From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, they.
Called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew Treyforce Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. But yeah, yeah, we're going to trial. Yeah yeah, do you hear that we're supporting? Not yet, we edged toward that. When folks, the energy is live, we are in person, which is quite a rare treat
for us. And we started asking, so we're always pitching ideas to each other, right, and we started asking, Hey, does anybody remember the weird, surreal wasteland of daytime TV before streaming?
Right, surely it still exists to some degree, right, very much? So, okay, blissfully unaware of it.
Spin offs of every reality show you've ever heard of, rights telenovela is still very big. Occasionally you'll also see the news, but they keep that brief because they got to get back to you know, as the world turns. Yeah, regularly scheduled.
With the election coverage that just happened, people were actually watching TV right and on. I watched it in Instagram live from the Daily Show, and they had to keep pushing, like, turn on your television, your television, watch tonight on your television.
Parents have that doesn't move seriously, Yeah, that's It's true. Reality TV has dominant aided. Reality TV and soaps have dominated daytime television for so long. And if you're of a certain age in the United States, you may recall a unique genre of reality TV. From far enough way. It looks like a courtroom. There's someone who looks like
a judge. There are people who act like defendants. There there may be folks who strongly resemble lawyers, and maybe you know as sassy bailiff kind of always like you know it your honor.
It's an important part of the cast ensemble.
And so our question, guys, you know, and so our question tonight is are these court TV shows real? Sorry, we had some friends from the office come in a wave time. Oh man, he keeps saying he's not a cop anyway, that's our cold open.
He has to tell us if he's a cop.
Untrue.
Yeah, we've found out.
Here are the facts. To know what a TV court show is, we have to look at a little bit of history, and honestly, it's surprising because you may not know this, folks. The ancestors of the court shows you see on television or streaming today they come from radio, not television.
Well it makes sense, I mean, yeah, it's not a particularly visually captivating medium. But and let's to be clear too, we're talking about like, not like night court we're talking about which.
Is awesome, yeah, with the God I love Nightmare.
We're talking about like the People's Court or Judge Judy and execution.
Judge Joe Brown, divorce Court. Yeah, and stakes are real or are they? All? Right? So let's travel back. It's
the mid nineteen thirties. We're talking depression era. Life is super not great for a lot of people, and they want distractions, they want fantasy, They want another nicer world to live in, even if only for thirty minutes to pop. And so television was available since nineteen twenties right to the Riggie Riches and the Scrooge McDucks of the world, but it doesn't become America's main media venue until after World War Two, when everybody was able to buy a house,
have two point five kids, it was possible to own your own car, and then of course you buy the box. Now you watch TV.
Previously it was literally families gathered around the radio using their collective imaginations to picture the characters like the Shadow or whatever.
Right, it's a lot like how people gather around their Alexas now and listen to this show. That's like they're doing right now.
Oh, come on, I know beak her name by the way. I know, I know you're working out, I know you're doing the dishes, and you know what you're doing. A great job, serious positive affirmations there.
I think my Alexa is ill. She does not respond the way she used to. I don't know if I need like a hot update or something like that, but man, she hears her name in every piece of dialogue from television and interrupts my viewing experience on the regular.
And we're not going to do the prank that we did previously because some people did not enjoy that. But check out our earlier episodes on surveillance.
Do you think there will be couples counseling for personal assistance where it's like a user and a personal assistant.
Yes, I think there will be AI avatar personal counseling. So you'll you'll get your AI avatar because people are dating via chat, GBT and so on. Now, so you'll just get the AI avatars to go to therapy with each other and then they'll come back and tell you what they learned, and then they'll tell you it was a success.
Can't we just go back to peopling like you know, I mean, come on, I'm all about too much, too much, guys, it's gone too far.
That came off weird.
Well, when people are hanging out together, they get into arguments, they get into situations.
Right, we are currently in the situation.
Then you got to go to court.
Bringing it back. Yeah. The golden age of radio lasts from the nineteen twenties till television takes over in the mid nineteen fifties. This is the origin of dramatic serialized narratives. I'd like to play one example here. Of course, it's a classic, and I don't think we'll get sued. I want to get sued. Can you guess what this is?
Sounds spooky?
Huh?
HP Lovecraft presents.
Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men? Who knows evil? It lurks, that's it, lurks.
What is that? What is it?
It's Alec Baldlin. No wait wait, oh, we missed it. He knows. Do you remember The Shadow?
But the film starring Alec Baldlin as the Shadow did not do well.
No, yeah, it did do well.
Then there was The Phantom with Billy zaying. The Phantom was also another Golden age radio show.
Didn't do didn't do super well. These are adaptations, this is uh, these are spook stories to tell in the dark, similar to what we did with Thirteen Days of Halloween, and people like we're saying, gathered around, listened to the radio with rapt attention. It was something we would call cinema of the mind. And all of that changed for radio. On March first, nineteen thirty two, a twenty month year old child named Charles Augustus Lindbergh Junior was kidnapped in
a tragedy that drew national attention. The Lindburg Baby. The Limburg people.
You're always talk going on about the Lindburg Baby constantly.
We're talking to Andrew Treforce, Howard you want to stop, and I'm like, come on, man, yeah, I get it, I get it. It was a long time ago, Andrew. I'm shooting Drew a look to make sure we're still cool. He's shooting you one right back. It's a look for sure. All right. Later it's May twelfth. Unfortunately this child is found dead. Oh sorry, I'm at all those jokes. It's long past. But this investigation that ensues the arrest of a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hoftman, and then the
subsequent trial, they capture the imagination of America. People are going blow by blow. They're buying the newspaper at four in the morning to get the latest hot costs.
This is the predecessor to like the OJ Simpson craze, you know, I mean one hundred percent. This was very new, the ability to cover something like this and to essentially make it a cultural event, pop cultural moments.
Yes, oh yep. Stone When when you are getting your information as soon as the newspapers can print it and get it out to you, that's one thing that's a certain amount of time. But then when somebody can just turn on a microphone on scene outside the courtroom or something that is a whole different level of feeling like you're in the moment.
While this is occurring, living vicariously right. Flip on the radio and we know it's we know it's two pm Eastern, and now we're here with live updates because they were still using that voice. This is true crime. This is the earliest example getting yeah, because the kidnapping and the trial of hop And could be an episode all their own.
We'll need Andrew on obviously, but for our purposes tonight, we have to know the American public was glued to every step, not just every development and investigation, but every bit of speculation. This was the water cooler talk, and the courtroom was crowded to the Eves family, reporters, law
enforcement lookie loose. People were like you were saying earlier, Matt, waiting eagerly outside just to figure out what happened, and often to be the first person who could report it, or to be the first person who could tell their friends. This trial ran from January to February of nineteen thirty five. Hoptman never said he was guilty, never confessed, always said he was innocent. None of his appeals succeeded. He was
eventually electrocuted. He was executed in the electric chair in New Jersey on April third of nineteen thirty six, and people were still following the story for years now. Part of it is because the Limberg fan lose so high profile. Part of it is the Golden Age radio, the brutality of the crime. They mixed together like ingredients and a stew and this created what you're talking about, No, a great appetite for court shows. The American public was fascinated.
They wanted to hear more trials, They wanted to hear more legal proceedings, and ideally they wanted it to be exciting. They didn't want the man bites, dog bites, ban cases. They didn't want someone arguing about their property line or their fits. They wanted the murder. They wanted the heist.
Because in theory, right, couldn't even like the most boring of trials be televised if there were a demand for it.
Yeah, you could take the court transcript and have people read it back. It's all public record, you know.
But like the thing that allows cameras, I've always been a little confused about, like the legality behind cameras in the court room. I mean, but there has to be a demand for that for it to be like the networks show up. But if there were a smaller, you know, seemingly more boring case and there were interest, they could they could film those, they could put those on TV.
M hmm, yeah, you could have something like c SPAN and it's just twenty four hours of small claims court TV is kind of yes, well, kind of yes. That's I don't know what it is. So the radio studios, the producers, the reporters, they respond quickly. They take the public transcripts like we're mentioning the public reports, and they make what we call recrease dramatizations, yeah, reenactments of high visibility cases. They're looking for stuff that was the bloodiest,
the most brutal, or the most morally reprehensible. And dudes, fellow conspiracy realist America loved this stuff. Leads. Do you think true crime podcast are popular? Had nothing on this. This was granddaddy. It was so new. It was just defeating frenzy.
Well, imagine if a show like Up and Vanished was just on one of the forward networks that existed at the.
Time, back when we had like that was it four choices? I mean really like even that many shows per choice, like.
Everybody, oh that case now, because it's one of the things you can listen to or watch.
And because other people are talking about it socially, a feedback loop occurs, so even if you are not necessarily interested in it, you're up to date on it, you know, you kind of have to be. Yeah, it's like, you know what's going on with the Yankees and the Mets just because you live in New York you don't have to go to the stadium to see them.
I mean, my partner's been watching the dramatization recree or whatever of the Clinton Monica Lewinsky trials or whatever impeachment hearings, and I mean that.
Was so huge.
They literally remade the whole thing as like a drama fictionalized kind of account on television.
Well, I mean they just did it with oj Simpson like twice in a row of these. But like, the guy is still here so much. Let's get let's get back here. So we're still in radio land. We're in the thirties.
Yeah, we're in the thirties. And to get around they have one other thing they had to do to get around, the pot possibility of ending up in a real court room because of their cute radio stories and going down for libel and slander. The creators would go back and take trials from decade years or decades past, and they were often looking for a trial where the wherein all of the original participants had died.
So they were worried about libel or slander accusations because they were taking some liberties.
Oh yeah, with the with the transcripts. And also, you know, how how far can you go in dramatic recreation before you get to I'm kind of playing with the vacuuing Yeah a little bit.
Well, well, in a lot of the facts could be hearsay right, or at least argued to be here.
And in a court of law you have a judge who will come down and say, ah, that should be struck from the recordures.
In radio you have a host who probably had some improv training and was like, yes, and is it possible that the murderer was you know Welsh, which never shows up in the court case. They just go back to the transcript.
And then the Welsh Defamation League is up up your tail, huge force huge.
They run all the f's in the language. It's a joke for like two so many. Yeah. So this leads us to the first ancestor what we call a court show today, and it's on radio. It's named The Court of Human Relations or The True Story Court of Human Relations. I'm dumb. Yeah, Yeah. New Year's Day nineteen thirty four, just a bit after the Limberg case, and they did the reenactments. They had a guy called Percy Hemus playing the judge. Percy was not a judge. He was an actor.
And I'm not a judge, but I just play one on television. Right, right, is what he told officers, right? What he got pulled over in his jealoppy anyway, I would bet he happy he did better than that. Also, Judge Reinhold, we're talking about this off air. I grew up thinking that guy was a judge who happened to be an actor. But not only is he not a judge, Judge is even his real first name. That was news to me.
But he did go on to delightfully portray a television judge on Arrested Development. I believe it was called Judge Reinhold, and it was making fun of the exact stuff that we're talking about today.
Yeah, and also he got the nickname Judge as a baby because people saw he looked really stern and authoritative and judgmental.
That is one judgmental baby right there.
That sounds mean to the kid. But the mugging everybody all the time. So here's the brilliant thing about Percy's show. All right, they would air this compilation of recreations, and they would usually just go for the most exciting stuff, not not all the ins and outs of procedure, just the part where you know, it's like you're all right? Is sustained? Good or bad? Sustained? Well, it depends on
if you're the person making the objection. If you're making the objection and your objection is sustained, that means the judge of grease, he.
Accepts your objection. What's the opposite of sustainable? Thank you, thank you for getting our terminology.
Yeah straight. I always love it. I always love how in copaganda there's a judge on the edge. He's like, hmm, I allow it, but you're on thin ice.
I like the real Southern judge too, that's a real ju judge.
Yes, also another good judge flavor. I love the I love the move in a trial that's televised or you know again the kind of propaganda stuff where the lawyer asked a crazy out there should be a legal question and uh, and they have to thing where it's like did you or did you not murder that penguin objection overruled withdrawing.
Well yeah, And then on this show they would go, hmm, well what do you think? But they didn't have an email addresser phone number any right.
That's the grift, that's the gas talk amongst yourselves friends. Right before the end of every broadcast, Percy would come in and invite everybody in the audience to render their own verdict before they tell you what happened. And they implied that they were immediately receiving correspondence from across the United States and that determined what actually happened. It is not the case. There was no way to contact the radio station whatsoever. And they pulled this off for years brilliant,
pretty brilliant, ethical, diabolical, yeah, but brilliant. I respect it. They ran from nineteen thirty four to nineteen thirty nine, which, fun fact means stuff they don't want you to know has been on air longer than the world's first court show.
We old.
I think it's you know, I think it's nacolade.
What is Yeah, maybe they'll give us a trophy for it one maybe.
What was the next show?
Oh, this one's great. It was called Goodwill Court, So people would go into their local goodwill and they would buy things, and then the whole show is just haggling about how much it should actually is that's true?
To make that joke. It turned into a It turned into a romantic kind of reality program where and later instead of arguing this was a ratings thing, they would have strangers meet and Goodwill and have to go on a date to get discounts at the goodwill.
Brilliant, do you need discounts at Goodwill?
It was a different time, and this was hosted by Al Alexander. All that other stuff is not true. By
the way, this was hosted by Al Alexander. Heard real life defendants and cases all presented semi anonymously, so you'd hear their real voices, but you wouldn't know their names, and they would try to keep They played a little fast and loose with facts, and their defense for this was saying, we can't reveal exact specifics, so that's why we're punching stuff up and then boom, the case goes to a panel of real judges, and the judges sit around and go, well, you know what, here's what I
here's wreckle mill I do declare you know?
Do you think that was considered sort of like a you're sort of a has been judge and now this is all Hollywood squares kind of. Yeah, you gotta wonder if that was they didn't go over particularly well in the legal community, if you would appear on all of these types of.
Things definitely didn't go over well.
Well, we know it didn't go over well big picture wise for sure.
So what happened, Like this legal advice technically ran a foul of some actual legal precedent.
Yeah, New York County turns out has a lawyer's association. Who do Who would have assumed? Is that the same as the bar? Is that the bar? They mess with the bar, The bars your qualification to practice. Sometimes you eat the bar. Sometimes the bar is true most of the time. Sometimes you raise the bar, and sometimes you're just at the bar too.
Long, limboing under the bar, doing the best you can.
We've got bar jokes. How low can you go? We've got bars about bars. We've got more bars than the Bourbon District. This is not the kind of fun bar that these lawyers were messing with. They shut down this show because they said, look, if you're giving out real legal advice for free on the radio, we don't care for that, which makes sense because that's their job, you
know what I mean. Yeah, if you run a donut shop and then some weirdo next door opens a a place that just gives away free donuts, you're gonna have some problems.
So that is his right if he wishes to do that, as long as he's checked all the boxes and filled out all the appropriate paperwork.
Yeah, you gotta have a license. It's a spike store kind of situation. Yeah, you can't be a rogue donut benefactor. You will get in trouble. So now we get to the age of TV. We'll show this up real quick. The first show like this to make it to television was Famous Jury Trials. It was on the radio in the thirties to the late nineteen forties, and then in nineteen forty nine it got adapted to television. They even had a film come out in nineteen seventy one. And
these were all reenactments of past famous cases. I hope they went super deep into the archives. I hope they had some cases from the seventeen hundred's pirate trials.
Yeah, it'd be fun.
Willful witchcraft or was it? Was it the manslaughter equivalent of witchcraft? Was was this person accidentally a witch? Witch? Hobby?
My client black Beard has been accused of many things today, didn't.
They get accused of like eating babies or something that I make that good?
Accused of a lot of things.
Fair enough, Isn't that the problem with a lot of this Accusations in the court of public opinion are way more interesting than the truth.
And they have a much lower burden of a court room.
The judge can do a lot of things to mitigate that, and you know, instruct the jury and every everything. But with the once this stuff starts circulating, you know, in the real world, your base trying people in the court of public opinion.
Back to the seventeen hundreds. To follow up on that example, in a real court, a judge could say, I do not consider that to be a witch mark. I believe that is a mode. But if there were a twitter of some sort back then, probably word of mouth at the church. In this instance, then the verdict is already done for the public. That's right. No one has to
prove it, you know what I mean. Marm Mabel tells good wife Johanneson that it's definitely witch mark because she's seen a mole before, and then boom, it's the devil's mark.
It's witch in time, the kitty cat is definitely drinking milk from that thing. Okay, so that's how how they were third nipple.
What are you talking about?
And that's how witch marks are the thing?
Is that right?
Yes, you're familiar.
Of them, you're familiar. Did not suckles, you did not know? And that cat is deafe demon anyway. So this is this is a weird history because for a lot of us, the TV court show has always been there if you grew up in the US, just a staple of TV, just like infomercials or those talk shows that are just vapid.
I'll say, yeah, come on, you don't like the view. You gotta love a good talk show, guys.
I love kind of what we do. I love the segues though on the talk shows, because you know, if you turn on at the right time, they're like forty thousand confirmed dead in other news Dogs in office. Let's go to Denver, Colorado, where mister Sparkles has been making some waves in Congress.
How would we have ever learned to be, you know, panicking about satanic ing if we didn't have those talk shows you know.
WoT you're talking about, like the Doctor Phills of the World, Jesse, all.
These formats that are just like weird. It's the line between what is real and what is not real is blurred.
I think reality consensus.
I distinctly remember being a kid and seeing some of this daytime stuff and it was an episode about white supremacists, and it was like Phil Donahue, and they had these white supremacists on, and they had like their kids on and they were saying the most foul racist stuff and given this platform, and of course it's presented as like, here are these bad people, but let's just let them
say and do whatever they want. And I found it shocking, like as a kid, the horrible slurs, you know, that's what they want to also be well aware of.
Folks in those talk shows like Noela's describing, I guarantee you before they went on air, there was a producer doing this. Yeah, okay, so just go up there, you know, beat yourself.
But me warriors a little more racist, dial it up in the ash because we want people to really understand where you're coming from.
Oh God, let me at him and he and if you get to it, throw that chair.
Yeah, it's it's the it's marked with blue tape at the bottom. It's the throwing chair. Yeah, that's your mark, you know. But what what was the show where there were always big fights? Jerry Springer? But it was all of those yeah, yeah, except for Oprah. Oprah was classic Oprah. Yeah. And as we as we think about these phenomenon, and we did have an episode previously on reality TV, I believe as we think about this phenomenon, we had to ask is there a conspiracy afoot? How real is this
form of reality TV? What is the truth about court shows? We'll have a quick recess for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive into uh something like real sustain stained sustaint all rise be seated. Here's where it gets. Can I just stay seated? Is that?
Okay?
Okay?
Cool?
Objection over how overstained? If you really like overstained.
Oxy clean, this is really great reason to have the commercial breaks.
Is you'all cop it overstained?
Is your shift a robe overstained? I just wanted to say, shift rope? All right, great, I think.
There's a great way to talk about the difference between the reality of these things and the reality of these things.
Right.
So, one of the first court shows that ever came about was a thing called divorce Court, right, And it's another one of these shows that it's very, very similar to the when we just described to you before the break, where it was a radio version kind of make them up seas not really about a show, like a fictionalized version of that or a recreated version of these court rooms dramatized dramatized. The Worst Court did the same thing
early on. It had four separate runs, and on the first couple of runs it was just re enacting a divorce court proceeding, which I don't I guess it's salacious enough that people would want to watch that. I don't know.
Well, think about the demographic. You're at home, you're watching TV. Maybe it makes you start thinking about your own relationships. You find something some validation in there.
Like at least we're not this ft up, Right, you know or at least like a judge agrees with me that a dog should not be as important in a household.
That is so fat because this is fifty seven to sixty two, then sixty seven to sixty nine. Yeah, so it is they're aiming at that time at at mothers, like stay at home mothers, fantasizing about divorce and.
Also there there my god, yeah, maybe not fantasized, but also thinking there but for the grace of God go I maybe, but also the money spends to say is the thing and there's and we also have to realize the context. There are huge civil rights women's rights movements occurring at the same time.
Well, but then when they came back though, they did a version. That is what we're talking about right right now.
And let's step back because our first question was what do we mean by real That's where we find the answer. It's a gradient. It's not binary. These shows are not all created equally in how much they do or do not cleave to the reality of a courtroom. Some are more like a real courtroom than others. But let's start at the top. Let's go piece by piece. In these systems, are the judges actual judges. Judge Judy Yes was a judge, is not a judge. Was a judge and then began to play one on television.
Judge Mills Lamee, same thing.
Judge Joe Brown definitely a judge prior to the television career. So these folks were judges at one time. They were judges at one point.
They know the law, that is what we're saying.
Right, they are well acquainted with different parts of the law.
Well, what about Steve Harvey.
I just I think he's just a judgmental dude.
Because he is one of the most famous Yes Courtroom TV judges right now.
Because he doesn't take back something, but he is all about the court of public opinion.
That's I know.
But it's funny that you should say that, because it just goes to show how similar it is, like how these judges are like stand ins for talk show hosts in anyways they are holding holding court yard.
Oh snap.
And Steve Harvey is interesting, the guy from a family feud. Yeah, he's the dude who always looks amazed by a slightly risque answer. Yeah, you know, someone's like, well I would say balls, and then he just loses his mind and can't believe it's number one on the list of toys and sports.
You know, Steve Hardy's hilarious to me, Guys, I don't know what it is. I think maybe I have an SNL version of Steve Harvey playing my head. I watch him. Yeah, so I don't know.
He also his show, Judge Steve Harvey is also technically qualified as a court comedy. To your point about.
I'm not even aware of this his Judge show. I thought you were joking. No, he has a Judge show. And it's funny too because he's also a big radio guy and he just has like doesn't he host a game.
Show, Family Feud, Family Food? Sorry, ye surprised when he's ticking as the king of old media in a way?
Baby.
He also hosted the Miss Universe competition and has seven Daytime Emmy Awards. Dude, I don't know if that's like it's like ad de emotion JV.
But so, so, what we're talking about here is you've got the spectrum of a television host personality that can lead one of these shows as a judge. But on the other end, and you've got Judge Joe Brown, and that's the person I'm putting on this end because that guy was a legitimate judge for a long time. He
was overseeing. We just we're talking about this when we made the MLK tapes, we talked to Judge Brown, right, but he oversaw the last appeal that James Earl Ray had before he was taken off of it because he was biased. But this is a legitimate judge that is doing the same work, the same job as Steve Harvey.
Well yeah, okay, and we'll see why as well. Not all of these TV judges are real judges. Some of these shows are just borrowing a format loosely inspired by what you would imagine a courtroom to look like. There are other cases of this, you know, if you look at Judge Greg Mathis, host of the show Judge Mathis. He got a law degree and he worked as a district judge in Michigan's thirty six District Court. He dealt
primarily with misdemeanors. But these court shows who not take place in real courtrooms, They don't feature real trials happening in real time. They are usually real cases, but the producers, to our earlier example, here's how they scout people. They look through pending litigation in small claims courts in the area, and then they call people and say, hey, do you want to just go sort this out on television?
Is that like a form of arbitration or it is a spoiler?
Yes, okay, well we're seeing on these shows it's not real court cases. Instead, you're watching an arbitration process. Do we want to explain what arbitration is? Oh?
Yeah, I mean it's it's literally a third party that listens to two people's sides of a story, essentially who have who.
Have agreed to participate in this, and to take it outside of the scope of a normal courtroom proceeding.
If you're doing actual arbitration, right, that is theoretically the way it works, that third party that is non biased. But again, especially if you're dealing with a corporation arbitration process.
Here's where your coderation arbitration. Here's where you're gonna run into arbitration. Folks, anytime you have signed terms and conditions for literally any elect service in media or with electronic product, pre agree you have agreed to arbitration. That's why it's usually towards the second half of the contract because they know ninety five percent of people are not going to read it. You should read it, as a matter of fact. Start reading at the bottom and work your way up.
That came up recently with that case of the woman being a food poisoned by Disney Food and Disney Springs associated and because the husband had signed up for like a free trial of Disney, plus he had technically agreed to arbitration, which is not in his favor because this is a case that he could potentially have won big on, but now he's been demoted to arbitration, which puts the power really in the hands of the corporation.
Let's compare it to if it was in a court of law. Right, in the court of law, there's the same thing. Two arguments, right from a team of lawyers for basically someone who's defending someone who is accusing or the plaintive, and the defendant, they make their case, the jury in that case decides what's up, or the judge, depending on trial, and then that judge or jury decides, here's what's going to happen who, Here's who's going to
pay money, Here's who's gonna face consequences. In arbitration, you hear this case and everything, and that one person who is your arbiter binding gets to the decide you.
Can do it. There may be more than one arbiter, true, but this is alternative dispute resolution, meaning that you can say, you know, if you two guys are fighting, you could come to me and say like, hey, we don't want this to go to court. We just hear it out, we'll record it. We agree in writing that that decision to that point we'll be binding, which means that even though you're not in court with this mediation, the arbiter's decision is almost always final. It's very rare for court
to go back and step on the toes. So it's a It's like how instead of going straight from kindergarten to first grade, your case goes from kindergarten to pre first.
Yes and yes, And one of the most important parts of this is exactly what you said, Ben. You're not going by the laws necessarily. Sometimes you are, but especially in certain cases, you are deciding what the rules in consequences can even be. Before you begin the discussion.
And scope out. You make the field of play and I contact listen close fellow conspiracy realist, not accusing anyone specifically, but you cannot do arbitration for a lot of criminal cases. Okay, so if there's a grand theft auto for instance, if there's a purposeful arson, or you have god forbid arguably committed homicide, can't go to the cops and say, well, what if we just sort of get an arbiter, you know what I mean, like get get someone we all trust. Like what if we ask Bill Nye you know.
What the science got?
Yeah? Or what if we get jaw ruled because Jaw will.
Figure science gott yes or Shaggy too dope, the science yes.
And so this is uh, you know, it's.
About magnets, that's for sure.
M hm.
He is wilfully agreed on all things magnetic. So the power the judges have in these TV shows is just granted by the contract. Uh. And it's the contract that you sign when you agree to appear. Everybody is there voluntarily, even the devil. The fine print and also love fine print. I think they should make the fine print and just the sexier fond she's just called words. They should make it sexy.
Okay, how about comic sans comic sands the sexiest thoughts.
It's no wing dings. You know. So there's here's the issue. If we have an aggrieved party and a plaintiff, and the judge judge finds in favor of the of the defendant, both parties get an appearance fee. Yeah, so even if you lose your case, you still get paid for your time. And yes, if you're wondering, it is more than the fee that people in an actual jury get.
Bro I found my jury duty check. It was so embarrassing and hilarious that I never even cashed it. And I looked at it and I was like, I should cash this, But now it's ninety days.
It was void.
It was fourteen dollars fourteen fourteen US.
Dollars for coffee. It was a coffee.
It was a full day of the selection process and then a full day of the trial.
Seven bucks a day. Unreal coffee's on you.
That's insanity.
They do charge you for coffee. It's a machine. Yeah no, I mean you you buy the next round of coffee. Fourteen. I think we could recuit. There weren't even donuts, there was no spread.
It's just such an important point, guys, what Ben's saying here, that is how you get somebody to come on a court television show who appears to be the bad guy, at least according to the story, right, all right, right, that's the way you get on there, because I always wondered why on earth would this cheating husband or whatever it is like go on television.
And that's why it's also kind of considered poor form in journalism to pay your subjects.
There you go technically illegal. Right, so depending on well, okay, we hear you, FCC's we got it, we got it.
But not only would they not have to pay whatever the small claims.
Is, Yes, we've got that later too, Yes, it just.
You can you can definitely see while that that is better than having to pay somebody if it actually went to court.
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of advantages. The consumerists had a great snarky line about this. They said, while the cases and people may be real, the court could be held on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and would still have the same effect.
I mean, it might as well be it's on a set. The Starship Enterprise set may well be next door.
And yeah, and that's a good point. The quote concludes, it's all just part of the collective hallucination. We call television. I thought that was a great It's very cool.
I recently went to my very first taping of a late show and you know, there's a tonight show is Jimmy Fallen And I'd always pictured what the studio was like, and it is tiny. They make it look so big, but the way the camera sweeps throughout it and I guess the lens maybe the wide angle lens or whatever, and it is a tiny audience.
It's a never show.
Usually it's like maybe if they do show it, they show it in close up, which makes you think that it just goes on forever.
But it's like a black box theater and it is that you're.
In a shoe box.
It's crazy how small is The band is on one wall, the band that plays as a guest is on the far wall, and then Fallin on the desk is on the left wall, and then the audience is on the back wall, and it is the illusion is real.
It was very trippy being in there. Like, have you guys ever been to the SNL studios? Heck now also very small?
Uh, very I'm not saying I would never. I would love to just have not know that's cool.
And then if you go. Yeah, a lot of the late shows have a similar format on stage as they do in their presentation, which is all to your point to build that illusion. And speaking of illusion, we're talking about this off air, some of the defendants are actors, like, well, yeah, the case might be real, but you know, the guy who is portraying the defendant also has a real on IMDb where he lists a lot of his work.
Well, and there's no real jury, but there are there is a studio audience for and they sit in a jury box, right, It's it's it's an.
Illusion, yeah, but they don't. Well, it depends on the format of the show. Some of the formats have interaction like with that audience, but usually it's it is an illusion that they are just an audience the way it would be in a courtroom. But they don't say anything. They just they're quiet. The only people who speak are the plaintiff, the defendant or the.
And the bailiff who's like, you got that right, he's the shifty, sassy one exactly.
But isn't that funny though that because as time has progressed, and you know, this being a tried and true format, you certainly have some like Steve Harvey that lean more into the absurdity of it and can be a little more goofy.
With Well, all the judges quote unquote judges, whatever their providence, they have to have a personality, right, they have a list of attributes that attract people to the show again and again. You know, a no nonsense judge versus a judge who kind of sees the you know, the lighter side of things, right, you know, versus a judge who's like, my main thing is I dig parakeets. Is why this case is interesting.
The parakeet judge. He always has one on his shoulder.
Birth also.
Yeah, So my understanding just to what we're talking about here is usually they're not actors putting on a show like fake cases. They're real cases. It's just they are presented as real cases to the so then the producers decide which ones. So the way you would fake get on one of these court TV shows, in my understanding is you would have a small claims thing, or you would create a small claims thing that's wild, and then
a producer would somehow come to it. I it can work that way, or I guess you would go to you'd send an email to the producers and say, guys, I've got a crazy story for you, and the fake get on.
But it's also similar to so the producers play a huge role, and that's a great point. Sometimes it works the way you're describing that would actually be one of the ethical ways from the producer's end. Sometimes the producers will find an old court transcript that they really like and they'll have a recreation of that. Sometimes these are made up out of a whole cloth, or kind of like a plot for Law and Order. They're inspired by true events. Other times there will be defendants and the
actually grieved parties on camera, but it's an open secret. Again. Prior to going on camera, the show's producers will pop by and just say, hey, let's judge this up a little, even if that means playing a little fast and loose with the facts. I don't know, what do you guys think, another recess for an ad brink. I don't see why not. I was waiting for an overruled or sustained sustained thank you, and we've returned, all right. There are lots of producers
who will speak about this. One that I think stood out to us is a guy named Dave d. Venerio, producer of Black Chip Studios out in San Diego, he had he had a pretty good first hand account of this.
Yeah, he said, Assigning a level of reality to reality court shows is difficult because, like with most reality TV, these shows fall more in the area of contrived, that cold, you know, that contrived area, then exactly genuine or fabricate him. That's interesting, yeah, because you contrived does kind of live between those two mm hmm.
Yeah. And he said, you know, some shows even have scripts, because you know they're working off transcripts. Some are more improved. Right. Regardless of how these things lean into or out of reality, they all have one goal to make as much spectacle as possible, to play up the drama. If you've ever watched a real court proceeding, people are often very formal, they're pretty dry. They try to be fact based, and if you watch these shows, then people sometimes become hyper
exaggerated versions of themselves. I will not have a circus in my court room, you know. Yeah, And they're saying that while the defendant and the plaintiff are dressed as literal clowns, because it clown claim, is that a thing clown? Court there's clown college. Why shouldn't there be clown court. That's true, clown rights, you know what I mean. Now
clown rights. Now, where about the issues? So Divernio has this idea that may be reassuring, where he says, you know, most of these cases, most of these people are real. But to your point, Matt, occasionally people will fabricate a case to get on a show. They'll conspire right, and the producer may not know that these aggrieved parties are actually buddies coming up in the comedy scene and they because it's easy to file small claim, anyone can. But do we have examples of this being discovered?
Not really there at least I couldn't find anything concrete where it's like this is definitely what happened, because is embarrassing, especially for the production if it gets through. But it used to happen all the time on talk shows where you know actors who are trying to make it out in Hollywood and they come up with a way to get on television. Again, I mean, I use Ricky Lake as an example, but it's not really necessarily that it would be one of the more salacious ones where it's
like this kid is or is not my child or whatever. Yeah, but it's just actors and they're just having fun and it doesn't matter necessarily even to the producers if it's real or not, because it makes for good TV.
You just don't want that the girlfriend mistress, baby mama fights. Uh yeah, sorry, folks, sometimes they know each other.
I think that's interesting because what we're pointing out here is that it does seem that there is some need to maintain some semblance of credibility even in the schlockiest of these court type shows. Sure, if that is at the heart of the thing, the moment that is broken, and we cannot believe the true crime aspect of these things, it loses us.
Yeah.
Well, think about it. If if the illusion that there are not direct consequences to one or the other of the people who are there on the stage, course, yeah, then nobody gives a crap. So you have to truly believe that illusion. That illusion has to exist, or else the show's canceled.
And you can skirt the line there ethically and legally by not outright stating this is or is not true. Right by not outright stating this is a real court case. All you have to do is imply it through appearance, through tropes, through format, and then from far enough away you know this will seem true to a lot of people, even though it is ersatz, which is a word for appearing true without being true. And with that we have to ask, Okay, what happens when somebody is found innocent
or guilty? Like we said earlier, if you're the defendant, you're found innocent, you and the other party still get an appearance fee.
Is there a problem? I mean, it just depends, you know. I mean, I think this kind of reality television in general is sort of to blame for some cultural erosion of like morals, you know. But that's me like being soapboxy about it. To me, the stakes are pretty low and everybody kind of knows what they're signing up for on both sides, the audience side and the participants side. So is it damaging to what democracy to like the law?
I don't think so. I think it's just frivolous. Well, here's one thing they don't tell you on the show as a member of the public. To Matt, I think there's your point there about the actual penalties. What are our stakes? What happens when a penalty is leveled. They say, yes, you're the evil clown in this situation. You stole the Seltzer water and the squeaky shoes.
Yeah, you left that house a little bit messy when you sold it to this other person and they won one hundred and seventy five dollars.
Here's the kicker. The production pays for fines and penalties leveled as part of the arbitration agreement. So we can understand the perspective of a defendant. If you have a small claim, a real one, and you feel like your odds of winning aren't great, why wouldn't you I mean it's a cost benefit. Are you okay being a little embarrassed to save some money.
I don't think anybody in Hollywood was ever.
I'm too afraid of being a little embarrassed because you got to have humility and shame to be embarrassed.
I know it's a good question, but you could see right because we're saying you could you could still be found guilty, and you thought you would be or found at fault, and now you can get away without having to actually pay the financial consequence.
Or not just financial consequence. It's like there are no consequences. Now, some people saw you, you know. I however, many hundred or thousands of people saw you on TV doing this thing. But other than that, you're good. It's like it never.
Happened, except that they might syndicate this show, which means that every night at seven pm, you know, every other month, it's back up there.
But to your previous point, Ben too mean or both of you guys are on the stakes. Like, we're not dealing with sexual assault cases. We're not dealing with actual serious damages of psychological nature or of like physical bodily harm. Maybe psychological maybe, But the stakes to me on any of these that I've ever seen are always so low. Oh and kind of, like I said, frivolous that I
just don't think it's that big a deal. And I think everybody kind of knows what they're getting in on, you know, whether you're participating, whether you're producing it, or whether you're at home consuming it.
Yeah, And to your point there from earlier, I think a lot of people watching know some degree of reality is compromised in these shows. The real reality is compromised, agreed, But there's still a lot of misconceptions. That's why people
might have a problem with this. Plenty of legal boffins, TV critics and consumer advocates don't love TV court shows, and their biggest concern is that this might mess up attitudes and preconceptions about actual facts court shout out Lower and Vogel bam the idea that you know, God, I
know legal professionals who've run into this. You're talking to a witness, a defendant, someone else affiliated with the case who's not a legal professional, and they say, wait, I know you're the judge or you're a big lawyer or whatever. But I've seen a lot of Judge Judy, and I've watched a lot of Law and Order SVU, so let me tell you how this goes on TV.
It's true, But again, I think like everyone knows that there is a certain suspension of disbelief where it's like, I don't really apply.
But maybe that's just me. You're the people that I know.
I mean, there are people that see this and really think that's how things go down. So maybe I'm taking that point for granted a little bit.
Well, isn't it one of the common questions you see on some jury panels or auditions where they say, do you watch you know, law and order or what do they say? Do you watch crime shows?
Nowadays they've probably just abbreviated to true crime are you?
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, what do you like true crime podcast? And that's a question that comes up because they're trying to see if you have a stilted view of what a court should look like. Since it's arbitration, it doesn't have to occur in a court room. You could put it anyway. You could even put it on social media. What about TikTok court? I mean, it's probably common guys. You know, I don't see why not a lot.
Of people on TikTok are getting in trouble for making up crazy stuff and not being able to back get up and then not stopping talking about the crazy stuff.
But it's also there's so much ability to shield yourself by saying it's satire, you know what I mean? But there's it's really riding the line these days. You'll see someone being like, I this thing happened to me, I did this thing, I experienced this thing and it's made up. But they're doing with such a straight face, and it it feels.
Like it's a real account.
But it's absolutely satire, and it's up to you to figure out what that is because there's no disclaimer.
Yeah. And also I'm just asking questions, you know what I mean, Like, why has what what's a weird celebrity.
Chapel Roone.
Why has chapel Roone never explicitly denied the allegations that she runs an a legal goat herding operation across the Columbian border.
It's a good question, Ben, I've been wondering asking question.
I'm wondering.
Now you got me think, Ben, I've got to know, I've got to find out.
I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Iron must be stopped.
I really thought she was talking about the Pink Pony Club here in Atlanta.
I think there's a just sort of considered almost a it's like such an old school institution of strip clubs.
Then it's just like a stand in like Coke happened.
I was just she's got a really popular song called Pink Pony Club, and there it's about a you know, a dancer at an adult institution, and there is the famous Pink Pony in Atlanta. But chapel Roone is referring to a place that may or may not exist in West Hollywood.
Exactly, at least according to the lyrics. Okay, if you're gonna believe the lyrics, well, let's.
Talk about how lyrics have been put on trial.
I mean, this is out of the scope of this conversation, but it's fascinating.
Yeah, yeah, okay, Matt, give us the court sound cute please, sir.
Dun dunn. Oh wait, that's a different one.
This is perfect. You guys are doing it great. All right. Here we are in podcast court, which will be a thing later. Shout out to our pal, judge John Hayes.
He's my favorite celebrity judge.
He's pretty great. But we are we are also friends with him when we're in this area. We're increasingly empowering the court of public opinion, right getting ratioed on Twitter, as he said, Matt, people being surprised they encounter real world consequences for performative things on TikTok. I don't know. I guess the verdict is court shows are entertaining and they help and that they do conduct real arbitration, but we can't call them real if we mean their real courtrooms. Is that fair?
Yeah, I mean that is the question, though, like where when you have an OJ Simpson trial, or you have like a you know, Bill Clinton.
Trial or.
Brother's trial, it is it is presented in an entertaining way by the news media, but it is a news event, whereas these are somewhere in between an entertainment you know, product and a little taste of real consequences in real legal stakes.
Yeah, well, think about how obsessed we are with this stuff. Remember we uh, oh gosh, what was the movie not twelve Angry Men? That was like nineteen fifties when that was written, Well, monkeys, it was a few good men. Yes, of course we talked about how compelled America was with that film, and it is most of it is not most of it. A lot of the most heightened moments are just inside a courtroom.
You can't handle the truth.
But it's just people talking to each other, right.
Yeah, with the real type back and forth camera angle.
The same with the radio place back in the day. It's just really about the words and the way people are saying things to each other. And that's where the drama actually is.
And sometimes the drama comes in all how you frame it, you know what I mean, and what you pull from it because sitting in at court eat like that the whole time.
It's pretty dry, are formal because they've got a lot on the line. Also reminds me of a well, what was that movie with al Pacino as a blind incentive woman who is also who was also somehow incent He stands up in a hearing. Yeah, because he talks about a central one. He stands up in a hearing and has pretty salacious name. If you think yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, he talks about it. He stand anyway. Uh. The point is he stands up in a hearing and
he delivers this excoriating uh monologue and statement. And that's the kind of stuff that stays with people, Just like in a Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson's character is a very brief part but extremely pivotal juncture of the story.
Opening and closing arguments are always the big drama, well not the only, but like the opportunities for the litigator to hold court, to actually have the all eyes on me. I'm setting it up, I'm laying out the stakes.
Think of Atticus fans to kill a mockingbird.
Yes, sorry, it's the phrase stand and deliver. Just reminding me of that movie. Stand and deliver about the Menendez brothers.
Yes, yes, yes, And with this we see that pop culture has already kind of blurred the line. I won't even say kind of pop culture has blurred the line between what we think is real and what we think is entertainment. So maybe our verdict is this h If you take away anything from this episode, remember that anything you learn from watching Court TV should not be confused with something that might help you in an actual courtroom, unless you just want the judge to be irritated at you.
I feel like your honor. Do you know, Judge Joe Brown, their eyes will roll so hard, or or maybe they'll do that face you just did, Matt, what do you know about Joe?
He's such a weird case study because because he's a he's a legit judge, you like it, is so good at doing that job. Yes, and then he's also only really known for this stuff. And he got that job as Judge Joe Brown right after the whole involvement with James Earl Ray, which made me think conspiratorially, of course, maybe he was given this as like, don't make a stink about this whole thing. Okay, So here's some a lot of money and be a judge.
Now here's your door prize.
I don't mean that. Sorry, that's an accuistion. It's not an accusation, it's an observation. Thinking about it.
Yeah, thought experiment.
There we go.
But also you got to think too, that's a little bit of a happier life for a guy like that, oh for sure, in terms of the stakes being so comparatively lower.
Yeah.
Just you know, as long as we pretend like some elements of the government didn't want MLK to to be dead, it's fine.
The devil you say. Do check out our episodes on co Hotel pro. Do check out the MLK tapes which Matt let the charge on chick out our previous episodes on not just reality TV but the nature of reality. For now, our verdict is court shows are entertaining, but they are not real. Court case dismissed, sustain. Yes, you can also find us. I don't think I still don't understand the terms. Sorry, we want to hear your thoughts, folks.
You can find us all kinds of places. Unlike that radio show from years past, you can actually contact us. We can find us on email. We got a phone number. We're all over the place online it's right.
You can shout into your podcast consuming device of choice, or you can find us all over the internet. As Ben said at the Hamil Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy. On x FKA, Twitter and on YouTube where we have video content galore for your enjoyment.
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Show Yes, if you have a case you want to have arbitrated, reach out to Judge John Hodgman. We're pretty sure he still does that. Yes, and they're fun, so do that. If you want to call us and tell us about anything you w want adjudicated, call our number. It is one eight three three S C D W I T k K feels.
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