What do you get when you combine a horror movie audience, a spiritualist séance, and a haunted house attraction? Beginning in the 1930s and lasting into the 1960s, midnight ghost shows were ghoulishly chaotic, wonderfully campy 4D theater performances that accompanied the scary movies of the era, beloved by a mostly-teenage audience who often became a part of the show themselves. Schlocky showman Chelsey Weber-Smith tells Sarah about how magicians-turned-ghostmasters used paranormal parlor tricks, gory skits, and marketing gimmicks to create a new form of vaudevillian dark comedy. As horror obsessives, Sarah and Chelsey muse about what it would have been like to attend one of these late night wacky fright fests that paved the way for the happily trashy theater camaraderie of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Digressions include the resilience of the horseshoe crab, dollar store competition, and plot holes in the movie High Tension (2003).More Chelsey Weber-Smith:Listen to American HysteriaOriginal music in this episode is produced + performed by Magpie Cinema Club(except for Harry Belafonte's Zombie Jamboree which is, in fact, from 1962.)Listen to their cover of Season of the VVitchProduced + edited by Miranda ZicklerMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchYWA on InstagramSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show
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1:43:58
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1:43:58
The Auralyn with Blair Braverman
Are you a survival pessimist or a survival optimist? Blair Braverman surprises Sarah with a harrowing, heartening, and sometimes hilarious tale of love and endurance in the face of certain death, but you’ll have to listen to find out the seemingly impossible circumstances our subjects had to overcome. Digressions include Sarah’s flight simulation skills, David Goggins' morning routine, and the best way to design your character in The Oregon Trail computer game.More Blair Braverman:Blair's new picture book, "The Day Leap Soared"Advice for Sarah from BlairBlair on InstagramMore of Blair's workMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchYWA on InstagramSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show
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1:11:24
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1:11:24
Samantha Smith vs. the Cold War with Maris Kreizman
Who really ended the Cold War, Ronald Reagan or a ten-year-old girl? Eighties correspondent Maris Kreizman joins us for a heartfelt conversation about America’s Youngest Ambassador, Samantha Smith, a child who wrote a letter to Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov in hopes of cooling nuclear tensions. Then, Andropov wrote back. Maris and Sarah discuss the burden we place on the youth to “change the world” while simultaneously scolding them for their naivety. Digressions include the millennial urge to cut up plastic soda can rings, Christina Applegate’s SNL infomercial, and an important lesson from the Golden Girls.More Maris Kreizman:Buy the book, I Want to Burn This Place DownSubscribe to the newsletter, The Maris ReviewMaris on BlueskyMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchYWA on InstagramSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show
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1:18:42
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1:18:42
The Insanity Defense with Mackenzie Joy Brennan
What do John Hinckley Jr. and a jazz age tuberculosis patient have in common? Legal correspondent Mackenzie Joy Brennan takes Sarah through some of the strange cases that helped make—and break—the insanity defense in America. Our story includes a woman who carried her (alleged) victims’ bodies around in a suitcase, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan—carried out with the intention of impressing a young Jodie Foster.More Mackenzie Joy Brennan:http://www.mkzjoybrennan.comMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchYWA on InstagramSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show
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1:20:40
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1:20:40
Corn Mazes with Chelsey Weber-Smith
Can you find your way out of the maize? The corn maze has become an enduring attraction of the American autumnal experience, seen at touristy family farms next to pumpkin patches and haunted houses. But what are the historical roots of this iconic living puzzle? Sarah guides the eternally-lost Chelsey Weber-Smith through the twists and turns of the corn’s corridors and reveals the hidden architects that walk behind the rows.More Chelsey Weber-Smith:www.americanhysteriapodcast.comMr. Jeff's Labyrinth Typology Hand Out:https://www.labyrinthos.net/Labyrinth%20Typology.pdfThe Labyrinthos Labyrinth and Maze Resource Photo Library and Archive:https://www.labyrinthos.net/index.htmlListen to Magpie Cinema Club:linktr.ee/magpiecinemaclubSupport You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show
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