for something.
Zach Woods: As insufferable as their behavior can be, another thing that felt really important to me and Brandon was not to just create these tired, archetypal, hyper left wing, pin cushions for us to sink our little satirical pins into and to start from humanity.
Brooke Gladstone: There's a lot of redemption as the series progresses. There's a moment in the sixth episode when Lauren's kid is visiting. It's between Lauren and his producer, Fabian, that get at this idea.
Lauren Caspian: Tell me what to do.
Fabian: Just be a dad. Be a normal boring dad.
Lauren Caspian: I don't know how to be boring.
Fabian: Wrong, bitch, you are boring, so am I? That's why I hate you. You're like a magic mirror that shows me what a sweaty fraud I am. I mean, look at us, I'm staging a protest for nobody and you're dragging your son to get mercury poisoning with nerds who don't even like you, and for what? We're still boring, Lauren. Now we're just boring and alone.
Zach Woods: I think there's a tendency to make ourselves one thing. Oh, you're this identity or you're this opinion or you're this act that you did. It just doesn't really resonate with my experience of people. I just feel like people are this bird's nest of irresolvable, beautiful, frustrating, horrible, transcendent pieces. For me, comedy, stories, art, that's where I go to have the complexity restored to the world. I love this quote from Cherry Jones the theater actor where she said, "Theater is where we comfort each other with our shortcomings." I think that's such a beautiful sentiment and I think that's what we were trying to do here as best we could.
Zach Woods: Again, it's like puppets and there's jokes about passive sperm and foreskin restoration and stuff. Less we get too high and mighty in our discussion of it, I think it's important to remember that it's a dumb as hell animated show, but that is the foundational worldview that I think we're trying to express, right, Brandon, or no?
Brandon Gardner: Yes, definitely.
Brooke Gladstone: You have six episodes. Do you see a longer arc for what's going on here? What's the best-case scenario?
Zach Woods: Merchandising, baby.
Brandon Gardner: [laughs]
Brooke Gladstone: Bobbleheads.
Zach Woods: Bobbleheads, baby. We want that.
Brandon Gardner: We have not completely mined everything that is ridiculous about ourselves, so there's room.
Brooke Gladstone: Or about public radio by no means.
Brandon Gardner: Probably not. We now need to do some actual research.
Zach Woods: Can I ask you, Brooke, what do you feel like are the major ones we missed?
Brooke Gladstone: The tone of public radio has changed a lot. Your depiction of public radio, which I know is not the point, the point isn't for you to do an accurate depiction of public radio, it's a framing device, but it's struggled so much with the internet that its tone has gotten a lot looser and a little less homogeneous than it was before. The ideal was always Terry Gross, and now you have all sorts of people who don't sound like Terry Gross. I think there's been a tremendous effort to loosen it and to diversify it. How successful it is from location to location is something else. It felt more like local radio given the lack of resources than NPR which is corporate these days.
Zach Woods: I like the intimacy and the cozy provincialism of radio sometimes. Even if it's on a car trip if you go and you're hearing the local NPR station or even not an NPR station, it's a quick way to get a strong feeling for the place you are without ever having to get out of your car because you're terrified to meet actual people.
Brooke Gladstone: It's a super intimate medium. One thing that Ira once told me, he tried to bring This American Life to television, and he did for a season, but he said that people are so much less relatable when you can see them.
Zach Woods: Maybe that's why it's a little bit of a sin to have a medium that can carry so much intimacy, and then cover yourself in affectation. You could imagine this as kind of like bad sex or something where it's like, it's the most intimate situation, but if you're pretending to be something you're not, it ruins the whole thing. [laughter] The one thing I'm real expert on is bad stuff.
[laughter].
Brooke Gladstone: Thank you, guys so much for being available.
Brandon Gardner: Thank you.
Zach Woods: This was the best.
Brooke Gladstone: Zach Woods and Brandon Gardner are the co-creators and showrunners of the new show In the Know out this week on Peacock.
Lauren Caspian: If you were stuck in a library during an apocalyptic blizzard, what is the first book you would burn for warmth?
TV clip: Oh, wow.
Lauren Caspian: For me, it would be Malcolm Gladwell's Blink because I just believe, and I mean this in a neutral and objective way, it's pure horse [beep].
[music]
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