What do you think will be the top baby names of 2025? Will "Mildred" make a comeback? What’s in a name…that makes it popular to one generation, and downright ugly to the next? From "Bertha" and "Layla" to "Reagan" and "Katrina," history shows us that politics, pop songs and news events all play roles in sending baby names skyrocketing or plunging in the rankings. Mo (short for "Maurice"!) returns to his elementary school to speak with his fifth grade teacher about his own name then talks to Colu...
Dec 25, 2024•42 min•Season 5Ep. 17
We’re celebrating the birthday month of the iconic Marlene Deitrich by revisiting a special episode from the "Mobituaries" audiobook. Marlene Dietrich cemented her status as a Hollywood legend with a series of iconic performances that flouted traditional women's roles and ignited the screen. But it's her passionate support for the United States, her adopted homeland, and the troops fighting in World War II that led Hitler to label her a traitor to the "Fatherland." When she could have enjoyed th...
Dec 18, 2024•13 min•Season 5Ep. 5
This week, we’re celebrating the birthday of the legendary Sammy Davis Jr. by revisiting a special Mobit. From the age of three Sammy Davis, Jr. did it all better than anyone else - singing, dancing, acting, even gun spinning. Mo talks to friends and family about what drove him to keep performing, even after the car crash that nearly killed him. Featuring Carol Burnett, Chita Rivera, Kim Novak, Dionne Warwick and more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 11, 2024•50 min•Season 5Ep. 4
This week marks 8 years since the finale of the beloved series "Wishbone". In the 1990s, PBS introduced young audiences to a canine star like none other: a Jack Russell terrier who imagined himself as characters from classic works of literature. The show was called Wishbone. Today there's a whole generation of adults who were first weaned on Mark Twain, the legend of Faust or the Greek epics through this series. Wishbone is also the first TV show Mo wrote for. Mo talks with Wishbone head writer ...
Dec 04, 2024•37 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Did you know November 9 is National Neanderthal Appreciation Day? Reivist this episode where Mo welcomes his friend Michael Ian Black – comedian, author, podcaster, and, as it turns out, Neanderthal (we’ll explain). Mo talks to Michael and the world’s leading researchers about why our extinct human cousins Neanderthals have gotten such a bad rap for so many many years, and how we’re learning more about how close we really were. Oh, Mo also talks to the guy who played Cha-ka on the 70s kids show ...
Nov 27, 2024•41 min•Season 5Ep. 2
In honor of the anniversary of the first-ever sitcom broadcast on a U.S. television network (fun fact: it was "Mary Kay and Johnny" back in November 1947), we're revisiting "Sitcom Deaths and Disappearances." Characters on sitcoms aren't supposed to die. So when they do, it's never less than weird. Mo examines some of the most infamous sitcom deaths and disappearances with Henry Winkler, Sandy Duncan and Alan Sepinwall. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Nov 21, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 1
This special episode comes from the audiobook edition of ROCTOGENARIANS, a brand-new collection of stories from Mo Rocca that celebrates the triumphs of people who made their biggest marks late in life. Chances are, you know something about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. If, like sixty million other people, you once enjoyed the Little House books, you’ll know that the series breaks off when Laura, at eighteen, marries Almanzo Wilder and leaves her parents to start her own life and her own fam...
Jun 11, 2024•21 min
Long before her turn as the sermonizing Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son," LaWanda Page was dazzling Black nightclub audiences - first as the flame-swallowing “Bronze Goddess of Fire”. Then, following in the footsteps of her childhood friend and eventual costar Redd Foxx, she became a queen of raunchy, tell-it-like-it-is stand up comedy. (Let’s just say Aunt Esther would not have approved of LaWanda’s act.) In this season 4 finale, Mo reflects on Page’s influential career with entertainment icon ...
Jan 03, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Between 1854 and 1929, 250,000 orphans and abandoned children were placed on East Coast city trains and sent west to live with new families. A desperate solution to a desperate problem, some of the stories turned out well and some far from well. The remarkable stories of these riders live on through their descendants, many of whom continue to search for answers about their ancestry. Mo talks to one of these descendants and tracks down the last surviving Orphan Train rider. This episode originall...
Dec 27, 2023•45 min
There’s no shortage of sports teams that change cities or names over the course of their franchise history. But what about the teams that just cease to exist? Perhaps no team story packs more drama into one year of existence than that of Los Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo. It’s a story that combines one of the most celebrated names in baseball history with one of the biggest names in twentieth-century dictatorship. This special episode comes from the audiobook edition of Mobituaries. You can learn ...
Dec 20, 2023•25 min•Season 4Ep. 11
If you were a kid watching TV in the 1980s and 1990s, you probably saw a fair number of “Very Special Episodes,” when the usual blissful bubble of the sitcom world was punctured by real-world issues for a half-hour. Drugs, drinking and driving, stranger danger, even AIDS. But never fear, all would be resolved by episode’s end. (Sometimes the material was so heavy, it required a two-parter.) So why did such a mainstay for a generation of families disappear? And how much was Seinfeld to blame? Mo ...
Dec 13, 2023•43 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Starting in the early 1970s, Norman Lear changed the face of television, fusing comedy with social commentary. Lear died on December 5th at the great old age of 101. Mo revisits their 2015 conversation for CBS Sunday Morning. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dec 07, 2023•17 min
For centuries European royals married only each other. It was believed to be the best way of consolidating power. But rampant royal inbreeding had increasingly negative consequences––including genetic abnormalities (like the protuberant “Habsburg Jaw”), the dying off of whole lines, and eventually serious geopolitical instability that culminated in World War I. Mo and Barnard College professor and bestselling author Caroline Weber discuss the practice that ended up being way more than just a fam...
Dec 06, 2023•50 min•Season 4Ep. 9
“Nepo Baby” is a term popularly used to describe the celebrity children of celebrity parents. But family connections affect every field of work, and always have. And where family is involved, so is drama. Mo tells the stories of three of history’s biggest Nepo Babies: Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford; President John Quincy Adams, the son of President John Adams; and Pushinka, daughter of Soviet space dog Strelka. (Yes, fur babies can be nepo babies!) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...
Nov 29, 2023•51 min•Season 4Ep. 8
November 22, 2023, marks 60 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the end of one of the era's biggest comedy acts. During Kennedy's term, Vaughn Meader’s impersonation of the president made him a household name. The comedy album "The First Family,” in which Meader uncannily played JFK, broke sales records and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Meader's act was so convincing and edgy for the time, White House advisers actually worried about the public confusing him for...
Nov 15, 2023•50 min•Season 4Ep. 7
When Candice Bergen describes her childhood as weird and eccentric, she isn’t exaggerating. She grew up with a world-famous sibling, who met presidents and movie stars. He was also a dummy – the kind made of wood. Charlie McCarthy was the creation of her ventriloquist father Edgar Bergen. Candice tells Mo what life was like sharing her father’s love and attention with a puppet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nov 08, 2023•40 min•Season 4Ep. 6
On this podcast we’ve honored some of our past’s most outstanding and underappreciated people and things. May they live on in memory. But let’s face it, some things deserve to disappear and be consigned to the dustbin of history. In this episode, Mo nominates three things that he’d like to see go the way of the dodo. Mo talks to food writer Kim Severson about buffets, culture critic Erick Neher about standing ovations, and sensory historian Mark Smith about noise. See omnystudio.com/listener for...
Nov 01, 2023•42 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Have you ever wondered about that old timey accent so many actors used in black and white movies? Hollywood stars like Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Orson Welles, who sounded sort of British … but not quite. Was it all a put on or did people back then talk that way in real life? Mo investigates the emergence and disappearance of the accent commonly known as “Mid-Atlantic” with the help of linguist John McWhorter. Plus Hollywood dialect coach Jessica Drake tries her best to teach Mo how to t...
Oct 25, 2023•48 min•Season 4Ep. 4
When gold medalist Jim Thorpe was dubbed "the world's greatest athlete" at the 1912 Olympics, it wasn't hype. Football, baseball, lacrosse, even ballroom dancing ... Thorpe was the world's first multi-sport superstar. But when the Native American icon had his Olympic medals unjustly stripped from him, he faced his toughest hurdle yet. Mo talks to biographer David Maraniss about Thorpe's meteoric rise from Oklahoma Indian territory to global celebrity, and his surprising third act in Hollywood. P...
Oct 18, 2023•47 min•Season 4Ep. 3
There were so many different Peggy Lees: The woman who defined cool in the 1950s with songs like "Fever." The songwriter of hits including the score to "Lady and the Tramp." The icon who inspired Miss Piggy, originally named Miss Piggy Lee. (Yes, really.) But all those Peggy Lees can be traced back to the plains of North Dakota, where she endured a painful upbringing and dreamed big. Mo travels with Lee's granddaughter Holly Foster Wells to her childhood home. You'll also hear from biographer Pe...
Oct 11, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 2
When it comes to obituaries, Mo has always been obsessed with the phenomenon of public figures who share the same death day. So he’s asked CNN anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper to join the podcast to talk about who gets top billing and why. You’ll hear about the case of one person’s death getting “buried” by the death of somebody else. (#Justice4Farrah) There’s also the eerie coincidence of two Founding Fathers dying on the same exact day -- July 4th, no less. And finally, we’l...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 1
Mo Rocca is back with another fascinating season of Mobituaries, exploring the people and things that are no longer with us but deserve a second look. You’ll hear all about notable figures who "Died on the Same Day" along with the three "Things Mo Wishes Would Die." There’s also the story behind the Queen of Cool, Peggy Lee, and the remarkable tale of Jim Thorpe, long considered the world’s greatest athlete. Plus, so much more to come! Listen to new episodes every Wednesday. See omnystudio.com/l...
Sep 27, 2023•2 min
When Andrew Lloyd Webber’s original Broadway production of the musical Cats premiered in 1982, a young dancer named Timothy Scott was just entering his prime. Cast in the role of Mr. Mistoffelees, he left audiences (including a young Mo) spellbound with an acrobatic dancing that seemed to defy physics. But before the end of the decade, Scott was a victim of the AIDS crisis. 35 years after his death, Mo remembers Tim Scott and his dazzling talent, with help from his partner Norman Buckley and Bro...
Feb 15, 2023•50 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Before his name became synonymous with treason, Benedict Arnold was a bonafide hero of the American Revolutionary War. At critical moments Arnold inspired the Patriots with his grit and determination and earned the admiration of George Washington. Despite his popularity and battlefield prowess, Benedict Arnold eventually broke bad. Mo talks with author Nathaniel Philbrick about the now-notorious military man’s twisty path to betrayal - and explores the surprising backstories of other villains in...
Feb 08, 2023•42 min•Season 3Ep. 11
The banana we eat today is not the same kind our grandparents grew up eating. Today’s variety, called the Cavendish, is generally regarded as the bland successor to the richer tasting Gros Michel (French for “Big Mike”) of yesteryear. But when a deadly fungus ravaged the Gros Michel in the mid-20th century, the banana barons had no choice but to make a switch. Mo talks with ‘Banana’ expert Dan Koeppel about the surprising history of the fruit, and talks - and sings! - with Broadway legend André ...
Feb 01, 2023•41 min•Season 3Ep. 10
At one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War, an ordinary 5th grade girl from Maine wrote to the leader of the Soviet Union with a simple plea for peace. When he wrote back with an invitation to visit the Soviet Union in the summer of 1982, it became an international news story and one of the most improbable peace missions of the era. Mo tells the story of the “Littlest Diplomat” and how she became a powerful symbol of shared humanity on both sides of the iron curtain. Guests include chi...
Jan 25, 2023•53 min•Season 3Ep. 9
We love historical “Firsts” so much that we end up ignoring the people who come right after them. But without these runners-up, the trailblazers are just one-offs or oddities––instead of the beginning of big change. Mo celebrates the Black baseball great who joined the major leagues just eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson, the second American woman in space, and the British invasion band that for a time played second fiddle only to The Beatles. With guests sportscaster Otis Livingston, Michael O...
Jan 18, 2023•47 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Fans of Broadway and Barbra Streisand probably know the name Fanny Brice as the woman who refuses to let anyone rain on her parade in the beloved musical "Funny Girl." But the real Fanny Brice, the original funny girl, was a trailblazing Jewish comedian, who lit up Broadway and created one of the most famous characters on radio. Mo looks back at Fanny's story (The ups! The downs! The nose job!) with biographer Barbara Grossman and talks with culture critic Erick Neher about how Barbra Streisand ...
Jan 11, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Mo goes behind the scenes of season 3 of Mobituaries with the host of The Takeout, Major Garrett. They share a delicious meal and dig into the highlights of Mobits’ history and the complexity behind why people and things deserve a second look at their lives. Hear a sneak peek into the upcoming stories of season 3 and Major’s very own recommendation for his ideal Mobit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 04, 2023•46 min
Mo’s deep appreciation for our less-remembered presidents led him to purchase a giant bust of Grover Cleveland, which has dominated his living room for over 20 years. But when the New York Times questioned the bust’s identity, it set in motion a quest, culminating in an appearance by Mo and his bust on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Producer Adam Monahan documented the saga on this season 2 episode of his podcast Detours (GBH and PRX), a podcast that reveals what happens to all that stuff on America’s...
Dec 14, 2022•25 min
