You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, get back. This one's my You're ready to die for this flat screen because I am Hello, my shopoholics, Maxinista's, mall rads, coupon clippers, bargain bitches, capitalism warriors, and sales slugs. It's the holidays and that means one thing family. No, I'm kidding, that means shopping. Family, what the fun? Like many of you, I too will be going out on Black Friday, one of America's most treasured excuses to buy ship and Black
Friday seems like something that's been around forever. I mean, I can't remember a time when Black Friday didn't exist. Then again, my memory is a little fuzzy from all the head trauma from previous Black Fridays. The history of Black Friday is actually quite interesting. It started in the nineteen twenties when retail stores wanted to set a clear beginning to the Christmas shopping season. Of department stores like Macy's created grand parades to signal to Americans it's time
to start spending cash. Although back then parade balloons weren't as cute as it once today. You know classics like puff the Meth Field Dragon, Whimsical Drifter, Murderer, and Thick Daddy's Superman. They were hoping to scare people to run inside the stores. I don't know. The point is, retailers dependent on a big Christmas shopping season, and we're willing to do whatever it took to make it as long
as possible. In fact, during the Great Depression, they even lobbied President Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving a week earlier to allow for more Christmas shopping, and after his cousin finished giving him a hand job, fdr agreed. Eventually they moved Thanksgiving back, But the retailers got what they wanted, because over the next few decades, more and more people began their Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. But the first time the day was called Black Friday was in
the nineteen sixties. It was actually coined by the Philadelphia Police Department because the day brought tons of traffic and chaos, and for show opping to cause chaos in Philadelphia, it has to really be chaos. I once set fire to a mannequin at a Tzara in Philadelphia, and they didn't even kick me out at the store. They just threw
it in the burnt mannequin pile. Sorry. It was in the nineteen eighties that Black Friday finally went nationwide, and it was all thanks to America's obsession with the adorable little vegetable human monster hybrids known as the Cabbage Patch Kids. I got this one for three thousand dollars and I had to get punched by a lot of grandmas to get it, but it was worth it. The toys were in such high demand that it caused literal riots across America.
People fought their neighbors tooth and nail to pay for some lettuce shaped plastic. But all the violence was worth it for that precious Christmas morning when their kids would open the box, see the Cabbage Patch Kid, and then play with the box. The Cabbage Patch Kids set the standard for all sorts of Black Friday crazes throughout the nineties, from furbies to Beanie Babies, to Tickle Me Elmos to countless other toys by newly divorced dads trying to buy
their way into their kids hearts. By two thousand two, nearly three quarters of all shoppers were in stores over Black Friday weekend. It was paradise for people looking for deals and robbers looking for unguarded homes. Black Friday was so successful that stores started pushing the start time back from Friday morning to Friday at midnight, and then all
the way back to Thanksgiving night itself. They called the new holiday Gray Thursday, as a tribute to the moral gray area of abandoning your family on Thanksgiving to choke out a stranger for an instant pot Oh, that's ready. And throughout this time, Black Friday doorbuster sales became more dangerous as consumers turned every big box store into a
big octagon arena. It got so bad then in two thousand eleven, you were statistically more likely to be injured in a Black Friday sale than from a shark attack, unless that shark is also at the Black Friday sale, and then it depends on whoever wants that blender more goat. But sadly, the good times and horrific injuries couldn't last forever. With the dawn of online shopping, Black Friday became less relevant than the newer, shinier, two day primier holiday that
took its place. Along came Cyber Monday, an easier way to score deals while avoiding the mobs at in person stores just another way technology has pulled us further apart. I mean, sure, it's more convenient, but think of what we lose when we no longer have that one on one air frior to skull contact sad. Also, in recent years, retail employees have begun pushing back on so called holiday creek, which is a term for stores expanding their holiday shopping
periods into Thanksgiving. Not what happens when you're weird cousin hits the egg not too hard and tries to go f DR on your underparts. But even as it's golden days are behind it, Black Friday is still an American institution, standing tall beside Thanksgiving and the super Bowl and the Purge. And now that you know its history, don't for get to keep it in perspective. Sure, saving money is great, but this season isn't about fighting some stranger at a store.
It's about gathering your family and fighting with them. So happy shopping season now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta start practicing for the big day. Hey, step away from that Dyson. You think I won't pull out this pen, Well, guess what TikTok? Motherfucker? Wat's the daily Show weeknights at eleven Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast