Plumbing the Depths of The Great Books (Season 1)
Patreon subscriber? Great! Listen to us read this to you.
If you've been kicking around the podcast for any length of time, you are familiar with our love of research, especially when it relates to pop culture. (We’re in the process of asking our friends at Wikipedia to update their “rabbit hole” entry to include a picture of us glued to a computer display.)
And we also dig on pop culture for the “pop” aspect: it’s our shared language. If we know about something, chances are you know about it too. You get the idea.
Occasionally our love of research means we get distracted and don’t deliver everything as quickly as we should. (Our Scrooge McDuck-style podcast money room is only deep enough to wade in, not swim, so we still have paying gigs.) But we do get to things eventually and this list is one of those golden moments.
So without further ado, fellow rabbit hole dwellers, here is our (belated) reading list from our first season…
We launched with a bang by talking about several things near and dear to our hearts, one of which is the work of famed artist Mort Drucker. There are a few books covering his illustration bouncing around, but our favorite has to be Mort Drucker: Five Decades of His Finest Works written by the man himself.
Then, after bouncing through time a little bit, we settled on 1976 for our second episode and jumped right into discussing a couple of iconic artifacts. If you’re a fan of KISS and Rock and Roll Over, we suggest Kiss and Sell: The Making of a Supergroup, a book that covers the act before, during and after 1976. And if you like the U.S. Bicentennial logo, grab a reproduction of the actual standards manual to see it in all its original glory.
Speaking of civic pride, our third episode jumped into a couple of well-known, patriotic posters and the people who made them. Shepard Fairey’s book OBEY: Supply and Demand includes his famously influential “Hope” poster for Barack Obama. And if some throwback design is more your thing, we suggest Lester Beall: Trailblazer of American Graphic Design by R. Roger Remington. The Rural Electrification poster we discuss is in there.
Yeah, we said electrification. And if there’s anyone who personifies that very thing, it’s our buddy Reddy Kilowatt. Our Advertising Mascots episode is all about him and his bulky buddy Big Boy. One book Todd and Elliot both have in their libraries is Meet Mr. Product by Warren Dotz. As Tony the Tiger says, “Two Designers?! They’re grrrrrrrrrreat!!!”
Speaking of animals, we can’t think of anyone with a bigger personality than Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s Rat Fink. Our fifth episode is all about street culture: hot rods, skateboarding and a couple of unique personalities including the aforementioned Roth and Jim Phillips of Santa Cruz “Screaming Hand” fame. Book-wise, check out Confessions of a Rat Fink: The Life and Times of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth by the man himself and The Skateboard Art of Jim Phillips. Both gems.
Where to next? When we asked ourselves this question, we decided to shine the spotlight on some personal and under appreciated visual heroes of ours. Lots of animals and magic. Things that go on your body, in your body and one or two you don’t want anywhere near your body when they do what they’re supposed to. All in logo form. While there are countless books about logos, for sheer fun, variety and nostalgia, it’s hard beat Junk Type by Bill Rose.
Speaking of junk we like, it can take all forms. TV shows, candy, you get the idea. But that doesn’t mean the typefaces on these things need to be junk as well. We talk a couple of our childhood favorites in our seventh episode. And while there are gobs of books on type and typefaces, The Essential Type Directory: A Sourcebook of Over 1,800 Typefaces and Their Histories by Peter Dawson has our favorites Cooper Black and Hobo in it, along with approximately 1,798 others.
Question: Who you gonna call when you want to talk movie logos? You guessed it. Us. We dig into our film archives to showcase a couple of favorites. We suggest adding Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History by Daniel Wallace to your library. (Bonus: We also discuss the Hollywood sign. Too generous? You be the judge.)
Speaking of going big with iconic symbols (thanks, Mr. Stay Puft!), none get much bigger than the Goodyear Blimp. Our episode on Adopted Icons is large and in charge, covering not only everyone’s favorite airship but also a beloved lamp seen at the beginning of every Pixar film. And speaking of Pixar, if you have a kid or are a kid at heart, grab Pixar: A Pop-Up Celebration by Matthew Reinhart. It includes a pop-up Luxo, but you’ll still need the real thing if you plan to read late at night.
As we’ve said, when the Goodyear Blimp shows up, you’re going big. And we go big in our tenth episode which is all about a couple of large signs we love. We talk The Great Sign from the glory days of Holiday Inn (think large light-up arrow) and the Union 76 orange ball on heavy rotation. If you aren’t wearing one of our shirts when listening to your favorite podcast, we suggest wearing one of these gems.
We’ve mentioned MAD Magazine being one of our pole stars. We dig deeply into our love of parody with our Wacky Garbage episode that covers both Wacky packages and Garbage Pail Kids. It turns out our friends at Topps have released a compendium book of Wacky Packages for your reading pleasure. Go ahead and order it. You’ll be glad you did.
And last, but certainly not least, one of our most popular episodes has been When Pitchmen Go Pop about dogs playing poker and one Ernest P. Worrell. Sure, you’ve seen Ernest go to camp, get hauled into jail and save Christmas, but did you know he got his start plugging local businesses? This biography of actor Jim Varney by business partner John Cherry tells the story.
So the next time you’re driving past your local indy bookstore, if you see some shady characters, it’s likely just Elliot and Todd getting lost in the stacks. Or looking for a quiet spot to take a nap in between bar visits. You get the idea.
Found something we missed? Let us know.