Aca-Media is back with a fascinating conversation about the great Faye Emerson, actress, talk-show host, proto-feminist, and bon vivant. She was once known as “The First Lady of Television” but is now all-too forgotten. Chris talks with media scholar Maureen Mauk and archivist Mary Huelsbeck about Emerson’s remarkable life and career, the Emerson collection at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research, and the joys of archival research into film and television’s past.

In the banter, Chris and Michael discuss ways that YOU can get involved with Aca-Media, including a new segment: “Ask a Cinematologist.” We even have a jingle!

CLICK BELOW TO PLAY:

SUBSCRIBE IN APPLE PODCASTS
SUBSCRIBE VIA RSS

TRANSCRIPT: DOWNLOAD OR READ BELOW

LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

Opening Banter

Preposition Examples and How to Use Them

Faye Emerson Segment

Maureen Mauk’s page at UW-Madison, Twitter
Mary Huelsbeck’s page at UW-Madison
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Faye Emerson’s Wikipedia page
The Faye Emerson Show at IMDb
Faye Emerson Show episodes on YouTube: Guest Steve Allen, Guest Betty Smith
Elliott Roosevelt
Skitch Henderson
Maureen Mauk, “Politics Is Everybody's Business: Resurrecting Faye Emerson, America's Forgotten First Lady of Television,” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Volume 59, Number 4, Summer 2020 pp. 129-152
Christine Becker, “’Glamour Girl Classed as TV Show Brain:’ The Body and Mind of Faye Emerson” The Journal of Popular Culture, 38(2): 242-260
TV Book Club: It’s The Pictures That Got Small, Chapter 2: Faye Emerson and the Early Television Personality.
WCFTR Blog: "Scanning Film and TV History"; UW Letters & Science Magazine: “Celluloid Salvation”
"Who Put the V in TV?" asks this 1950 magazine piece about Faye Emerson's cleavage
“Actress loses her cool at Fayetteville High School in 1957”
Priscilla Morgan on her role bringing Pepsi-Cola, Faye Emerson, and The Faye Emerson Show together
Cynthia Meyers, “Pepsi is Back in the Game (Show)”
Pepsi Cola More Bounce To The Ounce 1950 TV Commercial
The Faye Emerson Show: Frank Sinatra IMDb entry
Photo, Eleanor Roosevelt and Faye Emerson in Hyde Park, 5/30/1962
Faye Emerson NYT Obituary
Comm Arts graduate student interviewed by CNN for her (re)-discovery of the first late-night talk show host
CNN’s The Story of Late Night documentary series press release and companion podcast
Deadline: “Faye Emerson: The Inside Story of the First Lady of Late Night"

Closing Banter and What We’re Watching

Get involved with Aca-Media! Share your ideas for segments and interviews, volunteer to be our resident Cinematologist, or submit questions for the Cinematologist at Aca-Media’s email address or hit us up on Twitter.
We Are Lady Parts Wikipedia page, official teaser, first five minutes
Hacks
The Re-Re-Rebirth of Jean Smart
"Presenting the Past: Exploring the American Archive of Public Broadcasting" Podcast

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Christine Becker 00:20

Welcome to Aca-Media, a podcast brought to you by the Society for Ci- wait, is it Society of or for?

Michael Kackman 00:32

It's not a society of studies, it's the society for those who study.

Christine Becker 00:37

Well, the problem I always get confused with the Journal of and Society for. So okay, and I'm only going to be like Secretary of it soon, like do you think the Secretary would be able to get their, her ofs and fors right. Welcome to Aca-Media, a podcast brought to you by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Michael Kackman 00:53

I believe it's actually Society at

Christine Becker 00:57

The Society under, around, adjacent to...

Michael Kackman 01:03

Preposition bingo.

Christine Becker 01:04

We could, let's make a new name for it. You know, they changed it not long ago, they could change it again.

Michael Kackman 01:10

Society Against Cinema and Media Studies.

Christine Becker 01:13

There might be some who believe that. But now I am Christine Becker.

Michael Kackman 01:19

I'm Michael Kackman.

Christine Becker 01:21

And we are excited to bring you another exciting installment of the OG Aca-Media podcast. We have a couple spin offs now. So just want to make sure you're back at the mothership now here right, with Aca-Media.

Michael Kackman 01:32

Back at the mothership with a super cool episode and interview produced by you.

Christine Becker 01:39

I am extremely excited about this partly just because I'm emotionally invested in the subject matter. But also just speaking from a distance, I think it's a really great conversation both about scholarship and research and archives and really fun stuff, I think, and you're going to learn a lot about a fascinating human being who there's a good chance you knew nothing about going into this. So it's super bonuses all around in this episode.

Michael Kackman 02:02

It's cool. It's got catchphrases, it's got jingles.

Christine Becker 02:06

Hmm, you're gonna have a jingle stuck in your head for the rest of the day. So you're welcome for that.

Michael Kackman 02:11

And we'll also check in about some other business going on in the in our little world here. You haven't even told us who the interview is with?

Christine Becker 02:18

I have not no, let's get to that then. So this involves first of all, the university where you and I went to grad school, Michael, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and at the university. Yeah, remember the Wisconsin, Wisconsin Historical Society? And then within the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, an archive of all kinds of good stuff, movies, TV, radio, theater research. And so I researched back in the day in the 1990s, a TV personality named Faye Emerson. Zoom ahead to the current decade, and there's a PhD candidate there who also researched in that archive of Faye Emerson, and then an archivist who helped this student find this research. And so we're gonna bring you a conversation. Then I'm going to talk about the research I did on Faye Emerson decades ago, Maureen Mauk is going to talk about the research that she has recently done, and then tying it all together in the archive, Mary, Huelsbeck Assistant Director of Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research is going to talk about this collection from the archivist perspective. So this is a really cool conversation. Let me give you a little more info about Maureen Mauk. She's a PhD candidate in the Communication Arts Department at Wisconsin-Madison focusing on media and cultural studies. She has a decade of experience serving in Los Angeles as a television standards and practices executive and an environmental activist. She's currently researching and writing her dissertation studying the intertwined relationship between parents policy and industry as it relates to television history and the current platformed platform ized media landscape. And she recently won first place from SCMS, an award for her article entitled Politics is Everybody's Business: Resurrecting Faye Emerson, America's Forgotten First Lady of Television. So that's what you're going to learn all about today, the forgotten first lady of television.

Michael Kackman 04:12

Very, very good stuff, you know, this, this conversation will conjure not only the sights and the feel of the of the archive, but honestly something you'll get some of the sounds but also the smell, like what's one of the things I remember about that building? I know what it smells like. I can like, I can paint a word picture just just by imagining the smells of that place. It sounds gross, a little weird, but people would know.

Christine Becker 04:41

Yeah, anyone who's who's researched in an archive, especially there's that, when you're there for you know, you get there in the morning and you leave in the afternoon. And you're often not allowed to have anything with you. Maybe not even a laptop, just you know, paper to take notes with. Maybe that's back in the day. I don't know about now, but you really start to pay close attention to all of the details around you because you have nothing else to pay attention to. So all of the little sounds and sights and as you say, smells really do stand out. They do. And so yeah, there's a conversation with Maureen Mauk and then Mary Huelsbeck, Assistant Director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. She received her Library and Information Science degree from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Michael Kackman 05:23

All right, take it away.

Christine Becker 05:38

Really excited to have this conversation. We've got Maureen Mauk here. Hi, Maureen.

Maureen Mauk 05:42

Hello. Hi, Chris.

Christine Becker 05:44

And also Mary Huelsbeck.

Mary Huelsbeck 05:46

Hey, Chris.

Christine Becker 05:47

All right. Thank you both so much for joining me, I'm super excited to share with the world our stories about Faye Emerson and about life in the archive. And I figured as a starting point, you all listeners need to know who Faye Emerson is. And part of her story is that not nearly enough people know who she is. And so I thought I could call on Maureen to start us out there with telling us who Faye Emerson was and why she she matters, basically.

Maureen Mauk 06:11

So Faye Emerson was at one point considered the first lady of television, hosting a show which aired from 1949 to 1951 called The Faye Emerson Show on CBS. So Faye Emerson is one of America's original TV personalities. She hosted this early CBS 15-minute late night talk show three days a week, went on to host another show called Wonderful Town. Both were sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. And she was a big star. She was a massive television personality in the budding TV arena. And before that, she was a film actress and worked her way through a bunch of different films in the 1940s. And while she was out in Los Angeles, she met her future husband, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, of the Roosevelt family. They were introduced at a party by Howard Hughes. And right after they got married, they moved out to New York, which was the kind of epicenter of television at that time. And she got a break and ended up hosting one of the earliest late night television shows during that time called The Faye Emerson Show.

Christine Becker 07:25

Yeah, and the importance of her in early TV is really unsung and that's partly how I ended up researching her, and I think that's what we can turn to next, our relationship with researching Faye Emerson. And in particular, I wanted to talk about the archival materials that are available about her, so also to fill in viewers, I want to describe that. So this is materials at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Just bear with me as I read this because I wanted to impress upon people like all the goodies that are in this collection. So we have the papers of actress Faye Emerson reflecting her private and professional life, particularly her work in television, radio, film, and theater, including the extensive biographical information consisting of clippings chronologies research materials compiled by her son William Crawford III on his tape-recorded interviews with Ms. Emerson's associates a draft biography by Mr. Crawford and a book about the family written by Ms. Emerson's mother. There are also press releases clippings and reviews relating to her public appearances. There's correspondence, memorabilia, awards, contracts, radio and TV scripts, theater programs and playbills, transcripts of interviews with Ms. Emerson, drafts and clippings of Ms. Emerson's newspaper column, and other articles written by her extensive photographs of Ms. Emerson, her family and friends, including second husband Elliott Roosevelt and third husband Skitch Henderson, disc recordings of radio and TV programs, kinescoped TV programs The Faye Emerson Show and Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town, and a few home movies, if that wasn't enough. So there's nearly 3000 photographs, six disc recordings, 20 tape recordings, and 371 film reels. So that's a lot of goodies in the archive. And that's why I wanted to start our conversation, then, kind of sharing our first introduction to these materials and what thoughts and inspirations they conjured up for us. And I'm going to start that conversation because I go back the longest with this; I was doing my dissertation research in the mid to late 90s. My dissertation is about Hollywood film stars on 1950s TV. And so you know, you're looking for anything that could work as case studies. And so the first place I went Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research and saw this collection there and I thought, okay, who is this woman, I've never heard of her, and then saw this incredible bounty of stuff. And anyone out there trying to do research, especially on a person, you know what a joy it is to find in an archive someone who's already, for instance, put together all the clippings, right? I mean, it just saves an immense amount of time. Somebody's already compiled all these clippings. But the other thing I discovered, as indicated in that summary of the collection, um, this was compiled by her son, William Crawford III, also known as scoop, and he passed away before he could do what he wanted with this material, which was to write a book about her. And so finding these materials, discovering who she was, thinking about the fact that this is something, you know, her son put together with great love for her and wanting to have the world learn more about her, it felt like an honor even just to access this material, let alone to be able to, you know, end up doing work on it and writing a chapter about her that became an article. It became my job talk. So it became professionally important to me. But personally it was like, wow, this is incredible. And it really felt like an honor to be able to access this material each day, going into the archive and seeing more material on her. I just became really, really amazed and impressed with her, and particularly the prototypical feminism that she brought to her television show, and you know, including political topics that she would address. And you know, she's willing to be confrontational to men and things that just kind of blew me away that I hadn't imagined any woman on 1950s TV could do those things. So it was really eye opening for me. So Maureen, then what thoughts do you have about your first digging into the archival materials on Emerson?

Maureen Mauk 10:52

My first course starting my PhD program here also at the University, Wisconsin-Madison was Historiography with Dr. Eric Boyd. And we were lucky enough as a seminar to have Mary come in and speak to our class and to describe the importance of the archives and hint at a couple, basically drop a couple of easter eggs of things we might want to consider looking at. Yeah, and we all listened, and she actually shared a clip of a Emerson at that point and talked about her. And everything was so new to me at that moment, it kind of, jumping back into grad school after working in industry for years. And I, I assumed that I was the only one that hadn't heard of Emerson, you know, the way Mary was kind of talking about how incredible she was and thinking I've really, like missed this big time TV personality. So I went into the archive with a different plan of what I was going to look at. I wanted to actually wanted to study late night television. It was right at that point in 2016 where Jimmy Kimmel was getting a lot of flack for speaking out on health care and getting involved with politics and pointing out some of the problems of the Trump presidency and breaking down on air. And people were telling Kimmel to stay in his lane and stick to comedy. So I had an inkling that there was probably other late night hosts that had done that before him. So I kind of wanted to follow that trail, and I kept, you know, pestering Mary like so what do we have like Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, going as deep as I could think. And she consistently mentioned Faye Emerson, and I was like, Yeah, I don't know. [laughs] To me, obviously, there was never a early late night host who was a woman. And so finally, I said alright, let me see the Faye Emerson file, so we pulled out like three cartons. And Chris, what you talk about, like, it was just like, cue the movie music of like magical-like transportation to a different planet. And I swear, I feel like Faye wanted you to find her. And or perhaps Scoop and you know, also to the same with us. It's like, thank you, thank you for opening these seven cartons. Because immediately, it was just kind of the intimacy of the archive, you're pulling through her, her notes and her her recipes and her photos. And her little scraps of paper that she talks about where she put her little trivia questions for you that she would later use in quiz shows. And she was incredible. And so I had, you know, very quickly realized that I connected this to say, wait a second that this was considered late night, the Faye Emerson Show, this was the latest show on air.

Christine Becker 13:38

It was like 11pm, right?

Maureen Mauk 13:39

Yeah. And you know, and it's been, they had a little bit of a feed finally getting out to the West Coast, so that did air earlier, you know, and it kept changing as television kept morphing to allow it to be later, like nobody expected television... nobody thought anybody would be watching TV after dinner. So Faye, you know, kind of said, well, we're gonna we're gonna change that. And she took that opportunity and made something of it. And you then you start to see, watching once we were able to get some of the kinescopes rescued and restored enough to even play. It's really starting to dive into the theatrical aspects of how that stage was set, how it was shot, the format of her show that you really see. I see so many patterns that she established that, you know, carried over into late night, as well. So it was fantastic. I dreamed about her. You know, it was an honor to write. I wrote my first my very first PhD paper my first semester, and then had great notes from my professor and kept revising it and actually entered it into the SCMS research paper contest, and won! Which was honestly the honor of a lifetime. It was really, really special and cool. And with that it ended up being eventually with lots of lots of more changes and revisions, getting published in JCMS.

Christine Becker 15:00

Well, and maybe then there's like a certain blessing that comes with working with her on her material, because actually, I mentioned my job talk was about Faye Emerson. And that's, you know, the job I still have at University of Notre Dame. And I remember one of the people who were there, Jill Godmilow brought up, because one other thing we haven't mentioned about Faye yet is, um, she was known for her cleavage. She wore low-cut dresses early in her career, and she was known as putting the V in TV. And so I talked about that in my job talk, and particularly how that became controversial and that the Television Code ended up incorporating rules about how low cut your dresses could be. And so Jill came up to me afterwards, and she said, I'm so impressed that you're talking about a woman's boobs during your job talk, she thought that was really bold that I would do that during job talk. So Faye Emerson helped me get my job at Notre Dame too.

Maureen Mauk 15:48

That's amazing.

Christine Becker 15:49

So then Mary, could you talk a little bit then from the archivist perspective, what you thought about when you first started delving into seeing what was in that collection?

Mary Huelsbeck 15:57

Yeah, so I had no idea who Faye Emerson was before I started working at the center in March of 2012. And I found her because there were some cans of film from her show on one of the shelves in the workroom. And, you know, I asked Maxine Fleckner Ducey, the Center's longtime film archivist, who's Faye Emerson, you know, who's the person and what is the show about. And she said, oh, she's fabulous, you need to watch. So I pulled a few cans off the shelf and watched him and like both of you just became really intrigued and fascinated and fell in love with Faye. So it was definitely a collection we've really tried to champion, and you know, when people like both of you discover it and take interest in it and start using it, that's one of the really rewarding aspects of archival work, helping people find those collections and helping people learn more about someone who people should know about like Faye Emerson.

Christine Becker 16:59

And I think now would be a good time for a clip because we've teased you with a lot about her and we want you to hear her now. So we're gonna play a clip from her show, The Faye Emerson Show, here.

Media Clip 17:08

Faye Emerson: Hello. This is famous for Pepsi Cola. I am going to write a novel. I got everything you need here. I have pencils. I have paper. I have a dictionary. All I need is an idea. Pepsi Cola. Jingle: Big big bottle and it's got bounce, a Pepsi bounce. Now go get a Pepsi for the Pepsi bounce, more bounce to ounce, more bounce to the ounce. Go get Pepsi for the Pepsi bounce. And why take less when Pepsi's best. More bounce to the ounce with Pepsi. Faye Emerson: I have here tonight, a novel, a first novel as yet unpublished novel. A lady wrote me a letter and told me about her novel, and said that she was having a little trouble getting it published, didn't know how to go about it. So she's here tonight with her novel and with some friends who I think can tell us something about I'd like you to meet them now. First of all, Mrs. Gido Bijani, Emily Bijani. She is our budding author. And now I would like you to meet a very famous author is Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Tomorrow Will Be Better, is that right? Yes. And this is Miss Annie Laurie Williams, who is one of the country's top literary agents. She handles one of our most famous authors and one of my best friends John Steinbeck, and also the very great John Hersey, who wrote The Wall and the great story on the atom bomb. What was the name of that? Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima. Now then, we're now before we go any further I see that you've been neglected. They may come on, but you and I have a Pepsi and do a little preliminary work. And we'll be back in a minute. Excuse me. You know, as a matter of fact, I've always wanted to write a novel. As a matter of fact, I guess everybody's always wanted to write a novel. But there's one thing you wouldn't have to write a book about. You don't need that many words to tell you about how good PepsiCo is because friendly, famous Pepsi Cola with its famous more bounce to the ounce. It's very simple to explain. Its appeal is for men, women and children alike. It's wonderful wake up tang just makes any party go, but it doesn't even have to be a party just anytime a day. And do what I asked you, won't you? Remember that Pepsi Cola's big big bottle gives you more for your money, so it just makes sense. Why take less when Pepsi's best? So the next time you're at your grocery store, get a carton, will you? Take home several cartons as a matter of fact, that's the way to do it. Right. Cheers. Now, Emily, that you and me go over and talk to our friends over here. I take this book with all this the heavy one.

Christine Becker 18:19

And I hope you especially got a sense of just how great she was at hosting a talk show too. I'm gonna ask Maureen in a second to reflect on that, particularly given her, you know, her research and talking about late night. But you know, I remember being in the archive and watching those kinescopes and these were, you know, 15-minute episodes, you could watch a bunch of them in a row and how many times I heard her say those things of like more bounce to the ounce or that wakeup tang, and it sounded each time like it was the first time she said it. She was just so good at you know, expressing that that slogan with excitement and sounding like in fact that she herself had tang. So she was just really good at just the job period.

Maureen Mauk 20:26

Watching Faye Emersom do her job, she was fantastic at moving between the sponsorship language that she clearly included with every, you know, jingle and introduction, and bringing on big-name talent and then small-name people and sometimes having them in the same room and carrying on this very interesting conversation. And you could see her just negotiate and balance between massive personalities, while kind of sitting in a living room setting and finding just a perfect break to pour everybody have no more bounce to the ounce Pepsi Cola. And the range of talent, like the range of guests that she would bring on this on the show was really fascinating. And I mean, she brought a person who would become her future, her next husband Skitch Henderson onto the show and flirted with him ridiculously, at one point she like patted him on the shoulder while he was playing the piano and called him a bad boy. Ah, I don't know if Elliott was watching that, they were already having a lot of problems in their marriage, but it probably didn't help. You know, they had Burl Ives and Edith Piaf, wrestlers and the Weavers, all kinds of different personalities. But also she would talk a lot about big, heavy politics. So in one episode, it would be, I call this lighter, but you could really read into this too, like for girls who act like tomboys and how to how to give them denim dungarees that are a little bit more girlish, you know, so there'll be one episode along those lines. You know, there was an episode on clowns, there was an episode on Silly Putty, there would be holiday episodes. And then there would be an episode about, are we going to war with Korea, you know, and that was actually a key one, which we should come back to as well. And the United Nations was launching then and seeing that Eleanor Roosevelt was Faye Emerson's beloved mother in law, and they stayed close way past her marriage to Eleanor's son, that United Nations figured in heavily. So you know, there's all these world issues happening, it's 1949, 1950, the world is a little bit on edge about Communism and nuclear war and Cold War. So she would dive into these meaty topics, like cautiously, but infuse enough opinion -- she wasn't a dummy. For the blind and the cleavage, this is one of the most intellectual, intelligent, well-read people that you could ever hope for to be a personality on air or to potentially represent you in office, and later she was actually asked to run for Senate and declined, but wrote that in her obituary, which I think just kind of shows how proud she was of that offer. So she, you know, in one moment, she'd be talking about juvenile delinquency, and the next thing they're talking about will there be a war in Korea. Off camera, she also worked to support Democratic candidates. She did a lot of stumping for different people. She has the invitation to the JFK inauguration in her files. And with that came some very interesting moments of fear of blacklisting. She was at one point, there was a particular reporter who really had it out for her and was constantly just really trying to write damaging articles about her and was saying that she was a left wing communist and pointed out at one point she had supported Dwight Eisenhower while she was buried to Roosevelt and said that she was a member of the Progressive Citizens of America. So she was angry; she never let anybody run over her. So she wrote, there's a telegram in her files about how she wrote to the paper directly demanding that that statement be retracted, noting the only organization she'd ever belonged to was the Democratic Party. So there was these sprinkled attempts by various conservative media to target Faye Emerson and her progressive politics and call them Communist in nature. But she was so quick to renounce those claims and jump on them that it never stuck, as it shouldn't have.

Christine Becker 24:20

Yeah, and you mentioned the episode about Korea, I really vividly remember that one, just really striking boldness and still while in a living room drinking Pepsi with people, like that ability to talk in this kind of heightened way while still casually hanging out on a living room set with people.

Maureen Mauk 24:39

Another interesting thing she did with some of her shows is she would do like a mail episode, you know, every quarter or so where she would read her fan letters. And also she would read your anti-fan letters, you know, so she had, she had a whole host of followers and people who would write in as one did and the times and so she would in one moment read her mail and you know, obviously she knew what she was getting into before she would open these letters, but compliments to Hey, what are those earrings that you're wearing, to there was complaints about the her cleavage per se. And she actually put it out to her audience, like she just knew how to embrace her audience. So she said, you know what? I want to hear from you. You tell me, should I raise my my necklines or keep them where they are? So you know, that was very smart. That just generated a whole new host of interesting mail. And actually, in the end, they said to keep them where they were. But one of the bigger episodes when you talk about -- so Chris, you had written about this Korea episode. And I wanted to watch both the Korea episode and then the follow-on mail episode, where she got some feedback about some of the conversations and that will there be war with Korea. And we couldn't get it. The kinescope was in such poor form that I couldn't watch it. So it's relying on a lot of the work that you had done and transcriptions to figure out and kind of triangulate everything. Eventually, with the help of Mary and Amy Sloper we were able to get it digitized and rescued, which was wonderful. But that mail episode that followed after she had the different personalities on talking about Korea was phenomenal.

Christine Becker 26:18

And guess what listeners, we have a clip of this. So it went from irretrievable archival object now directly to your ears. So this is Faye Emerson answering viewer mail in a 1951 episode.

Media Clip 26:28

Faye Emerson: Hello. It's Emerson again. I really every now and then like to do a show just about the mail because we get such a lot of wonderful mail. Now, here's one. I want to read this because I don't quite agree with this gentleman. But he certainly has a right to say what he thinks. Maybe a lot of you think the same way, and I want to find out. "You said you were very much in error when in a recent interview with foreign correspondent you stated it was the general impression in the United States that there would be a war." Well, I don't think I said it quite that way. But anyway, and then it goes on to say in the first place it contradicts Secretary Acheson's answer to the Marine that we are fighting in Korea to prevent a war. In the second place, it leaves us open to being accused of warmongering by Russia, which the Indian delegate probably now believes. Then he winds up with what I wanted to talk about. He says, "Better stick to the plunging neckline, Faye. Politics is not for little girls." Signed it Frank Havens, Wethersfield, Connecticut. Well now, Mr. Havens, I think you have a perfect right to say what you think and to tell me about it. But I don't think that's true all together. I think politics is everybody's business. And I'm not a very little girl either. So if you don't mind every now and then at least I'm gonna do the thinking about it. I try not to jam my opinions down your throat, though. But anyway, thanks for your interest. ... Slacks. I know that's an ugly word where men are concerned. But today I wore for you what I wear at home when I'm watching television, but you might be interested in seeing it. Black silk Chinese trousers and a raw silk Shantung top. I got 'em in San Francisco, and it couldn't be more comfortable. If your husband doesn't object to this, right? It's a very nice way around the house in the evening.

Christine Becker 28:12

Really amazing stuff there. And the sly, "I'm not a little girl" comment is so great.

Maureen Mauk 28:19

It was the best ever. She was a feminist ahead of her time. And it was just a beautiful moment in Faye Emerson's timeline.

Christine Becker 28:30

So Mary, then let's bring you in, especially then that idea of like working with these materials and deciding what's going to get digitized, like what's gonna get prioritized. So any thoughts about that working with those materials?

Mary Huelsbeck 28:41

Yes. So at the time Maureen was working on her paper, we weren't able to digitize those prints in house because our scanner was in need of repair. So we had to get money to send those out to be digitized by an outside vendor. So that was a challenge. But now thanks to the generosity of a number of alumni, we have a brand new preservation film scanner. So we're able to digitize any film prints we want in house. And in fact, we have started in the winter going through and systematically digitizing all of the prints from the Fae Emerson collection, both The Faye Emerson Show and Wonderful Town USA. So we're digitizing them not only for preservation purposes, because again, these prints are from 1950. They're old, they weren't always stored in the best of conditions. So there is some deterioration going on. But we're able to digitize them now not only for access, but also for preservation purposes. So anyone will be able to watch them.

Christine Becker 29:44

You know, I love particularly the idea that this is in the process of being restored, and both the notion of you know, because it was there in the first place, and then because researchers are using it and because we have great archivists like Mary, to put this stuff forth. I sort of I feel like we're finally getting somewhere with you know, fulfilling Scoop's dream and, and with especially putting Faye Emerson on the TV history map where she really really has belonged for many years. So I wanted to speak to that a little bit going forward about what we hope to see from this material in the future. And Maureen, you're working on some additional things tied to Faye Emerson.

Maureen Mauk 30:22

Yeah. So you know, the article came out in Cinema and Media Studies called "Politics is Everybody's Business." And with that generated some interest from actually a couple of major media outlets who are looking to rewrite Faye Emerson back into television history. So both from a documentary perspective, and then also from the idea of a scripted series. I mean, we were talking about just her TV show, but she just was such a complicated and interesting woman who took a lot of agency for her life from birth til the choices she made upon retirement. So we're working right now to develop the story with a production house in Los Angeles. And we've attached a writer just working on the pilot at the moment, and we'll see if we can bring her to the TV screen once more.

Christine Becker 31:11

Well, and there are so many great stories because I had part of my research, I ended up getting to interview Skitch Henderson and, you know, I was on a trip to New York City and got to sit down and chat with him. And boy, he had stories and particularly the other piece we haven't brought up she was a total socialite, like a New York City socialite, and drinker. And after her show, which as we mentioned was a late night show, she would go to the bars and get in literally bar fights. Skitch Henderson told me about this; she would punch people, she would like punch guys who were being jerks to her. And I just, that sounded so cool to me. I mean, I don't want to encourage anyone to go get drunk and get in bar fights. But if you're a woman in the 1950s, and you're hosting a TV show, that's really awesome, after your show to go punch someone who's, you know, I'm assuming probably she was being like sexually harassed or something like that. And so hearing these stories of what sheer energy she had to have, you know, I just, she's utterly fascinating. So I think yeah, there's, there's great stories that could be told about her.

Maureen Mauk 32:06

Yeah, things were crazy at the Stork Club. That's where all the action went. And she was she would say, I studied judo, and I have a strong you know, strong arms. There's videos of her arm wrestling, you know, major stars on television. It's fantastic.

Christine Becker 32:42

Yeah, let's listen to a clip of one of her famous friends.

Media Clip 32:46

Frank Sinatra: Hi. Just going over some of the mail. Excuse me while I check a few. Oh, here's a letter says, what do you do with your old earrings. For somebody else, I'm sure. This is a very interesting letter I've had from a young lady who would like to come and talk with me concerning a career in television, and I've asked her to come over. And if you move in here about now I'd like you to meet Miss uh... What did you say your name was ma'am. Faye Emerson: Uh, Faye Emerson. Sinatra: Oh, I see. Well, you wrote and said that you'd like to make a living in television. What do you think you'd like to do?Emerson: Well, I have been in television for a while. But I'm limited. I know everybody else can sing or dance or tell jokes. And I just seem to be able to chatter about nothing... Sinatra: Do you wrestle a little bit? Emerson: Maybe a little wrestling. Sinatra: That might do for a while. Emerson laughs. Sinatra: When did you, or rather when you first realize your limitations, what did you decide that you might like to try to do. Emreson: well, I thought if I could learn to sing a little bit and dance a little bit that I might have more to offer. Sinatra: Well, I think that you've come to the right place. Have you thought about? First let me ask you this. anyone in your family ever had a musical career? Emerson: Well, my son Scoop has a leaning toward the piano. And I am related by marriage to a gentleman who, who plays the piano. Sinatra: Oh, really? That's very nice. Well, tell me this. Would you like, have you thought about being coached in singing? Emerson: Well, you know, I thought about that. I wondered if I could get see somebody like Bing Crosby to help me I thought I might really get somewhere. Sinatra: Well, if you like that style of singing, that's perfectly alright. It's a little old fashioned. Long on the way around here. Now, I've been known to give some pointers to several people who have done quite well in the singing realm/ Well, yes, I'd be very happy to help you if you'd like me to. Emerson: Well, I don't know very much about your qualifications, could you maybe show me a little sample of what you do? Sinatra: Well, yes, I'd be very happy to audition for you as your coach. If we could get a belt on from somewhere, I'd be very happy to give you a few choice notes. Sintra sings "I've got a crush on you."

Christine Becker 36:06

Mary, your point there about how you know she had these friends, she just seemed like a fascinating person to be around. As Maureen brought up, you know, she's kind of really smart, could talk about any topic. So she had to be a really fun person just to hang around with and talk to because she had such a breadth of knowledge and she was funny. So she had to be a real fun person to be around. And that, again, is something that came across in the, you know, as much as a personality can come across in an archival collection, that did come across. Like Maureen brought up that there's so many bits and pieces of her life and those materials and very much just kind of the intellectual energy she had is draped throughout that entire collection.

Maureen Mauk 36:42

When I was going through all her photos, just one afternoon, I noted in almost every picture that wasn't a staged photo, she either had a newspaper tucked under her arm or was holding a dog. She was a huge animal person and just an avid reader. And just I mean, you could do a whole series of just her with her newspapers, getting off planes, on planesm on buses. Off she goes. She was also a really progressive civil rights activist, especially I think Eleanor Roosevelt was a big influence on that. Some of the research I've been looking into lately is Eleanor really wanted to make sure that before Faye left the United States that they did the Civil Rights March that happened in DC. And Eleanor had passed away but famous and stuck around to do that march. And then right after that is when she got on a boat to sail around the world and then ended up staying in Majorca, Spain, where she settled down and ended up retiring. She ended up dying of stomach cancer all too early. I think she died at the age of 65, it was March 9, 1983. In her home, and you know, way too early. And at that point when she had left New York and left the entertainment buzz, there's National Enquirer articles and all things saying that she was kicked out and she had gained weight and you know, left in just kind of like a blaze of sadness and shame. And it was just the opposite. When you go through her photos, I'm sure both of you have seen, she was partying and having a blast in Spain. She truly was having a blast. And she had always said even in earlier interviewsm and she had a newspaper column, she was doing radio shows all along the way while she was in New York, but she had said, I want to garden, I want to get fat, I want to wear mumus and bad makeup and enjoy myself. And she did, at that point, she took control once again, like she was not afraid to just be done with fame and actually walk away from the industry at a time when everybody else was kind of scrapping to hang on. So I think she ended it well.

Christine Becker 38:53

Yeah. And that whole story I remember, you know, when you are working on a dissertation and you're getting very deeply into material, there's some stuff that you're just like, tired of and then some stuff that you just can't get enough of. And so the two figures that I researched that I could not get enough of were Ida Lupino and then Faye Emerson, just such inspirational women. And they did what they had to, like they gave concessions where they had to to get where they were, but only so far. And then they were going to make other people deal with them, you know, as much as they could. And especially just that idea that yeah, she said, see ya, I'm going to Spain, I'm done with y'all. And in particular, you know, you always hear stories about how hard it is for, you know, celebrities when the prime of their career is over to deal with losing the spotlight and all that. And she was like, see ya, I'm good, I'm out. You know just the boldness of that. And it just, it's just such a great story. So again, looking forward from the archival perspective, Mary, what's left to do in terms of finishing up with making the rest of the Faye Emerson collection available?

Mary Huelsbeck 39:54

Yeah, so the main thing is just getting the existing Word document finding aid it into shape that it can be put online. And that's really it. And unfortunately, you know, the pandemic has put a pause on that, so close to having it ready to go. But we need to be in the building to be able to look at the boxes to really get everything into shape. One of the things I did a year ago when we first started working from home is I put descriptions for every episode on to IMDb, so if people are curious they can go to IMDb and see the descriptions for every show that we have, not only for The Faye Emerson Show, but also for Wonderful Town USA. Yeah, it's frustrating. Like I said, we're so close to having having it ready to go. But it's going to have to wait a little bit longer, unfortunately.

Christine Becker 40:48

Well, and that's a great idea to put that information on IMDb, because the other piece of this is we want the wider public to know about her and not just, you know, the researchers, that's great, but also the more the public can know about her, and so even someone's sort of happening across that material. That's, that's great.

Mary Huelsbeck 41:03

And it's amazing. I mean, you guys know, such a wide variety of people that she had on the show, you know, famous people, but then because she was so relatable, she had a lot of people who would write in, you know, asking her for advice, like how do I become a cameraman? How do I become an artist? And she would have these people on the show and introduce them to people who could possibly help them become what they wanted to become, you know, everyone from Dale Carnegie to Maria Tallchief, the Native American ballerina, John Gielgud, Salvador Dali, there's really something for everybody in her collection.

Christine Becker 41:41

Well, we hope we have impressed and amazed you now with the story of Faye Emerson and also with the value of archiving, because this wouldn't happen if not for an archive. All of this, maybe it's not too much of an overstatement say she would be lost to history if it wasn't for this archival material. So thank you, Mary, and your archival family for making this available. And then thank you, Maureen also then for doing more research on her. Because this has just come back so wonderfully into life and making me remember the stuff that I originally worked on. Um, any final thoughts, you want to share, anything we haven't covered that you wanted to bring up?

Mary Huelsbeck 42:14

Well, I just like to give a shout out to Scoop Crawford, her son, because he was the one who who kept all this material for all those years and managed to somehow find the WCFTR and send it to us. So you know the importance of a family member really appreciating and taking care of his mother's legacy.

Christine Becker 42:34

Yeah, definitely again, well, you know, I said at the beginning that I felt like I was kind of honoring what he had started. And it was so gratifying to be able to do that.

Maureen Mauk 42:43

I would just offer as a PhD graduate student finding my way is love your neighborhood archivist. I have found, and even in my dissertation work now, which is the history of Standards and Practices, is trying to find this information and figure out what's out there is an impossible feat unless you treat and respect and learn to absorb everything humanly possible from somebody like Mary, who is just so fantastic and the digital archivists at WCFTR past and present as well. As a graduate student, if anybody's listening, get into those archives, and then take the time, don't be too proud to ask a lot of questions and to also listen and hear and follow those trails, because there's a lot of information out there that needs researched to then be rescued. If I hadn't requested those kinescopes, they might still be sitting on the shelf just getting older and older and more impossible to save. And they're the only existing versions of the Faye Emerson Show that are out there in the universe, as far as we can understand. CBS's archives are no longer. Ah so yes love your neighborhood archivists, and thank you so much for this opportunity.

Christine Becker 43:54

Yeah, and you know, Mary brought up the pandemic, of course. There's a lot of archival work that isn't happening right now because the pandemic, but we seem to at least be nearing the end of that scope. And so you know, I've heard many predictions that we're due for another Roaring Twenties once we're all able to take off our masks and go out in the street and stand next to people, so maybe we're on for a Roaring Twenties in the archives too, like just a absolute joy of research will happen across the the 2020s, as well.

Mary Huelsbeck 44:21

We can only hope.

Christine Becker 44:22

Yeah. All right. Thank you so much both for joining me. This is a really great conversation, and I hope at the very least we've piqued your interest in Faye Emerson and and also in getting people into archives.

Maureen Mauk 44:33

Thank you.

Michael Kackman 44:47

Okay, that is so good. That is so primo material there. I am very grateful for having the chance to listen to this.

Christine Becker 44:56

I was so happy with that conversation, because going into it I thought, you know, a big thing was I just want people to know about how amazing Faye Emerson was. And, you know, Maureen delivered such really great insights, and Mary too about the insights of that, that kind of archival perspective and, you know, honoring her son who had donated these materials, it just really got such a strong vibe and inspiration from that conversation.

Michael Kackman 45:21

And you know, all of the, it seems like all of the men in her life have kind of groovy names. Scoop and Skitch and Stank. Like, that's all good.

Christine Becker 45:36

Yeah, she hung out with some fascinating people. You know, you had to be interesting, I think for her to like you. I mean, someone who's that smart and that worldly. You have to be really smart, savvy, and maybe even strange in some way to kind of keep her engaged because that's what, you know, she just had a really active mind.

Michael Kackman 45:58

Super active. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when, when she's talking to Eleanor Roosevelt.

Christine Becker 46:06

Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine? I mean, just.

Michael Kackman 46:09

Yeah, just such amazing personalities, and so completely different. But both really, really fascinating.

Christine Becker 46:18

Well, and the prospect that she is, perhaps making a comeback now is pretty amazing. So Maureen talked about the television show that's in the works, that she's currently pitching. And also she recently appeared, Maureen recently appeared on CNN, they are running that series "The story of Late Night," and the very first episode features a few minutes on Faye Emerson and a bit of the clip that, one of the clips that you heard in this episode, so and Maureen just knocked it out of the park with her. And of course, she only got like a minute or two to talk about Faye Emerson because then of course it's on, let's now talk about the guys for the remainder of the series. But Maureen got her three or four minutes to talk about Faye Emerson and just really crushed it, did a really great job of talking about why Faye Emerson mattered. So it's great to see Faye Emerson on television again.

Michael Kackman 47:04

More bounce to the ounce.

Christine Becker 47:06

Indeed, that wake-up Tang. That's what we should start saying, our podcast will bring you that wake-up tang. Yeah. Well, we want this podcast in fact to have more tang.

Michael Kackman 47:21

And you know, sometimes it feels like it could use a little bit more tang.

Christine Becker 47:25

Yeah. So if you out there have some tang, you can bring to this episode, we want you. We're basically looking for more help.

Michael Kackman 47:31

We are, we would love to have more voices involved. And I know that sounds a little bit like a cop-out, especially for me because I have been so not involved in the TV pandemic series that did such great content over the past year. And you've been much more involved in that. But honestly, this show is better when we have more people in the mix. So if you have an episode idea, or if you'd like to maybe pitch a segment or get involved in some other kind of way, we'd love to hear from you.

Christine Becker 48:05

Yeah, I think that's been one of the lessons, many, many lessons coming from the talking TV in a Time of Crisis series. But one of them being the more voices we can bring on here, the better, the more perspectives, the more scholars at different stations of life in different countries. And that's not easy for us to do if it's just a small handful of us trying to do this. And so, if you want to host a roundtable, if you have a dream scholar you've always wanted an excuse to talk to, come at us with, pitch your idea.

Michael Kackman 48:33

There's nothing that opens doors like an active media press card. I mean, you just call up and boom, they're just like, they'll talk to you.

Christine Becker 48:42

Yeah, well, yeah, we got it. We got we got a website, we got everything. We're legit.

Michael Kackman 48:47

Yeah, we are legit. You know, there's one area where I think we could use a little bit more help in particular. Yeah. I feel like every great publication has, has an advice column. You know, I mean, we've got I mean, of course, there's, you know, there's Dear Abby and Ann Landers and, you know, anchoring the daily newspaper for for so many years. But even like, The New York Times Magazine, my favorite column, and that is the diagnosis. You know, I like some wacky thing, and then people have to try and figure it out. And then they bring in expertise, like, well, actually, it's this and I figured it out, and I solved it. I love that stuff. And I kind of feel like we need one like, like, we need somebody who can answer the question of like, where's the best seat in a movie theater?

Christine Becker 49:36

Hmm.

Michael Kackman 49:37

Do you have questions? I mean, I like I got all kinds of questions that I would like to have answered.

Christine Becker 49:43

Right. Like, should you ruin movies for your kids shout out to a group of friends on the slack and they know who they are for a great question like that. So like point out how the Lion King is racist. Should you do that?

Michael Kackman 49:54

You totally, totally should.

Christine Becker 49:57

Okay, well, we answered that one. Okay. Um, yeah, and I think this could be anything from like what movie? Would you recommend a couple watch on their first date to serious ones that we're all invested in? Like, is it okay to teach a Woody Allen film right now? Or how do you teach a Woody Allen film right now?

Michael Kackman 50:15

Oh yeah, I don't want to try to answer that.

Christine Becker 50:19

Well that's why we need someone to come help us please. What we need is we need our own Faye Emerson to answer the mail, right?

Michael Kackman 50:25

We do, we need somebody whose reach is broad, whose interests are polyamorous, whose energy and curiosity are are lively and engaging. You know, what we need? I think we need a cinematologist.

Christine Becker 50:42

We need a cinematologist?

Michael Kackman 50:44

We do need a cinematologist. And you know what, what else we need?

Christine Becker 50:47

What?

Michael Kackman 50:48

We need a jingle.

Christine Becker 50:49

Ah, that might be maybe the biggest takeaway of the Faye Emerson segment was how important a jingle is.

Michael Kackman 50:56

For sure. I mean, you know, do you have more bounce to the ounce? You're gonna remember that forever. I mean, we need like *starts singing a jingle, Ask a Cinematologist*.

Christine Becker 51:08

If only we had aa experienced sound designer and music composer on our team.

Michael Kackman 51:14

Man I wish we could... *sings Ask a Cinematologist again*

Christine Becker 51:17

Hey, wait a minute, Todd?

Media Clip 51:20

*a groovy Ask a Cinematologist jingle plays*

Michael Kackman 51:28

So, if you think you might have an inner cinematologist, or if you want to nominate somebody, let us know.

Christine Becker 51:36

I love that idea. Yeah. So, or you and a group of friends, you can kind of pass the work off?

Michael Kackman 51:42

Oh, it could be this could totally be like the Dread Pirate Roberts, who yes, where, you know, the there can be lots of people who could actually be the cinematologist, just but they have to step into persona and put on the mask and then, you know, kill off the crew, and...

Christine Becker 51:57

Well, I like that idea. If you want to be, well, this could be, you could put your name to it. Or if you want to be anonymous, if you just want to throw out some cool ideas without having to worry about any of the consequences of attaching your name to that, anonymous is good, too.

Michael Kackman 52:10

Yeah. And you know, like, if you want to wear one of those, like Eyes Wide Shut masks or something could be super Illuminati sex cult about it. That'd be okay, too.

Christine Becker 52:19

Okay, yeah, we could make this creepy too, if we want to do that. And also, if you have questions, if you have questions you want answer, we've given you a few examples there of things you would want to ask a cinematologist about. But give us your burning questions, and we'll see if we can find someone to answer them.

Michael Kackman 52:36

Okay, the pitch has been made. The gauntlet has been laid down.

Christine Becker 52:41

Well, I suppose we should give our contact information then.

Michael Kackman 52:43

Yeah, where would one find us at around against?

Christine Becker 52:49

Okay, we have an email, which usually is spam, and people saying, here's this resource that you should put on this episode of, you know, from eight years ago on your website.

Michael Kackman 53:01

Oh, like when the NRA wrote to us and wanted us to do a piece on Charlton Heston?

Christine Becker 53:06

Yeah, all right. Well, that, you know, you know, more often they're much more boring than that. It's like some dumb guide or infographic or whatever. But yeah, the Charlton Heston one that was that was memorable, or we often get threats. There's some Aca-Media in the UK, that's an actual company, and they don't always pay their bills. And so we get emails of like, you know, past due notices, and we have to be like, we don't have a budget. We don't have an account. We don't know what you're talking about.

Michael Kackman 53:33

So if you're feeling past due on contacting us, you can write to us at

Christine Becker 53:38

Aca hypen media... How do email addresses work... There's an "at," right?

Michael Kackman 53:43

Yeah, there is

Christine Becker 53:44

Aca hyphen media at...

Michael Kackman 53:45

No, it's info at aca hypen media dot org.

Christine Becker 53:49

It's been a while since I've used it. Info at Aca hyphen media dot org. So you know, Twitter as well. Yes, aca underscore media.

Michael Kackman 53:59

You know, the thing that I love about this is I can set up the pitch and then you are the one that who has to remember the actual language,

Christine Becker 54:07

Which is not my strong suit. We shouldn't be doing it that way. Right?

Michael Kackman 54:11

It's not my strong suit, either.

Christine Becker 54:14

I didn't write it down this time. See, that's my mistake. I need to write it down. But yeah, also, you know, you can find us you can google my name, you'll find my email address there. You can even find us any number of ways. And and yeah, so again, if you want to produce a segment if you want to host a roundtable or just organize when you can sit in the background and just listen, if you want to make other people talk. That's what I do in the Talking TV series. I just sit there and listen and other people do smart things. Or pitch us an idea or send us your burning questions or volunteer to be a cinematologist.

Michael Kackman 54:49

Right on. Okay. Are you watching anything good this summer?

Christine Becker 54:52

There's one show I'm watching that I'm obsessed with. There's a bunch of things I've been watching that a lot of people are talking about, but this one is a little bit under Right are, it's a British import on Peacock. And it's called We are Lady Parts. And it's a sitcom, six-episode comedy. And it is set in London, four Muslim women in a punk rock band.

Michael Kackman 55:15

Oh, I've heard about this, I really want to see this.

Christine Becker 55:19

And I don't even need to tell you any more that you like, you hear Muslim women in a punk rock band in London, like, boom, sold. But it's so good. And it's not just engaging, because it's very, you know, refreshing different kind of representation is genuinely funny. It generally rocks out. Like, some of the songs are great, they do a cover of "9 to 5" that is incredible. And I want to you know, find it on iTunes or whatever. And also, I'll mention there's, there's a, an episode ender in Episode 3 that leaves you kind of devastated and then Episode 4 is so good. And kind of uplifting and so that the artistry, and I love episodic television. So not just, you know, oh, it's a ten-hour movie, that kind of thing. But the idea of crafting an episode and giving you an episodic experience with seriality to it, it's not just, doesn't have to be just episodic, but that idea of like crafting an episode. And from episodes three to four, it's so beautifully done. It's just, it's great TV.

Michael Kackman 56:17

Oh, nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. I am 100% in. I'm looking forward to watching that. So it's, We are Lady Parts.

Christine Becker 56:23

Yeah, so the name of the band is Lady Parts, which is a great name for band period. And then the TV show is the series title. So it aired on or is currently airing on Channel Four in the UK. And Peacock has picked it up.

Michael Kackman 56:36

Nice. I've just started watching Hacks on your recommendation. Crazy good. Jean Smart.

Christine Becker 56:45

It's the smart-aissance. The renaissance of Jean Smart.

Michael Kackman 56:48

She's so great. I'm only a couple of episodes in but I was thinking about that show when I was listening to your Faye Emerson conversation honestly, you know, with that kind of, it's not super tightly connected to the bio of any particular star like like Joan Rivers or someone, but it definitely makes for an interesting opportunity to reflect on the on the history of of those kinds of prominent women in comedy and women and TV.

Christine Becker 57:21

Yeah, and there's an episode, it's one of the later ones. So if you're not finished, you might not have seen yet. So I'll be a little bit vague, but there's a scene set in a comedy club, and Jean Smart, basically, her character, excuse me, her character gives even better than she gets from a real, you know, alpha male in the comedy club. And it reminds me of that idea of Faye Emerson being in a bar and someone's giving her crap and she punches them, and again, don't want to advocate for violence necessarily. But that idea of the frustration of having to deal with that and finally just not being able to take it anymore. And so there is a triumphant scene in Hacks that is in that ballpark.

Michael Kackman 58:01

All right, well I'm gonna keep watching then for sure.

Christine Becker 58:03

Yeah. And they do I have to know because they make a reference to her character a few times that she could have been the first, you know, the first late night TV host, and unfortunately, the writers of Hacks I feel like we should send them this podcast because they need to know about Faye Emerson because she wouldn't have -- and I know what's fictional. But even in that fictional world, she wouldn't have been the first because Faye Emerson was the first.

Michael Kackman 58:25

She'd been there, yeah. And you know who we have to thank for that? Your neighborhood archivist.

Christine Becker 58:32

Your neighborhood archivist!

Michael Kackman 58:33

You should totally love your neighborhood archivists, because they are the, you know, people talk about journalists writing the first draft of history, honestly, archivists are so incredibly important. They do such amazing work. Not just, they don't just gather the material and keep it safe. They really illuminate it and build pathways into it and are an incredibly important part of the historical process.

Christine Becker 59:04

Yeah, just listen to Maureen's comment about like, she wouldn't have known about this collection without Mary. And that idea of like, Mary really pushing her like, you need to look at this, right, and understanding the knowledge that an archivist has of what's there, what's important, why it matters, like an incredible breadth of knowledge that archivists have. And so yeah, it's, they're more than just curators, they're more than just guides. They kind of do it all.

Michael Kackman 59:29

So love your neighborhood archivist. Go visit the archive, take them some okay, you can't like, I guess you can take them cookies. They can't eat them in the room, but it's like, give them some to take home.

Christine Becker 59:39

Or give them a coupon for...

Michael Kackman 59:40

There you go. Yeah. That's something. Well, actually then with this before when we depart, I'll plug my other, one of our other spin-off broadcasts, Presenting the Past which is in conjunction with the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, all their digitized archives, and that has been a real thrill to do that one. We've got two episodes down, more to come, including an incredible guest. I'm not going to say, I don't want to jinx it, but one of the most important people in television history, I'm going to get to interview for that podcast. So look for that in a couple of months. It's big, big time. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too. But we can't say anything more about that just yet. Don't want to spoil it, tamp it down. All right. Ac-Media is produced with the help of the University of Notre Dame and Denison University.

Christine Becker 1:00:27

and is supported by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies,

Michael Kackman 1:00:31

Sometimes against, mostly for usually.

Christine Becker 1:00:35

On their best days.

Michael Kackman 1:00:37

We're also really grateful to our amazing producing team, including jingle man himself, Todd Thompson down in Austin, Texas,

Christine Becker 1:00:47

Bill Kirkpatrick at Denison university, but also in Winnipeg somewhere.

Michael Kackman 1:00:51

Stephanie Brown now at Westchester University,

Christine Becker 1:00:54

Joel Neville Anderson at Purchase College with a freshly minted PhD. Yes, indeed. And Frank Mondelli at Stanford.

Michael Kackman 1:01:03

We're also very grateful to Maureen Mauk and Mary Huelsbeck at the University of Wisconsin who were so kind to spend their time talking to Chris about this amazing figure in TV history.

Christine Becker 1:01:14

Yeah, and thank you, Faye Emerson.

Michael Kackman 1:01:17

Do what I asked you, won't you?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai