Sarah Marshall joins me to chat about how, in 1968, one unsuspecting young woman’s bustline almost caused a stock market bust when thousands of Wall Street employees became obsessed with watching her walk to work. I also tell Sarah about an absurd 20-year-long craze called Girl-Watching that taught "genteel" men the "refined art" of covertly checking out women, as well as the avant-garde artist and feminist responses to the treatment of Francine Gottfried who would come to be known as the Wall Street Sweater Girl.

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Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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In the late 1950s, an organization known as SINA started a campaign with the mission of clothing naked animals for the sake of decency. Today we will look at this bizarre moral crusade and its leader, whose life you'll have to hear about to believe.

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Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

Voice Actor: Will Rogers

Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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Journalist and author Tom Risen is here to tell me about some of the real conspiracies that the CIA and the FBI were involved in from the 50s to the 70s and how, in 1975, one senator finally took these agencies to task, revealing shocking truths that would be used for decades to make the conspiracy theories we know today seem far more plausible. Tom writes about government surveillance and spy agencies and is the co-author of the bestselling book 'The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy,'" which he wrote with his father, James Risen, another journalist who has spent decades covering intelligence agencies.

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Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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John O'Connor is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, a cross-country adventure and investigation into the lore around Bigfoot as well as the personalities of those who spend their lives chasing this elusive creature.

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Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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For the second part of this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are continuing to explore various tall tales of ruthless gang initiations from the 1990s onward, as well as looking at the sweeping anti-gang laws of the 80s and 90s that had devastating effects on communities and categorized entire neighborhoods as gang associates, enacting severe punishments based on erroneous assumptions and outright lies.

Call for a Ceasefire and Help End Civilian Suffering

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Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Producer: Miranda Zickler

Voice Actor: Will Rogers

Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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For this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are answering a listener message about a story of street gangs initiating wannabes with frightening rituals including driving around with their headlights off and murdering the first good samaritan who gives them a courtesy flash. We'll explore several scares that have flared up due to different versions of this urban legend, as well as real crimes wrongfully blamed on these initiations, all leading to the feeling that street gangs were creeping into the suburbs, looking for human sacrifices.

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Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

Producer: Miranda Zickler

Voice Actor: Will Rogers

Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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'Gang Initiations' is the topic of our upcoming series, and this episode will provide extra context using excerpts from three previous episodes—Urban Legends, Drugs, and Dangerous Teens.

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Sound design and co-production by Riley Swedelius-Smith

Produced and edited by Miranda Zickler

Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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Live at SF Sketchfest, Sarah Marshall tells me about the urban-legendary alligators in the sewers of New York City. But of course, that's only one of the many manholes we open.

Make sure you listen to You're Wrong About!

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Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

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Today I'm joined by paranormal corespondent Jim Perry of the podcast Euphomet and Sapphire Sandalo of the podcast Stories With Sapphire as well as the TV shows Ghost Town Terror, Paranormal Caught On Camera, and Paranormal Nightshift. We'll discuss what it’s like to work on very different kinds of projects in the supernatural sphere and get a little behind the scenes look at classic reality ghost shows. We’ll talk about the dream of diversifying away from the formulaic industry of ghost bros and Christian-influenced endings to allow the paranormal to take different forms, understood in different ways by very different kinds of people.

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Hosted Chelsey Weber-Smith

Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler

Associated Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith

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In this episode I tell podcaster Sarah Marshall a truly wild story I uncovered about the first recognized case of Munchausen Syndrome (Factitious Disorder) in the United States. An alleged professional wrestler and American folk anti-hero called the Indiana Cyclone faked symptoms of injury and illness while blowing through hospitals across the country from the 1950s to the 1970s, leaving a bizarre kind of terror in his wake.

Catch Sarah and I at SF SketchFest on Feb 2nd and Feb 3rd!

Make sure you listen to You're Wrong About and You Are Good (duh duh duh!)

Check out our new merch line Folk Devils United

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Hosted Chelsey Weber-Smith

Produced and Edited by Miranda Zickler

Music direction by Riley Swedelius-Smith

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Pop culture correspondent and major Pro Wrestling fan BJ Colangelo and I discuss the quirky history of this manly soap opera, its changing landscape in terms of gender and sexuality, as well as the complicated psychology of kayfabe, in which staged performances are presented as genuine.

Read BJ's Review of The Iron Claw

Check out her podcast This Ends at Prom

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Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline

Hosted Chelsey Weber-Smith

Produced and Edited by Miranda Zickler

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