Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years

they're a little tree trunky for for my taste. Yeah, I've got a bit of like a fertility idle thing going on, like up tour the hips and all that. M Yeah, well it's because of all those squats. I was not expecting to talk about this about your gams. Yeah, well, I'll talk about my legs all day long. Well, let's hear it. They're shapely, Okay, they're they're not. I gained all my weight between my waist and my chin. Uh huh,

Like I don't. If you looked at my legs in my arms, you'd be like, think, I weighs a hundred and sixty pounds and then the rest of me comes along to bust that myth step aside, I still have a nice little fanny. Sure everybody knows that. Sorry listeners in the UK, Oh yeah, that means something different over there, doesn't. It's just so dainty and nice that a little, a little five year old kids can say fanny. In the United States, it's just the Brits who are sick ghos.

But this isn't about our gams. This is about a dance troup, A legendary dance troop. Yeah, about as legendary as a dance troup can possibly be. Are the rockheads? I think so? I just said that sentence like, Yota, can you do the voice? No? No, no, not even going to try. But this totally surprised me digging into the research on this to to learn that the legendary Rockets of New York City and Radio City Music Hall are not from New York City. No, they're not. Where

are they from? Chuck? Did you know this? I had no idea. Now, yeah, so shout out to St. Louis. Yeah. Uh. They were founded in the nineteen twenties five, to be exact, in St. Louis, Missouri as the Rockets, the St. Louis Rockets, which I think they were trying to be a basketball team.

Maybe St. Louis Rockets. Sure. Yeah. There was a choreographer named Russell Markert, which is uh, I kept wanting the same market, but that is an r. And he founded them, like you said in and he was he was inspired by a British dance troupe named the Tiller Girls, which was founded in the by John Tiller, and it was kind of a similar idea. He saw these Tiller Girls and he was like, I want a high kicking, glamorous theatrical dance troupe of my own. Yeah, so I'm gonna

rip it off. He did. Actually, so, John Tiller is is um widely acknowledged as the the creator of what's called precision dance, which is where you have a bunch of dancers who are really highly trained, really athletic, and really precise in their movements, UM that can move in such unison that that you take a number, like a number of different dancers and they basically become one thing that's that can do things that an individual dancer can't do.

And that's precision dance technique. And John Tyler literally invented it. With I think four ten year old girls in the eighteen nineties, and um, he came up with some further refinements to it, like when you put your hand around the waists of the people on either side of you, it kind of lends to the unity of the whole thing. Um And and uh, Russell Maker Marcert saw this and was like, this is amazing. If I can get some American girls with longer legs to kick higher, it'll knock

everybody's socks off. That's a quote, by the way. Yeah, and there's a there's something to that, that synchronicity of for me for movement and sound that just knocks me out every time. Um, when I go and see a a choir, what's like a hundred people singing together and high kicking, or or a symphony, just the not only the sound, but the movement when you watch a symphony, that's a big part of it for me. Uh, forget a coral symphony, Like I'm on the floor weeping if

you take me to a coral symphony. But there's something about that precision of of all these people together. It's just really like, I don't know what it is about it. I mean, it's Uh, it's a collective voice or collective movement, but it's that precision that really just gets gets me every time for sure. Well that's what the Rockets are known for. It's their their trade is precision dance. They're

as good as it gets with it. Although the tailor girls are definitely still around, they still have Christmas specials themselves, um, and they're doing their thing for sure. So it's it's not just an off hand thing to say the Rockets are as good as it comes, as good as they come in in precision dance, because the tailer girls would probably say, um, I would dispute that statement, but they would say it with a British accent, right, I just be that statement. Uh. So they were not as tall

back then. The original height requirements were between five two and five six and a half, and now they went, will take your tallest dancer and make them our shortest ancer, because I guess it's just I don't know, I'm not sure why they did that, but now it's between five six and five ten and a half. And it is not because they want to exclude people or any or discriminate against people who are too tall or they feel too short. But it's so they can just all look.

It's an optical illusion, so they can all look the same height because they take that five ft ten and a half inch dancer, although they don't have to be that tall, but they take whoever their tallest. Answer is put her right in the middle and then just stagger it out from there, and in the end everyone looks. It's weird. Everyone looks to be the same height even though they're not. I don't understand how this works. It's just I saw so many different places that I'm convinced

that it does work. I just don't get the illusion of how how it works. Well, I think over four inches and thirty six women, it's just so nut of differences as you scale down that it would take I guess a an extraordinary human to be like that woman is an inch and a half taller than the one five people away from her. You know, I got you. Yeah, I guess that's true. So you're just a normal person, is what I'm saying. Yeah, you should feel good about that.

I fall for that optical illusion every time. Yeah, everybody should. Um. So they started with the Missouri Rockets with just sixteen women, and like I said, now, they have thirty six and they debuted in St. Louis, but then went to New York to perform Rain or Shine on Broadway, and that is where a man named s L. Roxy that was his nickname, uh Rothafel, which is an interesting name. That's where he saw them and said, Hey, I gotta get

in on this. This is amazing. Yeah. So Russell make Markert took the idea from John Tiller, and Roxy Rothafel said, Hey, I want in on this jam. So I'm gonna grab a few of these dancers from St. Louis and bring him over to New York City and we're gonna have him start dancing there. Okay, And I know just the place for him. There's this new venue that's opening up in ninety two and they're gonna call it the Radio

City Music Hall. And I'm going to make sure that these dancers are able to perform, and we're going to call them the Roxyettes. How about that, huh because of his nickname, right, And Marcaret said, that's fine, just make sure you pay me some money for it. Sure, And he did get paid and got paid until nineteen seventy one. He that's it's hard to believe. But he worked for the Rockets or with the Rockets from nineteen thirty two to or I guess even previous in St. Louis, all

the way until nine. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. That's a pretty long career. UM. So they they opened Radio City Music Hall. I think they're part of a seventeen UM group act. Uh. And that was like such a hot ticket, something like a hundred thousand people wanted in.

But there it's a theater, which I think it still remains the nation's largest UM indoor venue, which is really saying something because I guess it would just be a like a theatrical venue because obviously the largest indoor venue sports venues UM have it beat by quite a bit. But oh, theatrical it has to. Yeah, it's either movie or theatrical or something. But it's the largest venue of

its kind in in the United States from what I see. Yeah, and for many years they they I mean they had specials every now and then, but it was sort of just a movie theater. Yeah, and here's the thing, you could go see the movies. I think especially it started to take off in the fifties, like before they would have premieres for movies, and the Rockets would like perform at the premiere. And then at some point, I don't know if it was Russell Markeret or Roxy Rothefell, or

somebody said, well, why why just do this once? How about every time somebody comes to see a movie at the Radio City Music Hall, We'll have the rock the Rockets perform before the movie. Can you imagine that? It would be pretty cool? I mean, like imagine seeing that and then being like, okay, now for the movie. That's just it would be a different experience for sure. But it was rough on the Rockets because not all the movies were successes. So they would change the Rockets show

for each movie. So if a movie came along and it was just a terrible flop, this whole choreographed routine that they had learned would be out the door in two days. And now all of a sudden they had to learn a new one quick because there was a new movie coming into replace that one. So they did a different routine for each film. Yes, interesting, and sometimes they would have to learn it in a matter of hours,

like around midnight before the next day's performances. I wonder if it was tied to the film sometimes, I think not all the time. I think it was. I think it was in some cases, but I think more than anything, they would change the routine just because the people coming to see a different film would want to see a different routine. Okay, I got you, that makes sense. Yeah. Uh So in the nineteen forties they were one of the first groups to sign up for the United Service

Organization and go and perform for the troops. Uh And in the nineteen fifties is when things really started to kind of take their toll. Like they were performing sometimes up to five times a day. Uh And so they said they built a dormitory there, which you know, they could live in. I don't think they were required to, but it really was to accommodate the fact that they were working almost around the clock, whether because learning these new routines like you said, and then performing up the

five times a day really grueling stuff. It was basically the prototype for Google, just just making it so your employees didn't have to leave. Oh interesting, you know what I'm saying, Just go sleep in your pod. So the Rockets, UM, their fame started to grow pretty pretty quickly. Um And they made like a few steps, if you'll forgive the pun um along the way. That kind of cemented them as a as much a piece of America as apple

pie or baseball or moms or what have you. So the fifties were also big for the Rockets too, because they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving they prayed in nineteen fifty seven. I think, yeah, that was the big the big move, yeah, because they went from just a group that you either had to go to New York or go off to war to see um too. While they're in my living room now, these girls are high kicking on my television and I'm just loving life, all right, So let's take

a break. It's nineteen fifties. Good times are ahead, and then dark times come in the seventies because it's New York City in the seventies and everything was kind of awful then. So we'll be back right after this. Okay, Hey, before we get started to check, I want to say we put on a pretty good stage show ourselves. We've been known to and we've got some coming up, you know, plug plug. Yeah, there's no high kicking involved. There could be if people demanded it. I would be willing to

do a little high kicking. So are we talking about some shows? Yeah, let's do the real quick, all right. So we're we're going out west for our annual sojourn in January where we go to Seattle and we go to Portland and then we end up at SF sketch Fest like we always do in mid January. Yeah, and I've got an End of the World live show on Friday at sketch Fest, and you have a movie Crush

on Saturday at sketch Fest, right. Yeah, I'm doing a matinee show at one o'clock on Saturday, January nineteenth with Busy Phillips is my guest, nice and my show is Friday the eighteenth that Cafe du Nord did I am my own guest, fine solo. And then I have another one in Brooklyn on the at the Bellhouse too. Oh I thought you already did that one. No, huh, it got postponed to January. Great, Yes, so you haven't missed it. There's still time for you to come. Fantastic. Uh. So

that is our little plug, how about that? Yeah? And of course our our big stuff you should know show is that the Castro on what is that Thursday night? That is Thursday. The Yeah, so come see us at the More in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland, at the Castro in San Francisco. Check out our individual little shows. Are are cute little individual shows, and there's plenty of information on s y s K live dot com. That's right.

So now it's the seventies. Mhm. New York is uh, it's it's suffering, which is crazy when you look at pictures of New York City and the seventies and early eighties even just hard to believe how bad things were there. Yeah, it was pretty rough. And actually it's funny, like you can thank Rudolph Giuliani for I guess, cleaning up the town if you want to call it that. Okay have you ever heard that? What too, Rudolph Giuliani for cleaning up the town? Huh uh sure, okay, good for him. So, um,

I saw him in the park one day. You did, what was he doing talking to a duck? No, he was. He was doing like a photo op. But I had friends in from uh, from another country, even, I think, and I said, hey, guys, that's that's the mayor of New York over there, and they're like, oh, that's nice. I went it's kind of a big deal to just walk around and see the Mayor of New York Did they say have a chalk? I think they're Australian. Actually, yeah,

that was my Australian impression. That was good. Then that's pretty that's a great story, Chuck, Yeah, it's fine. But uh, for them, they didn't understand fully that the Mayor of New York City is is Uh, it's it's quite a big deal to see him just out and about in the city. I I have a similar story. I was watching um one of the first few seasons of Law and Order on my television one day, and there was the Mayor of New York City, really Rudy Giuliani. Interesting,

but I you it was a big, big deal. I got another story, Okay, did you know and the Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor that they camped in Bruce Willis's John McClean character from die Hard in one hospital scene. How just digitalie, that's an anachronism right now, that doesn't

make any sense. Did they really do that? Yeah? There if you can look at up Pearl Harbor John McClean and there's like screenshots of of John McLean and his white tank top just briefly for a blip in the background of one of the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor. It's so weird. So you know, there's a nude woman in the window of one of the buildings that the rescuers fly by. The Disney movie from the sixties. Yeah, all these weird movie easter eggs just board editors. I

guess that's exactly what it hit for juvenile editors. All Right, so it's the nineteen seventies in New York. None of this has happened yet that we're talking about. The rescuers did. The rescuers did, but there was no die Hard. There was no Pearl Harbor movie except for Toro Toora Toora,

but no bad Pearl Harbor movie. Okay, uh No. Rudy Giuliani he was alive, sure, but he was not in the mayor of New York City and in the nineteen seventies, not as far as we know, who was at that was Ed Cotch he was the eighties, I think was he maybe late seventies. All right, we'll get that straightened out. But New York City is going down the toilet, including believe it or not, Radio, the Great Radio City Music Hall, much like our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta, UH

was facing shutdown and demolition potentially. Yeah, there was a rough transition from some of those old movie palaces after people stopped well going to movie palaces and moved out to the suburbs. Um, a lot of those beautiful places were left out in the cold, and some of them didn't well, a lot of them didn't make it, but some of them almost didn't make it. Like you said, the Fox and Radio City and apparently it was going

to be turned into a parking lot. And Belushi himself got onto the news desk at Saturn and Live and was railing against the demise of Radio City Music Hall. And the Roquettes too had said, hey, hey, hey, hey, this is our home. This is an iconic place. Let us help, like go raise awareness and funds to to save this place. And they did. They were successful. They got it put on the National Historic Register of Historic

Places and it has a Landmark designation. Not just the buildings buildings in New York with the Landmark designation, but only a hundred and ten interiors have the landmark designation, and Radio City Music Hall is one of them, which means that its interior is so amazingly beautiful that is to be protected landmark in the United States. Yeah, I've never been in there. I haven't either. I've been to Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. Uh, that's on the

list for sure. But um, it's interesting because they tried to Their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive movie bookings. Like they were they were to be the only theater in town that would be showing a particular movie, so that that limits there, uh, their pool immediately, and then they really prefer g rated movies. They had really strict screening criteria, so that just it narrowed down their their movie pool so small that they would go weeks and

weeks at a time where nothing happened there. Yeah, so they would just shut down because again, remember like the Rockets are a dance troupe that you would see before you saw a movie. So if they're not showing movies, they're not showing the Rocketts. And at this time in the seventies, the Rockets said, Okay, we're our talent is being wasted here. At least let us go take the show on the road. While you guys are sitting around waiting for another movie to come along. And they actually

they gained that right because their union dancers. We should say, we'll get into that a little more later, but they made it's to get the right to take the show on the road and they really started to make a name for themselves in the seventies. Uh, in places like Tahoe in Vegas. Apparently made a huge fan out of Sammy Davis Jr. Who would come see the same show like night after night when they when they play in Vegas or Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by

the rockcats. Love that for sure. Little Sammy, what a great guy. We should do a show on him. Apparently he also, oh yeah, I'm done with that. He also surprised them on stage once by joining them on stage for a dance number, which apparently he knew because he'd seen the show so many times, which that's a pretty Sammy thing to do in Las Vegas. High kicking, Well, his his kicks weren't so high. Run out on stage, unbidden, uninvited. He's a little guy, he was. He was the littlest

rockette I imagine. Wow, but he was too. So, Uh, they're doing their show on the road, here and there. They're making ends meet. Radio City is struggling, even though it was designated as a landmark. The eighties were not super kind to Radio City either. Um. They very famously appeared at the halftime show the Super Bowl, and um, they're trying to change with the times. Uh, they're dancing

it uh in the nineties at different places. And they're always doing their Christmas deal throughout all this after you know, they started doing that. And what was at fifty seven? Oh they did the Macy's Prade in thirty two. Oh no, I'm sorry, I thought you meant the Christmas Spectacular. Yeah, the Macy's Parade was the Thanksgiving Prairie was fifty seven. Yeah. So they've got their their holiday stuff, their Easter specials,

their Christmas specials. Uh. They're dancing at inaugurations for George W. Bush. Um. In fact, they came under under fire for dancing at Trump's inauguration. Well, the dance troop almost was split asunder over whether they wanted to do that or not. And it was a big deal. It was a huge deal actually,

and they had revived the Easter extravaganza. They renamed it the New York Springs spectacular the year before or and they said they took a year off and I don't think they ever went back to it because of all the controversy over two thousand sixteen and the inauguration. It was just such an unusual experience for the Rocketts. Um like they're they're just like America personified. And for there to be a huge national conversation about, you know, them

performing at an inauguration. It was a big deal for the organization for sure, especially for the dancers who were like career rockets. Yeah exactly, Um, should we talk a little bit about just being a rocket? I think we should, man, because we've done it. We have. I mean, there was a brief time although we've basically entered Dina Lohan territory now Lindsay Lohan's mom, she very famously lied about being a rocket. Yeah, she said that her she has a

background in show business. Um, she was a rocket for a while, and some journalists went and dug around and they found out that she was definitely They had no record whatsoever of her, under any name, maiden or married, ever being a rocket. It's always amazing to me when very provable or disprovable public lies are told by people like that, or like politicians who say that, you know, like they've fought in a war when they didn't, like that's happened. Uh, It's just I don't know why people

say things like that. That's like, no, we kind of can go check that really easily. Yeah, even but even without like you know, the check ability of it to to just like you know, lie in an interview to puff yourself up. I guess, like I don't understand the psychology of it. Is it just because you don't feel like you're given the interview or enough of what they need? Or do they did they lay some sort of trick

that led you into it? Or I don't understand it either. Yeah, I wonder if people start to believe these lies, Like if you make up a story about yourself and you just stick with it for so long. It's weird. Psychology, Yes, human psychology is indeed quite weird. Didn't you have a web show called Psychology is Weird? Nuts? Psychology is Nuts, a little short lived video thing. Yeah, I can check that out. Everyone. Oh, we'll take a break. I am We're back. Yes, So we were going to tell everyone

about our experiences rockets because we're Dina Lohan. So here's the thing. If you're a rocket and you've been doing this for ten years, you're pretty long lived rocket. Although I think I saw um one woman who is a roquette. And if I'm talking weird all of a sudden, it's because I am stalling everybody looking for her name and I'm not finding it. But I think it's Lindsay How. I'm almost positive her name is Lindsay How. I believe

she has been a rocket for fourteen years. That's a very long time to be a rocket, because, as you will soon learn, being a rocket is extremely difficult and very demanding, and inside of show business and out there widely seen is probably some of the best professional dancers in the business, and certainly some of the most disciplined professional dancers in the business as well. Um, but it's really hard to do for a really long time, and one of the main reasons why is because their work

schedule is extremely grueling. But but with Lindsay um How, she would make the same amount of money that a first year rockette would make because they're all paid the same, they work the same hours, they do the same work. Some of them are kind of promoted as like the faces of the Rocketts. Um the company I think the Madison Square Garden company that owns Radio City Music Hall, and the Rocketts are really protective of their image and um, like they aren't free to just kind of talk to

the media or whatever. There's some that are kind of like you and you and you. You're the Rocketts. You're the face of the Rockets. But other than that, everyone does the same amount of work, same amount of ours, same amount of pay. And one of the reasons they do that is because the point of the Rockets is not to have standouts. It's not like other dance troops or other Broadway troops or anything like that. There's not

meant to be stars. The Rocketts are the star and they're meant to be one single unit that moves and works and lives together. Yeah, and their their union. I so uh they make there. They make most of their money over holiday season. So they walk out after a couple of months with about forty grand in their pocket, which isn't bad. Um, you know, for a couple of months work, but it is, like you said, super grueling. Um, if you want to become a Rockett, you're not required to.

But there is something called the Rockets Summer Intensive Dance Program where you can go, you can enroll, you can spend six hours a day learning uh, learning everything um over the course of about a week, UM. All the choreography, UM, how to how to get in that shape, stay in that shape, how to prevent injuries, um, and sort of the business of it all. And like I said, you don't have to do that, but they do place a lot of Rocketts if you attend that Intensive Dance program.

Well some I saw out of a thousand that have taken it, sixty have gone on to actually become Rockets. Yeah, because it's very tough to become a Rockett too. Yeah, I mean I get the feeling that's that has less to do with the program then, just how hard it

is to make that cut right right exactly. So Uh, not only do you have to be fit enough to kick those famous kicks up to twelve hundred times a day through all these shows, but there's one, uh, there's one clothing change you gotta do all these costume changes, but there's one in particular in between, uh, the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers in New York at Christmas that you have to be completely changed out in seventy eight seconds.

Seventy eight seconds, and these costumes are not like super easy to take off, the wooden Soldier one in particular, pretty complex. Um, So seventy eight seconds probably goes by extremely fast. Yeah, and there's there's thirty six Rockets total UH performing on stage, but there are eighty certified Rocketts

total overall. You have a morning cast and afternoon cast, and then you have for each of those shows you have for UH swings or extras per so, like if someone's like I just twisted my ankle, I can't do this. They have four women waiting in the wings for each of those morning and afternoon shows. Yeah. So the thing is, though, is they're working six days a week, or the Rocketts are performing six days a week. If you have two casts,

rather than work all work both casts six days a week. Um, they'll they'll alternate to give one another a day off. And they'll do that on days sometimes where there's four performances in a day, which means that if you're a Rocket, there are days and I've seen also sometimes they're back to back days where you're where you're doing four performances

in a single day. Four ninety minute performances, and that's when those kicks that you mentioned, Chuck comes in, because some of those shows have three hundred high kicks, and we're talking eye level kicks, and if you do four of them in a day, you've just kicked at eye level are times in a day, And from some of the articles I've read, that is about as much as your body can possibly take. Yeah, I mean, they they

all in the interviews I saw. There was that great New York Times article where they really sort of dive into a day in the life of a rocket during the holiday season, and they all kind of are are like, there's no way to prepare your body for this, Like we are in the best shape that a dancer can be in, and it just destroys us to the point where, like one of them said that just taking their stockings

off at the the night is laborious. And you know, with their commute, depending on where they come from, some of them are are awake and either commuting or or rehearsing or performing twenty hours in a day, just grueling, grueling stuff. But across the board, they also all say that it is the only job that they want. It is a great sorority and sisterhood and an honor to be one of these over the years. Three in women who have made that cut you never were like, well,

it's really not worth it in the end. Yeah, no, the I mean, at least the ones who are allowed to speak to the media certainly have a lot of positive things to say about being a Rocket and like how familial it is and how you're just hanging out with your best friends, and um, it is a great gig for a dancer, especially as one of these articles pointed out, if you're a dancer who doesn't sing. Yeah, that's a rare thing to get that kind of a gig. I think it's one of the few, uh for jazz

and tap dancers were singing is not involved. But also not just like a good gig, a good paying gig to like forty grand for a couple of months of performances. A lot of the Rocketts, um, they don't live in New York. They'll come live in New York during the season when they need to rehearse and then do the

Christmas spectacular and then they go home. So they might live in New York from September to um the end of December, and then they go back home, and wherever home is, forty Graham probably goes a lot further than it does in New York, unless they live in San Francisco, in which case it is probably it goes even faster.

But um, it's a really good paying gig. They also have benefits because their union in their contract workers, they have year round benefits and and forty Graham so they can go work as pilates, instructors, as nutritionists, as all the other stuff that they do during the year normally, and then they come back and they they're a rocket.

But what something I thought was pretty cool it was even if you're say a tenth year roquette, um, you get invited back like once you're a roquette, you're in as a roquette, but you still have to audition in

April like everybody else. So you audition in April, and if you make the cut, um you start to go get in shape, and then rehearsals I think start in September, and rehearsals are six hours, six days a week for basically the six weeks leading up to the performances, which run from mid November till I saw December thirty one. I also saw tickets available for January one show, so

I don't know if they extended it or not. Yeah, and it's it's funny like it's forty grand sounds like a lot of money over a couple of months, and it is. But when you break it down per show, it it breaks down to about a hundred and thirty five bucks a show, which all of a sudden, it doesn't seem uh like great money. No, but that's what you make as a standard cast member for a Broadway union dancer or actor variety performer, I think is the nion they're they're part of. So no, it doesn't seem

like much. But that's another reason why the Rockette gig is so good. You get over time on those days when you do a third and a fourth show, you're getting overtime pay um. And there's multiple shows in on multiple days, so you can I mean, if another actor at a different gig, working the same days over the same period would not make that amount of money that already grand because they wouldn't have any overtime, they wouldn't

have that many shows. Yeah, and I don't think anyone like dreams of going to Broadway to become rich and wealthy, like part of the allure Broadway as you're with the best of the best, and you can say I danced, or I sang or I acted on Broadway with Brian Cranston. I saw him on Broadway. Yeah. I saw Michael McKeon on Broadway. An accomplice. The audience was the accomplice. That was the big twist. Well, you just ruined that one. Was it good? It was great. It was one of

the greatest stage performances I've ever seen. I saw Lenny live on stage Derek st Hubbinds. Yeah, this is before I knew him as anything but Lenny. I was like eight. Oh, so this is a while ago. Um Cranston is in something new on Broadway. Now, I think to network, right, man, I want to see that. Sure, but that's good. I saw that was described as get this Chuck, get ready for this boy. Electrifying. Really Broadway show described as electrifying.

His performance was electrifying. I don't think I've ever heard that word used for the theater. Um. So another thing though about the Rockets, even though they do make most of their money over those couple of months and then they have the rest of the year too. Um and in a lot of cases be like a dance instructor or something like that, or fitness instructor. UM. They increasingly are working more and more, uh, more and more months out of the year, whether it's um as ambassadors for

the Rockets or doing like video things for YouTube. UM. They are increasingly called on to do other other things. Yeah, a lot the So what is the woman who came along as the league choreographer and director and really kind of punched punched it up even further. Her name is Linda Haberman, and she took over I think in like the mid two thousand's, maybe two thousan eight, and she kind of brought like this whole new not new, it's

not a whole new thing. She just kind of she made it a little more pro feminist, a little more like you go girl kind of vibe to the Rockets than they had before they were seen, you know, rehearsing in the rehearsal gear rather than like full costume. And it was just kind of like, um, the the intent

I get was to make them more Yeah. Yes, because one of the great criticisms of the Rockets is that they're nothing but like of teeth and legs, just a bunch of women out there kicking like forming one large uber woman who can kick her legs amazingly high and has like the widest gleaming ist teeth ever you've ever seen. UM, and that that it was really kind of just objectification of women like to like by definition, and uh, Linda Hammerman like really kind of took that and tried to

unravel it quite a bit. And she also took the show. So we should talk a little bit about the show. It's a it's depending on who you are. It's either like just beloved traditional Americana, kitchy, UM, offensively sexist. Who knows, but I think the first two are kind of the predominant views of it. It's kitchy and sweet, or it's it's you know, endearing Americana. UM. And Linda Haberman kind of took that and tried to punch it up into the century a little more. And there's like way more

visual effects than there were before. UM, there's like a three D component I think to this year's show or recent year shows like the whole The whole theme is like a girl wants a video game and her mom is kind of showing her. Um, you know why that's not so great because it's a violent video game. There's um, there's a lot of kind of updating that's that the Rockets have undergone in the last few years. And that was largely from what I understand Linda Haberm is doing.

I think she was the one that digitally inserted John McClean from die Hard. She was he swoops in in the New York Follies section. Now, I'm glad they updated things because this was a prime case of like a blood American tradition that could use some refreshing and you can't highlight them as humans and individuals and still you can have both, you know, and you can still have that desired effect of uniformity and precision that they're known for, you know, right exactly, But they don't have to be

just like faceless and nameless, you know. Now. And I read a few like feminist critiques of the Rocketts, and they seem to have been kind of outdated. Like I really feel like Linda Haberman did a good job at like, yeah, she she kind of took those those critiques and changed them in a lot of ways. Um. One of the other criticisms is that it wasn't until ninety five that the Rockets are their first woman of color as a

member of their cast, of their troop. The first woman of color was a Japanese woman named Setsuko Mada Haashi, and in she joined UM. The first African American woman joined her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning, apparently it was Mark Markert who was like, no, it from all I saw, it had nothing to do with racism. It was the idea that it was going to disrupt the visual unity of the dance line if there were um,

you know, differing skin colors in this dance line. And apparently he was so um not so about it, like you would get in trouble if you had a sun tan, Like that's how that's how he wanted everything to be homogeneous and in unison. Well, regardless in the twenty century, in the late twentieth century that that sentiment didn't hold up. And I guess shortly after he died is when they

started um adding women of color more to the Rockets troupe. Yeah, and then they saw people of color in that same dance line and they went, oh, it's still awesome and synchronized and looks great exactly, and from his grave he went, no, he started rolling around in it. Oh goodness. So you haven't seen the Rockets Christmas Spectacular. Huh do you mean live in person? Yeah? I have not. I have not either. Are we going to go now? I think we should.

I want to know if any Rockettes listen to the show. Yeah, that would make me super super happy. It would for me as well. Uh. And the only other small tid better have as they have microphones in their heels of their shoes. I saw that too. They used to They used to play recordings of their um tapping right. Oh I don't know, and that that does not surprise me. Yeah, and then they figured out how to do the actual like broadcast the actual tampling. So we're gonna go one day, Chuck,

We're gonna go through the Christmas Spectacular. We're gonna go see the live Nativity with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy soldier um March where they fall down like a domino and slow motion. It's pretty amazing stuff. Uh. And if you want to know more about the Rockets, then go to Radio City Music Hall and find them there. How about that that sounds great. Uh well, since I said that, then it's time for a listener, ma'am. I'm

calling this. I was a Search and Rescue UM victim volunteer. So this guy his dad. I'm gonna summarize at the beginning of it because it's kind of long, but his dad lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and as a member of the local s a R team, and so they were like, we need someone to play the victim here, and he was like, I'll do it. This guy's son. So here's what happened. He said, off into the heavily wooded area and did he said. I did everything I could to think of to try and fool

the dog in the handler. I ran in circles, went back over my own trail. I threw off my hat. I even found some garbage and rolled around in it. Didn't ask my scent. Once I had done everything I could think of to try and fool the dog and handler that would be tracking me, I found a nice comfy spot up in a bush on a hill where I could just watch the dog in the handler try and track me. I thought it had done a pretty good job, but once I called the handler and let

him know I was in position. Was all over very quickly. I sat back, and everyone was shocked to watch the dog basically retrace my trail, step by step, every move I made, all those circles, finding my hat, even that I've thrown off, even getting into that pile of garbage that I'd rolled around in. I love that this dog is just basically making a fool look for Ryan up there in the mountains, so he said. Needless to say, the dog found me in short order. Gave him lots

of praise uh for the great job he had done. Thankfully, I was never in any real danger, so my experience was a lot more enjoyable, obviously than when blurt in real need of a certain search and rescue dog. Thanks for the great episodes, guys, keep me company on overnight shifts and make it all go by quicker. So if you read this on the show, can I get a shout out to my girlfriend Tarn She would be thrilled to hear her name get called out on the show.

I think that just happened, so that is from Ryan. I like the the gusto that Ryan put into trying to foold this dog. Ll holding a garbage, and I equally loved that this dog was like whatever. So thank you Ryan, thank you Terran for listening, and thank you to the star dog, sure scruffy. If you want to get in touch of this, you can go to our website Stuff you Should Know dot com. You can find all of our social links there. I have a website

called the Josh clark Way dot com. And you can send an email to Chuck, Jerry and Me at Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands of other top is it how staff works dot com mhm